The Alpha & Beta's Regret

Ch 1 (Six months after Prologue)

Rafe POV

He had men defending two different borders, both the west and southern borders, had rogues pushing at his men, they had come in waves over the past 12 hours, someone had to be behind it. They knew it was coming, had been having random attacks over the past year and a bit.

He was on the western border with Ian his Delta, and Jack his Beta was with Allen, their Gamma down on the southern border. His men were getting tired, twelve hours of attacks and simultaneously at that, with barely 30 minutes between waves of rogues.

The packhouse was in complete lock down and had been the whole time. Fortunately, his Pack territory was large and getting to the Packhouse was not an easy task, it was situated more on the western side of the pack to keep humans from coming into the territory too far. It did happen sometimes, not often, and most were escorted out with a word about this being private property.

He’d had a few reports of some rogues running round the pack to the eastern border to try and get in. Rafe got the distinct feeling they were not actually trying to get into the pack but were testing the packs' battle responses. His Warrior status was one of the largest around, and nothing was getting past or into the territory that he knew of.

The Black Forest Pack was generally considered impregnable, it was the third largest pack around, and they helped most of the smaller packs around them when requested. He’d heard Jack send 50 warriors to boost the eastern border from those rogues that were now off to surround that side of the pack.

These rogues were acting weird, attacking and then retreating, only a few had actually stayed and fought properly, gotten killed, mangy bloody critters were vicious but not stupid. They knew how to survive, likely also knew that most packs would rather divert them away than get into a full-blown battle with them.

He’d brought one down himself and dragged it across into his pack to interrogate it, had four of his men drag its ass to the cells for a later discussion. When he wasn’t so darn busy. Rafe had no idea where all these rogues had come from, or who was behind them, but it had to stop. He had to find out. Deal with the problem, swiftly and harshly at that.

It was noted by Allen that the Rogues were staying well clear of him, which meant that their master must know about his three Mates and the protection spell that they had on him. Though a few had turned into a red-bloodied mist, not so many, that it was helping with deterring them. This battle had started at two in the morning, and no-one had been prepared for it. Most of the pack had been asleep.

He’d woken up to multiple members of his border patrol linking to him about incoming rogues and lots of them, along both borders.

By the time he’d sent out a pack wide mind-link to get everyone to safety and pulled warriors to the borders to protect his pack. He’d lost several patrollers and rogues were inside the pack. They had managed to push them back and make them run from the pack's territory, but they didn’t go far.

It was now 2 in the afternoon and though his warriors were lined up in ranks to match waves of attacks, so that they could rest, and new ones could step in. This had been going on for twelve hours now, even he was tired, hadn’t gone to bed till nearly midnight and been woken after just two hours sleep.

Most of his warriors would be in the same state as he was. With little sleep, he imagined it was not a good situation to be in for any of them. The next wave was coming in and it seemed like all of them, instead of the normal wave, called his warriors into formation and told them to hold the border, then the battle was on, and it was a bloodied mess of wolves on wolves for a solid 20 minutes and then the rogues that were injured or still fighting simply retreated and fled away in all directions.

Whatever had happened, it was finally over. Solar his wolf shifted him back to stand and survey the dead and dying. He had plenty of injured men, though only a few had died. His border patrols mostly, they'd been unable to defend against such large incoming numbers at the start of the battle. They had tried their best to deter and kill or injure to protect their pack. Their loved ones.

Though he had seen the rogues flee in all directions, he stayed put for another hour with three quarters of his warriors to make sure the attack was over. The rest helped the injured to the pack hospital.

Jack reported the same on his end. The rogues had just fled away in all directions, scattered away, and had not returned, set up new patroller’s, doubled the roaming patrol for now and headed back to the packhouse to get cleaned up before going to the cells to interrogate that rogue he had captured.

His Luna Melissa seemed to have things under control, inside the packhouse. Everyone seemed to have made it to the packhouse before she locked it down, and now it was open at his command that the battle was over.

She looked right at him, he sighed he had no answers as to what was going on. Shook his head but did tell her he’d managed to get one alive and would extract answers from it after a shower and food. Probably should get sleep as well, he was tired just like all his men were.

He stood under the hot water of his shower and closed his eyes. Whoever was behind all of this, was insane, to trust that many rogues to do their bidding, it was a risk. He only knew a handful of Alpha’s crazy enough to use Rogues in mass numbers, but most of them were too far away and had nothing to do with him or his pack.

Ran his hand through his hair and leaned back against the wall, stared blankly at the white tiles of his shower and wondered what it was they were after. He was too large a pack to try and come in and take over. That would be a bloody s*******r for anyone. No, this person wanted something. But what?

