Alpha Grant: Book 3 of The Alpha Series

17. Rome

Grant

~

We stayed in Spain for only a week before I had to leave. We left Canary Island and landed back in Spain before boarding another plane and heading for Rome. We landed in the capital of Italy at three in the afternoon. We were still seven hours ahead of home, which was getting to be exhausting to think about.

We got a rental vehicle and I was a little shocked when I saw what I got. It was an Alfa Romeo Stelvio and part of me felt like they were already on to us. I needed to stop being so paranoid though and focus on what we were doing here. We got into the vehicle and I drove us to the house that I had rented for the month. I had no idea if we needed to be here that long or longer, but it was a start.

We unloaded the vehicle and looked through the four-bedroom house that we were occupying. It was a two-story house that had two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. I would be on the main floor with Otto and the others were upstairs.

We walked through the house and got the layout before looking through the kitchen to see what we had for food. There wasn't much, so a trip to the grocery store was needed. All of us converged in the dining area to talk.

"We need food," I said.

"Ok. I need to set up security. There are no cameras inside or outside of the house. I checked everything but there's nothing here," Krew told me.

"Alright. I'll go find a store with Aksel while you and Otto stay here and get the security set up," I told everyone.

They all nodded their heads and we split into groups. Aksel and I walked out the front door while Otto and Krew stayed to get security set up. We got back in the vehicle and went to look for a grocery store. We found a store called Carrefour Express not that far away from the house and did our shopping. It took us over an hour to find everything we wanted or needed. I paid and then headed back to the house.

When we walked inside, we saw that Krew and Otto were almost done getting everything set up. We put the groceries away, then I let Aksel see if he could help Otto and Krew. I sat down at the bar in the kitchen and took my phone out. I sent texts to everyone to let them know what was going on.

I texted Madison to see how things were going today. Her seventeenth birthday was coming up in a week. This would be the first time I hadn’t been there for her birthday and it bugged me. While I was texting Madison, I opened my messages with Jaxson.

“Did you get the package I sent?” I asked him.

“Yeah, and I wrapped it for you.”

“Thank you.”

“When do you want me to give her this present?”

“Could you give it to her first thing in the morning on her birthday?”

“Yeah. I’ll give it to her as we walk to school.”

“Thank you!”

“No problem. Have fun in Rome!”

“Will do.”

After my texts were finished, the four of us left the house and went to find a restaurant to eat at. Sure we would be cooking food while we were here, but we also wanted to experience local food. We found a place called Cotto and went inside. All four of us were seated at a table and given menus. All of us ended up ordering Pizza for dinner. Aksel had no idea what to get, so we suggested things for him. He had never had pizza before, so this was going to be an experience for him.

I took pictures of our food and sent it to Madison before we started eating. Aksel enjoyed the hell out of the pizza and was happy we had suggested it. Our time here might just be pretty great.

~

I woke up early on Madison’s birthday and was antsy as hell. I was waiting for Jaxson to text me after he had given Madison her present. I had gotten her a piece of space. It was a small piece of meteorite but I knew she would love it.

To occupy my time, we searched for the guy we were looking for and trained in the living room area. We moved all the furniture out of the way and stacked it against the wall. We didn’t really use the room otherwise.

Once we were done, we sat around in the dining room and kitchen space while waiting for Krew to find something on surveillance that he had tapped into. He had facial recognition going for our possible dragon shifter. I hope we find something soon, because I would love to know if he was a dragon or not.

When it was three in the afternoon our time, I finally got a text from Jaxson. It was only seven in the morning back home, but they were headed to school. Right after he texted me, I called Madison.

She answered on the second ring, “Hey!”

“Happy Birthday Mads!”

“Thank you!” she squealed.

“You're welcome.”

“Oh, and thank you for the gift. You didn't need to do that.”

“You're welcome and yes, I needed to. I can't be there so I need to make up for that.”

“You can make it up to me by sending me more pictures of Rome. Come on, we know I’m living vicariously.”

I started laughing and so did the guys. They could hear her since the house was so quiet. I’m sure she could hear them laughing along with me.

“Fair. We will go out later then and explore. I’ll send you some pictures,” I told her.

“Perfect!”

“I hope you have a good day, Mads.”

“It's gonna be the best!”

“Good. I'll text you later.”

“OK. Be safe,” she told me.

“I will.”

“Bye.”

“Bye,” I said as I hung up the phone.

I looked up at all of the guys and they were looking at me with large smiles on their faces. What the hell were those looks for?

