Fated To The Alpha (Complete Fated Series collection)

Book 4 Chapter 5

Andrei

The storm was huge, worse than I expected. The weather outside was so vile, no one would have the heart to send their dog out there, let alone walk around in it.

But luckily, Mathias managed to take the blood samples from Jonah, and still get back home safely. However, he did mention that it would be helpful if Jonah knew his last name. Which unfortunately, the boy claims to have forgotten.

Since Derrick returned overnight, I have more time to manage my responsibilities now that I have his help again.

And today, both of us are planning to head up the mountain. We hope that we can find Jonah's cave and see if there are any personal belongings with his last name on them, or at least anything that can help him to remember something. At this point, any information will help us find the boy’s family.

Jonah is a nice boy, but the little s**t is an actual pain in my ass - every time he tries to help me, everything crumbles and burns to ashes. His help creates more unnecessary mess rather than actually being helpful.

Sage releases her hold from around me and steps away. I hate losing contact with her, so I cup her cheek and gaze at my beautiful mate. “Are you sure you will be alright on your own?” I whisper right when we hear a knock on the door.

“It’s open,” I call out.

“Of course. Besides, I was planning to go over to Zane’s house to spend some time with him and Nora today. Even if you decide to stay, my day is planned out.” Sage says, and I nod when she looks over my shoulder and smiles.

“Ready, son?” My father’s voice echoes off the living room walls as his scent hits me.

“Yeah.” I nod, still looking at Sage. Her beauty always manages to hold my attention, and sometimes, I find it difficult to look away. Derrick clears his throat behind us, so I shake my head and restrain myself from glaring at him. “Did you get the map off Nora?”

“Sure did,” he announces with pride as I turn around to face him. Derrick rummages in his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. As he approaches the coffee table, I follow his lead and stop at his side.

Derrick lies out the piece of paper and speaks up, “She thinks around here is where they found him, there is a trail we can follow here.” He explains, pointing his finger at the trail, I furrow my brows as my eyes follow his finger. The trail isn’t far from where I used to go with my father when I was a kid. I have come across it once before, when I was hunting.

It is about a thirty minute walk, higher up the mountain.

My stomach twists at the thought. All this time, on so many occasions I could have been so close to Jonah and never realized he was in a cave by himself. He had no one to ask for help, no one to ensure he ate or was warm enough.

I am the reason for that. And at the same time I am the man that boy follows and admires for some twisted f*****g reason. I’m the person who took all that safety away from him. Because of me, the last family Jonah had is dead at my hands.

Shaking my head, I try to focus on the important matters - I need to find out if he has anyone left out there. I grab my bag and toss it over my shoulder, my father replicates my movements with his own bag.

“We should be back by dark,” I tell Sage as I approach her and quickly kiss her lips. She stays quiet, smiles at us, and simply waves her hand. One thing I have noticed is that my little mate seems to hate saying goodbye, even if for a short period of time.

As I walk outside, I spot a group of my warriors assessing the tree that fell through the roof of a house. They have chainsaws in their hands as they struggle to figure out the best approach to remove it without further damaging the house's structure.

Striding over to my car, I unlock it right as Jonah rushes over, and I groan. I have had enough of the inner struggle with myself, I don’t need the boy to follow me again and pull on the strings of my tainted soul even more.

My father chuckles at my reaction to the small boy. His green eyes light up as he sweeps his hair from his eyes. “He can’t be that bad, he is a kid,” my father chides, clapping his hand on my shoulder.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the blood results show he's the spawn of Dennis the menace,” I grumble under my breath, once again, making my father laugh at my misery.

“Mr. Andrei, Mr. Andrei!” Jonah calls out, waving his hand at us with so much enthusiasm, he draws everyone's attention to him.

“What, Jonah?” I ask, tossing my bag in the backseat. Maybe, if I’m lucky, Jonah will notice I am busy already and will back off. Fingers crossed.

