Chapter 113
James's POV:
It’s been weeks since Grayson had decided to take in rogues. Many people were wary of taking them in but they didn’t have much of a choice and it seemed we had trustworthy people bringing in new recruits
The young boy we’d taken in whose sister was pregnant seemed to look up to Grayson and had taken to following him around and because I was always by Grayson he was constantly at my knee. I didn’t mind though after a few conversations, it didn’t seem like he’d ever had much of a man in his life to look up to. Grayson's mom had taken those two in and they seemed to have truly warmed to the woman.
We now had ten rogues here all of whom had sworn into the pack. My father wasn’t sure of what to think of rogues more often than were criminals banished from their packs. That’s why my parents told me at least. It looked like there were far more evil packs expelling innocent people than they had ever thought.
I just threw one of them over my shoulder in the ring. I was surprised by how good of a warriors most of them were. They were most of them good in a fight but still out of shape and practice. They needed fine-tuning and exercise which Grayson had left up to me.
In the past I had found him domineering, controlling, power-hungry, and negligent. That was because he’d taken my sister away. Then after the battle he came to me and told me I shouldn’t beat myself up about it it wouldn’t solve anything and it would only complicate things. I had gotten hurt everyone did it only to save my sister and to pick up and carry on. My mother had come to me and wept my father lectured me and Theo told me I should have been paying attention even in the heat of battle but that it was okay I was still young.
The only one who treated me like an adult was Grayson. He was broken about my sister he was wasting away in the time between her disappearance and when we found out Christian was alright.
I came from a world of feelings and family and he’d grown up without any of that it rested on his shoulders. I felt stupid for not realizing that he respected me and my devotion to my sister. He didn’t bash me or layout after Anna’s kidnapping he helped me up and we went on together. He sacrificed his chance to get to her for me because he knew my sister would never forgive him if he hadn’t.
I grabbed him and kicked him in the chest and my sparring partner finally went down gasping for air and gave in. I helped him up and explained to him how he could have blocked. The man who was ten years my senior had swallowed his pride and listened to my guidance.
We were building back our numbers and Grayson had surveillance on his father trying to see where he was going. If anywhere overlapped with Marcus’s patterns we sent a strike team to investigate so far there was nothing but I had hope.
Grayson was doing a good job gathering intel, fortifying the pack's boundaries, stocking up on weapons and honing our warriors.
We were now all training every day in combat and strengthening we were dieting and eating almost entirely protein. Grayson had everyone gearing up to be deadly.
This time it seemed everyone in this pack was taking it personally I know Deacon crippled them financially when they left but it’s a black stain on a pack's record to have an alpha walk away and not just leave but abandon his family.
It infuriated me the way they all held together through this struggle and the way they overcame this. What did I know about that? I had a perfect idea, perfect parents, my pack never knew turmoil. My parents shielded us from so much and tried to get us to not see any of the dark sides of the world and now look at the hellfire engulfing my sister's life because of it.
I didn’t want to be perfect I wanted to acknowledge the consequences of pumping raw alpha blood into children and then not just assuming they knew how to deal with it.
The blood craze of battle is the only place I feel like I belong because the chaos matches the insanity within. My siblings all knew how to control it and they all learned on their own but we shouldn’t have had to and it made me furious. But we were perfect.
We didn’t acknowledge the innocent people sent out of their packs for crimes they didn’t commit and we didn’t acknowledge how years of tradition can affect our children. We don’t acknowledge that if we had properly protected Anna none of this would have happened if hadn’t prized her so fucking much she would have been here holding her son like she always dreamed of.
I liked it here where I had freedom and people spoke to me and depended on one another not to keep up appearances but to just genuinely help.
“You alright?” Charlie asked me as I sipped off the sweat.
I shrugged my shoulders, I couldn’t tell half the time if Charlie understood the issues in our family or if he still wanted to be blind to them.
“Don’t just pent it up. I’m not Anna but I am your brother,” he crossed his arms in front of me.
“When this is over we go back home. You have a lot to fix you know that right?” I told him I didn’t have the patience anymore to be gentle.
The surprise registered on his face before he nodded solemnly. “I know. This should have never happened but we painted the target on her back,”
I suppose it was my turn to be surprised then. “You’ve acknowledged it so at the very least we’re headed in the right direction,” I scoffed sitting down.
“Did you ever think something like this was possible? All these rogues here, not criminals like we’d been told but just people who’d been taken advantage of, or tricked, or worse,”
“No,” I shook my head. “And that’s what kills me, we had no idea,”
“And we’re supposed to be the best,” Charlie laughed sharply.
I realized something else then that I should have kept my whining to a minimum because at the very least I didn’t have to take the world on my shoulders the way Charlie did, I had choices he didn’t.
“You know for the record. If Anna likes her so much I’m sure she’s great,” I looked the side of my eye at my brother.
Charlie went bright red. “I don’t know what all of you keep referring to,” he fumbled his words.
“Don’t lie especially about this you suck at it anyway, but now it’s just sad,” I rolled my eyes. Charlie should have realized nobody is as oblivious as they’d have to be, to miss his gawking and lovelorn gaze.
I hoped that we could all move on after this, not just from this awful moment in time but from the sheltered world we'd all grown up in. I wanted all of us to see the world find our place in it and make it better. "
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