“What?” I asked.

“One more year,” Otto said.

I sighed and nodded my head, then said, “One more year.”

We sat there and Krew kept looking through all the video and pictures he had. There was nothing for us to find so far. We will keep looking. I didn’t want to leave Rome until I had solved this mystery.

Later that evening, we went out and enjoyed the city. I took pictures of the best views and the colosseum. We acted like normal tourists and saw the sights. All of us enjoyed it.

“Do y’all think that guys and warriors like us fought in this arena?” I asked the guys while we looked at the crumbling colosseum.

“It’s possible,” Krew said with a shrug.

We enjoyed our time out of the house, but we didn’t find anything of value to our outing in Rome. We would keep looking and keep going out when we could. There had to be something here.

~

It was close to lunchtime when Krew came running downstairs from his room with a laptop in his hands. Otto, Aksel and I all looked at him, wondering what the hell was going on.

“I found him,” Krew announced.

He set the laptop down on the table and we all gathered around him. The possible dragon shifter was sticking close to low traffic areas. Places where there was little to no interaction with others. He was hiding and keeping out of sight.

“Keep on him. We need to wait until he is out in a public setting to get close to him,” I told Krew.

“You want to make it public so if he is a dragon, no one gets attacked?” Otto asked.

“Exactly.”

We stood there and watched the video as he avoided the main square of the city. This guy was smart but not too smart if someone had been talking to Antonio about him. We just needed a good opportunity to approach him out in the open.

All of us eventually took a seat at the table to watch the video feed following this guy around the city. He actively avoided crowds and other large gatherings. This is going to be difficult if he keeps this tactic up, and I was already annoyed at how good he was at navigating the area.

~

While we waited for another sighting of the possible dragon shifter, we learned about Roman history when it came to supernatural beings and looked for rogues. From history we learned that the Romans called us crocotta. All of us thought it was an odd name.

We had traveled to the public library in Rome to do some mythology research since that’s where all of our possible werewolf history would be. We have learned very little truth here and a lot of dumb bullshit. The Romans had everything all wrong but almost all humans did.

As we were leaving the library and stepped out onto the sidewalk, I was hit with the scent of death and rot. Rogues were close by. I scanned the area along with the others but we didn’t see anything. I tried following the scent but it got lost in a crowd of humans.

We rushed back to the house and Krew got on his computer. He pulled up the camera in front of the library and we combed through the footage that led to us leaving the building. No one stood out to us, but I had smelled them, so we would keep looking for them. I wanted to see if they needed help or if they wanted to be left alone.

Krew kept working at it when he noticed the same group of five people had come up to the front of the building minutes after we left. They were sniffing the area before they fled. It was a group of five and I could even tell on the computer screen that they were wolves. They smelled us and ran off. It was a group of two guys and three girls close to my age. Now we just needed to find them and see about talking with them.

~

We had just eaten breakfast and Krew was checking recent footage that the security system had caught of the people that we were looking for. I loved facial recognition. It was the most helpful tool we had when it came to looking for people.

“I got him. He’s headed for the square finally,” Krew announced.

We all got ready to leave the house and moved quickly to the square that was several blocks from where we were staying. When we got there, I turned to Krew and he pointed in the direction we needed to go. We all walked quickly toward the area that had a giant fountain in it, and that’s when I saw him. I swiftly forged ahead and caught up with him as I passed a large crowd of humans. The only issue was, we were now in a low traffic area and he had turned to face us. f**k!

I took in a deep breath and I could smell the smoke and ash on him. Then I smelled the brimstone and I knew exactly what he was. There were still dragons in our world and it astonished me.

“You're different from the others,” he said in a thick accent that I couldn't place.

“Yeah. You’re different too,” I told him.

He took a deep breath and said, “You have a Lycan. I can smell the warrior.”

“Yes. And you’re a dragon?” I asked.

He smiled and I saw the smoke come out of his nose. Holy s**t! That’s one creature I didn’t want to fight, yet I was curious as to how strong one would be.

“Why have you been looking for me?” he asked me.

“Someone gave Alpha Antonio in Spain information about you and we all wanted to know if you were really what we thought,” I told him.

He nodded his head and walked toward us without a care in the world. I could tell he didn’t mean any trouble by how he held himself, and I had so many questions.

“Why are you here in Rome?”

“On an adventure. What about you?” he asked.

“On an adventure before I settle my pack. Where are you from?”