“Are you leaving?” Jonah asks, as if he’s completely oblivious to the fact that I am, in fact, getting ready to sit in the car and drive away. Before I can take a breath, the little s**t turns to my father and glares at him as if Derrick is an unknown species. “And who are you?”

Jonah sniffs the air around us. His little brows pinch together once she realizes how similar our scents are, which does nothing but confuses him even more.

“He is my father, and yes, I am swamped. Now, go play or do something else away from me, maybe go harass Sage, she is inside,” I instruct him and point at the house, where my mate, I’m sure, is watching my misery and having the time of her life.

Jonah is about to turn around and look at my house, but he jumps when we hear yelling, and a loud crash. I glance over at the house to see the men have knocked the tree down off the roof with the digger.

“Oh, s**t!” My father drops his bag next to my feet and jogs over to them.

I follow in his footsteps. Everyone is frantically trying to lift the monstrous tree, as I get closer, I hear groaning. My eyes scan the surroundings and focus on Clay, trapped on the ground. His body is under the tree and he has a branch caught across his stomach, which pins him down.

Luckily, only the branch is pinning him, and the gigantic trunk didn’t crush him. A sigh of relief leaves my lips as I walk closer to the scene. “How the hell did that happen? Are you good?” I ask Clay.

Clay nods and holds his thumbs up. Thank f**k it looks like he’s just trapped and he isn’t suffering any injuries from the accident.

While everyone present is trying to lift the tree off him, I facepalm myself at their idiocy. “What are you idiots doing?” I groan.

“Trying to help lift the tree,” Casen replies, and my father laughs beside me as the four warriors try hauling the tree up.

"I swear you fools only have one brain cell amongst you," I mutter.

“Yeah, and even that one is fighting with itself for third place,” Derrick adds and I barely hold back from laughing like a damn hyena.

“Help us, Alpha,” Casen begs, and I shake my head, pointing next to his feet.

“What is that?” I ask him, and his eyes follow where I am pointing, just to look back at me as if I’m trying to explain to him the most complicated math formula.

“A chainsaw, Alpha.” Casen replies. He sounds a little too proud of his immense knowledge, and I really have to fight not to facepalm myself again.

“Exactly, bravo. Why are you trying to lift the entire tree when you could just cut the branch off that's trapping him?” I ask, and they all look at each other.

Thank God I depend on them for their fighting skills, not their brains. If I were to take any of these men as my advisors, the entire pack would be f****d. No, scratch that, let’s make it double f****d up the ass with no way to return.

“Why didn’t we think of that?” Vince mutters, reaching for the chainsaw and picking it up.

“No, wait, please, don’t let them do it! Alpha, those morons will probably cut me in half! Or even worse, they could slice off my balls. Imagine how traumatizing that will be, I stress, slice off someone’s balls with a chainsaw! Bloody nightmare, Alpha. Don’t trust them!” Clay screams at the top of his lungs.

He looks absolutely horrified as Vince approaches him with a chainsaw.

“Good point.” I nod and look around. “Malik!” I call for the only person here who isn’t sharing one brain cell with the entire pack.

I hear a door open and slam closed, and a moment later, I hear jogging behind me. I point to Clay. “Cut free the i***t, who decided it would be a good idea to stand under a falling tree,” I instruct him, and he nods. Malik looks at Clay and mouths what the f**k.

“How?” Malik grumbles as he walks over to Clay and snatches the chainsaw from Vince.

“Are any of you guys capable of hearing it when someone talks, or should we make a mass doctor appointment to check your hearing? Do you think I speak only to hear myself talk? And where the f**k are your hardhats? What about goddamn safety?” Malik yells at them.

They all drop their eyes to the ground, and I click my tongue as I spin around on my heel. I know Malik and Zane can handle the situation just as well as they can handle the bunch of morons.

"There's always something going on in your pack," my father muses with a chuckle.

