Alpha Battle (2 page)

At the time, I felt as though I didn’t have what it took to be a good Alpha, but I knew Wyatt didn’t deserve to be Alpha anymore. 
Therefore, I tried to be the best Alpha I could.

My mate must have been listening to my thoughts.  “Mase, you are wrong
. You already have what it takes to be a fantastic Alpha.  What you did back there was what an Alpha does, and you did it without thinking twice.  All you have to do is believe in yourself, and the rest will follow,” my mate said.

My mate always knew what to say and when to say it
to me.  She grounded me in ways no one else could.

I growled
, letting all the shifters know it was time to leave the airstrip and explore the rest of the Isle.  We spotted the businesses right away when we walked out of the airport.  There were businesses on either side of the street, painted all in different colors.  There was a wooded area, which backed up to the businesses and houses, large enough for shifters to run a few miles.  This section was for the Shifters. 

There were two other sections to the
Isle, one for Witches and Warlocks, and the last section for all other Magical Creatures.  Each section had its own woods to roam.  Rare purple and gold flowers filled every wooded area on Isle of Paradise.  Two large oceans surrounded the Isle creating the scent I was learning to love.  Fresh pine mixed with salty ocean water.

I knew we would love this
Isle for many years to come and so would the rest of the residents.

Jadelyn closed the book and her eyes and mumbled, “I believe in myself, I know I can win the
battle,” as she drifted off to sleep.

Chapter One

Jadelyn sat in the bleachers in the Alpha Training Arena and closed her eyes in frustration as she thought about how her life had changed for the worse over the years.  The confidence she had in herself and her bravery had diminished when she learned she was a latent she-wolf and the whole Isle turned its back on her. 

She had already slowly started to give up after her mother
had died in a mysterious car accident, and her best friend, Eli, had moved away the day after.  The two people she could tell anything in the world vanished out of her life, just in the span of a few days—and it crushed her.  Learning she was latent just put the poisonous icing on her already burnt cake.

Jadelyn still had her
father, and they were close, but he didn’t understand her like Eli and her mother had.  She blew out a frustrated breath and gripped the handles on her seat tightly as she thought about everything else.  It felt as though someone was trying to take everything she had in life from her.  They couldn’t let her have just one positive thing in her life.  Sometimes she felt as though someone was watching her, but when she would turn around no one was there.  One night she heard leaves rustling outside of her window, and the sound of someone’s claws as they dug them into the side of the wall as they tried to climb up.  She knew they were trying to climb into her window since her room was the only one on that side of the house.  Jadelyn quietly climbed out of bed and alerted the Enforcers to what was going on.  By the time the Enforcers made their way outside, the would-be intruder was gone.  Two Enforcers now stand guard outside of her window every night.  Another time a couple of the Enforcers found bombs underneath the cars during one of their sweeps of the vehicles.  Jadelyn thought they were trying to make her remember the way her mother died, since her mother’s car had exploded, but the bombs the Enforcers found were not set to detonate.  Her father made sure she had someone with her at all times after those incidents.  Jadelyn just wanted to be able to take at least a walk around the block by herself but couldn’t since almost the whole Isle was after her because she was latent.  Thinking about it left her so fed up with everything.  She almost screamed as it played repeatedly in her head, until she realized she was in the Alpha Training Arena, waiting for her turn to practice for the Alpha Battle.  

Jadelyn is next in line to take the Alpha title when her father steps down, but since she is a latent shifter, the
Isle shifters will not accept her as the next Alpha, so the Alpha Battle begins instead.

The Alpha Training Arena is where shifters who want to train for the upcoming Alpha Battle do so with the existing Alpha himself.  Everyone with Alpha blood in them gets a chance to participate in the
training and battle. 

During the Alpha Battle, those who wish to become the new Alpha fight against each other: males against males and females against females
, then finally the mates fight together.  The winner of the battles becomes the new Shifter Alphas of the Isle of Paradise.

Looking around the Alpha Training Arena, Jadelyn noticed everyone in the training room was sitting next to their mates, well, everyone except for her.  It made her really think about her own situation, which she normally tried to keep in the back of her mind.  She will be turning thirty tomorrow even though she still looked as though she was twenty-five, and yet, she still hadn’t found her mate, which was unheard of on
the Isle of Paradise. 

Jadelyn was five f
oot eight with a curvy body most female shifters would die for.  She had long, black, shinny, curly hair, which glistened in the sun and bounced with every step she took.  To her, her best features were her caramel skin and piercing hazel eyes.  She knew it wasn’t because of her looks that her mate hadn’t shown himself to her since most guys still stopped and stared at her, even though they thought she was a freak.

Without a doubt in her mind, she knew her mate was hiding from her because of her latency.  What she couldn’t figure out was how her mate was hiding his scent from her.  Male and female shifters both had a scent they produced that only their mates could detect after they reached a certain age, and they couldn’t turn the scent off.  As she thought more about it, she realized there was one way someone could hide their scent from their mate, but it was a bit dangerous to do so.  Witches were the only ones who could cast the spell to block the shifter’s mate from being able to scent them.  Well, there was one other possible reason she couldn’t find her mate
anywhere, and it had to do with the Isle of Paradise.   

 
Isle of Paradise consisted of shifters, witches and warlocks, and other magical beings only, since humans had no idea the Isle existed, which they wanted to keep it that way.  A handful of shifters and their families moved off the Isle to try to lead a normal life among the humans.  Maybe her mate moved off the Isle, or maybe he learned of her latency and hid his mating scent from her.  Between the two possibilities she came up with of why she couldn’t scent her mate, she would bet her life it was the latter one.