“The mountains of Hungary,” he told me with a smile.

“Are you the only one?”

“No, there is a village but some of us venture off from time to time. We operate much like the wolves do, but we call our group a clutch, not a pack,” he informed me.

I smiled and nodded my head. I wanted to learn about them and maybe one day I would.

“If you need anything, I can give you my phone number,” I offered him.

He nodded his head. I got out a slip of paper and wrote my name and number on it and handed it to him. He looked at the paper and then looked up at me.

He offered me his hand and I took it in a firm handshake as he said, “good to meet you, Alpha Grant. I’m Valco.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Valco. Be safe out there.”

“Same to you,” he said while nodding his head.

We all walked away from the square and headed back to our respective places. I was in shock at what I had just learned and shared it with mom, Madison, uncle Sean and Alpha Antonio. There were dragons out there!

~

The last few days we had here in Rome we spent away from the house looking for the small group of rogues and enjoying the city. Everyone back home was enjoying Thanksgiving this week and we were missing it except for Aksel, who had no idea what we were missing out on.

As we moved through the city, I got that nagging feeling again and I looked at Krew. He locked eyes with me because he could feel it too. I gave him a single nod and he got his phone out to do something on it.

We made our way back to the rental house and went inside. Krew settled at his computer and brought up images and videos of people.

“This will show us who was watching us while we were out,” Krew told us.

We all looked at the computer to see several different people. I saw someone in a robe and knew right away that someone from the Vatican was watching us. That didn’t take long.

We saw Valco watching us, which was no surprise. The other videos showed the small group of rogues that we had been trying to find. They were watching us closely to stay away from us, I’m sure. Maybe they didn’t need help after all and our presence here might be a threat to them.

The last picture we saw was of an unknown person. I couldn’t make out his face but he was a big guy.

“Do you have any video of this guy?” I asked Krew while pointing at the unknown person.

He looked through his footage and said, “yeah, but he is smart and never shows his face.

“Alright. That gives us enough reason to stick close to the house until we leave in a week. I will start working on our transport to Mongolia,” I told everyone.

Everyone nodded their heads and we went about our day. I honestly didn’t like so many eyes on us. That could be dangerous so we needed to be smart about our last days here.

~

I was restless as hell, so I went out with Otto while Krew and Aksel stayed back at the house. I had an earpiece on and was talking with Krew as we moved through the city. We had to find the rogues before we left in a couple of days.

Through the earpiece Krew told me, “head toward the colosseum. I just saw them move through that area.”

Otto and I turned toward the arena and,sure enough, we saw the group of rogues move swiftly out of sight. We picked up our pace and walked after them. We hit an ally and ran down it to try and catch up to them.

Soon we were right behind them and walking fast as they tried to ignore us, but I could smell the fear on them. They were scared and I needed to end that and talk to them.

We stepped out into a high public traffic area and I reached out for the she-wolf at the back. I had her wrist in my hand and pulled her to a halt as she gasped in terror. All of them stopped and turned to look at me.

“Might I speak with the five of you?” I asked.

The she-wolf I was holding onto looked back at the others and one of the guys nodded his head. I moved off to the side still holding onto the she-wolf. I let go of her right as they all stepped up to me and we all looked at one another. I could feel Skoll chastising me for touching the she-wolf but he understood why and settled down.

“Why are the five of you rogues?” I asked in a soft voice.

“We were born rogues,” the she-wolf I had grabbed told me.

She had a thick Russian accent and I kept my eyes on them. I remember the horror stories that uncle Sean told me about Russian rogues. I needed to be careful with these five.

“All of you are in a dangerous city. Why not leave this place?” I asked.

“We were passing through but we needed to make a little money before we moved on,” One of the guys said.

I nodded my head and said, “We will be leaving soon. My group and I mean you no harm.”

They nodded their heads and one of the other she-wolves said, “You’re an Alpha. I’ve never met one before.”

I nodded my head and offered her my hand, “I’m Alpha Grant. I’m traveling the world before starting my pack.”

They each shook my hand and told me their names. The she-wolf that I had grabbed was called Kira. The other two she-wolves were Alina and Sasha. The guys were Nikolay and Pavel. Come to find out their siblings. I smiled and told them I had four siblings also. It eased the tension in the area and I could feel them relax a little more.

I gave them my phone number and said, “if you need help or want to see what pack life is like, give me a call.”

I walked away with otto feeling better about the rogues that were here in the city. I hope they stay safe and get out of Rome soon.