Got out and pulled on an old pair of jeans and a tee shirt. Didn’t bother with shoes, headed downstairs to get food, found Jack, Allen and Ian already there, along with several of his ranked warriors. Most would go on home to be with their families though.

Food was pushed at him by Jack. The three of them looked just as tired as he did, Allen was all sparkly clean, like Rafe was. “How many died Allen?” he asked his Gamma. The man knew exactly what he was talking about. From the protective charm of his Mates.

“A couple dozen. They all, or most of them, knew not to come near me. Got to have been informed, so someone we know, I’m guessing, is behind it.”

“Hmm.” Rafe was really hoping that was not it at all, but it did seem that way. “I don’t think any of our allied packs would be stupid enough to hit us, they’re all smaller in number and need us.”

“Maybe we offended someone.” Jack sighed. The man was sitting at the table looking over the men eating.

“Who? Is the question. Then how?” Rafe sighed in much the same way.

They didn’t generally go around offending other packs, or their Alpha’s. That was just stupid. Be polite and respectful, and most, even those who were unhappy, would leave you alone. Find someone else to get what they wanted or do what they wanted. He and Jack did try their best not to offend. Hell, they did their best not to associate at all with those who were notorious and steeped in blood. Tried to always keep their pack happy and healthy.

Rafe finished his food and drank a full glass of water, then stood up, it was time to go and interrogate that rogue, hopefully it would have some answers. Unlike the last two, who said nothing, were practically starving and were half crazed, they just rambled a lot, mostly. Had fed the bloody things in order to try and gain trust, that hadn’t worked either.

They had a master and would only talk to him, possibly under some sort of order, but getting an Alpha Order on a rogue was damned near impossible unless they were willing to be under one. Aligned to an Alpha but not bound to them, not part of the pack.

Walked from the packhouse to the cells, it was in the northern part of the woods, just looked like a couple of doors to a storm shelter, it was in the darkest part of the forest, and had half a dozen guards on the inside. Anyone trying to get in was not coming out alive. If they found this place. It was protected by his witches; most would walk on by and not know it was even here.

Pulled the door open and walked down the flight of stairs into the underground bunker. It was brightly lit down here, and every cell had a camera on it. Two of his guards were sitting chatting about their families at the bottom of the stairs, stood up and greeted him “Alpha.”

“Has it said anything?” he asked more out of curiosity.

“A lot.” Edgar nodded and shook his head, “Hasn’t bloody shut up from what I can tell.”

That was a good sign. Perhaps Emmett had already pulled all the information out of him. Glanced at the man inside the guard station and he was nodded at, and then buzzed on through into the actual cells. There were two dozen cells down here. Some of them had their own men in them, they looked hung over, had been hauled in for drunken fighting, there were three of them, Rafe shook his head, regulars to his cells, he noted. Two more of his guards on this side of the door nodded to him.

Passed them all and headed down to the back, the last cell where the rogue would be kept. Emmett was sitting on chair, he was the pack’s former Beta’s Brother, Jack’s uncle. They nodded to each other.

“Well, we got ourselves a chatty bugger.” He smiled right up at Rafe.

“Anything useful?”

“No, just foul language mostly, got a thing for men though, keeps telling me he’ll be enjoying my nice piece of ass,” heard the man snort in amusement.

“Is he now?”

Emmett smiled. “Well, if he likes it, I can give it. Not mated anymore,” there was a bit of sadness in him, he lost his mate years ago and was free to have s*x with whoever he wanted to. “Hope he likes it rough.” Emmett chuckled a moment later.

The rogue in the cell was standing there staring at him, a wiry looking fellow, who didn’t look under fed or malnourished, also didn’t have that mangy look about him either. Yes, this creature had a master, wasn’t chained up or cuffed with silver either, he noted.

“You been in there, Emmett?”

“Indeed, I have. He’s tough but not very strong, can hang on to him one-handed. I can.”

“Open her up.” Rafe nodded.

The rogue was just standing watching him, hadn’t said a single word since he’d walked in, so much for chatty, was handed a silver blade, on his way in, saw it back up a step as he and his entire unit walked into the cell, poor bastard was in for an afternoon of screaming if he wasn’t forth coming.

“Who’s your master?”

“Don’t got one,” it shot back. “Rogue’s don’t got no masters.”

“Who hired you then?”

“No one, saw a fight and just jumped on in.” he told him.

“You got a name?”

“Yeah, called go f**k yourself.”

He turned his eyes to Emmett questioningly.

Who shrugged “you’ll get a lot of that. Got a pretty potty mouth, I’ll fill it for him if he likes, real good.”

Rafe shook his head, didn’t actually think Emmett would have s*x with this creature but, who knew, might do, might be the better option to get it to talk, if it was into it, of course. Who knew.