When she thought more about it, Jadelyn realized her mate could be down there training right now and she wouldn’t have any idea.  As she realized this, she didn’t want to be there anymore.  She wished she could stay home until it was her time to train, but her father wouldn’t let her because of all the threats made on her life.  Ever since her eighteenth birthday, when the shifters on
the Isle of Paradise found out she was latent, Jadelyn had received death threats.  Many shifters on the Isle felt she was a weakness to her father since she wasn’t able to shift.  One man was bold enough to tell her father he should disown her and send her off the Isle, but her father wouldn’t do it; instead, he set an example out of the male shifter.  He thought by setting the example of the one man would get the others to steer clear of his daughter, yet it didn’t.  Since they felt she caused non-shifters to see them as the weaker species on the Isle, they set out to scare her away for what they thought was for the greater good of their Pack.    

One night after training with her father for the upcoming Alpha Battle, she found a bloody doll on her bed with her face on it.  The doll had pins sticking out of its chest, and its head bashed in with a note stuck to it.  The note, written in blood, said,
Y
ou are next, watch your back because we are coming for you. 
After seeing the note and the doll, her father never let Jadelyn be more than a few feet out of his sight—even though she was twenty-nine years old.  When she could talk him into letting her go out with her friends, he sends ten of his most trusted Enforcers with her.

Jadelyn thought back to her mother and
Eli, when someone interrupted her.  “Jadelyn, it’s mine and Ace’s turn to train.  We will see you back at home,” her best friend, Chelsea, told her.

While Chelsea and Ace made their way
toward the field, she reached down and pulled from her pink purse, a light snack, and the diary she received last year on her twenty-ninth birthday.  Her father bought her the diary when he noticed there were just some things she needed to tell her mother instead of him.  Jadelyn and her father were always close, but they became even closer after her mother’s death, even though he still didn’t understand her ways from time to time. 

Her mother was killed in a car
accident, along with her mother's best friend.  Jadelyn always wondered what her and her father’s lives would be like if her mother had never died.

Jadelyn shook her head.  She couldn’t get caught up
in thinking about her mother when it was almost her turn to train. She needed a clear head when she was on the field.  After pulling open the bag of baby carrots, she popped one in her mouth and began writing to her mother in her diary.  Writing her mother always cleared her head and if this wasn’t a perfect time after thinking about her, she didn’t know when was.

Dear Mom,

I wish you were still here to help me through this terrible time in my life.  I found out who my true friends were on my eighteenth birthday.  I have not talked to Eli since the day after your and his mother's deaths.  His parents’ tri-mate took them away the next day.  They haven’t been back once to visit his grandmothers in the eighteen years they have been gone.  I wish we were still friends, and he was here to help me through the Alpha Battle. 

You know since father
is the Alpha the title was supposed to pass to me, well, it won't now.  I hate that I am latent. I wish I could shift.  Sometimes I hate myself and wonder what I have done to deserve being like this.  I promise I will become Alpha just to prove to them that I can do it.  They think just because dad is Alpha of the Pack that I will use that as an excuse to start at the top of the battle, but I am going to prove them wrong and start from the bottom, working my way up to the top.  Well, it is time for my training, Mom.  I will talk to you tomorrow morning.  Wish you were still here with me.

Love,

Jadelyn

Jadelyn quickly threw her things back into her purse as she heard her father calling to her.  She jumped over the rail, which divided the stands from the field, just as the last person was leaving the training arena.  Before walking over to her father, she locked her purse in the safe she kept on the training floor—she would just die if someone got
hold of the diary inside. 

“Jadelyn, I hope you were watching your opponents
. The Alpha Battle is in three days’ time.”

She didn’t know why her father always asked the same questions; she had been watching their moves for the last eight and a half years.

“Yes, Dad, I have been watching.  I know what techniques I need to win.” 

Baron made sure everyone was gone, the doors locked up tight, and no one could see in before he began training Jadelyn.  He had been training Jadelyn on how to subdue or kill a shifter in their werewolf form even though she cannot shift.  He wished she would believe in herself as he did, despite her latency.  He knew she was stronger than all the female Alphas, without a doubt. 

Through their talks, he knew Jadelyn was only going through with the Alpha Battle to prove to the others she could do this and was worthy of their respect, not because she believed in herself.  Jadelyn always looked for everyone’s approval in everything she did—ever since her mother’s death, Eli vanishing, and learning of her latency.  Baron wished she would understand that as long as her family, true friends and most importantly, herself, loved and accepted her despite her faults, which everyone had, she would be fine.

“Hurry up, Jadelyn.  The
battle is in three nights, and you have to be overly prepared.”

Jadelyn and her father battled against each other for hours before going home and calling it a night.

Chapter Two

Eli stood under the showerhead as a relieved feeling washed over him.  He was glad to finally be back home on the Isle of Paradise after seventeen years, but he couldn’t help contemplating the tragic accident that took him away in the first place.  One minute he was a happy twelve-year-old shifter and the next his whole world was crashing around him.

It all started when his mother died in a tragic car accident, but it didn’t end there.  The next day, Ella, his parent
s’ tri-Mate, dragged him off the Isle.  According to Ella, she took him and his father away so they could heal in peace without the constant heartbreaking memories they would have if they stayed on the Isle, but Eli didn’t see it that way.