I ignore the remark as I walk over to my car. He is right, there indeed is always something going on around here.The weirdest s**t happens thanks to that one community brain cell, so there’s no point in arguing. I press my lips in a thin line as I get in the car and start it up. My father buckles up, and we head off.

Driving around the other side of the mountain will be quicker than trekking through it on my side, and there is a parking area at the bottom, and the trail that leads off it.

But first, I pull up at the service station, fill up the car and head inside to pay. Once I get back inside the car, we immediately drive off to head toward our destination. So far, plenty of time has been wasted with the stunt the pack members pulled already, and I’m eager to get back home already.

There is barely any traffic on the road thanks to the storm, which I am sure has left plenty to clean-up. However, about ten minutes out, a foul odor fills the car, and I c***k the window. “That you? f**k, Derrick, my windows are up,” I growl at him as I gag and try to get some fresh air. The stench is killing me.

“What? f*****g wasn’t me,” he protests turning his head to look at me and gags too. “You dirty bastard! It was you! That's a protein fart from that crap you drink!” My father snarls, winding his window down and forcing his face out in the wind.

“f**k off, it wasn’t me. It must have slipped out of your old ass without you knowing. Old age has something to do with this. You must be so loose back there that you probably didn’t feel it escape!” I snap at him.

“It wasn’t me,” he argues back, and I sigh. The smell is slowly wafting away with the wind anyway.

The drive takes an hour from the time we left home and stopped to get fuel before finding the trail. “Yep, this is it, the kids trekked a bit,” my father observes, looking up the steep trail, and I agree. He pulls the map out of his pocket and scans it. Then he looks back.

“I know this place!” The high-pitched shriek startles me. I jump in my seat as my head snaps to the back of the car to see Jonah popping up between the rear seats. s**t f*****g damn it, I didn’t expect to see anyone back there, let alone the menace himself.

My father nearly lurches out of his skin as he smacks into the dash. He spins around and clutches his heart. f**k, not this, please not this, don’t tell me the old man is having a f*****g heart attack. I knew that fart reeked of death, but this is a little too much.

“Jonah!” I scream as I glare at the boy.

At this point, my father really looks like he is on the verge of having a heart attack. He looks a little pale. Maybe I need to turn the car around and take him to the nearest hospital?

“What the hell are you doing here?” I growl at the boy. He drops his head and attempts to give me the puppy dog eyes. s**t, I knew I had to check the car before heading off, Jonah isn’t one to leave me be. He is like a zit on ass - painful and always reminds of its presence.

“Where the heck were you hiding?” My father asks as he points his finger at Jonah and leans over the seat. “Anyone else back there?” He demands, searching the backseat.

“I was under this?” Jonah announces, or asks, I’m not sure, as he holds up my jacket. It was supposed to stay on the floorboard, yet the little s**t found it, must be why I didn’t notice him.

“I told you it wasn’t me that farted,” my father announces with a victorious grin on his face.

I glare at Jonah. “It just slipped out,” he admits.

I scrub my hand down my face and groan. Gritting my teeth, I shove my door open and get out of the car, then check my phone. There are no missed calls or messages. Scrolling through the contacts, I press Malik’s number.

“Missing someone?” I question as soon as he answers the call.

“Yeah, how did you know? Did Casen mindlink you? I told him not to bother you, that damn Jonah has taken off,” Malik stresses. I’m pretty sure he’s still running around as we speak.

I huff at him. “Jonah is with me.”

“Are you bloody serious, Andrei? You couldn’t have told someone? The entire pack is out looking for him!” I growl to stop his rant before Malik tries to cross some limits that shouldn’t be crossed. “Sorry, Alpha,” he quickly mutters.

“Do you think I would really drag a kid, barefoot on a mountain trail, Malik? The little s**t nearly gave my father and me a damn heart attack when he popped his head up between the damn seats, and that's after he tried to kill us by gassing us.” I glance over my shoulder to check if those two are still in the car. My father and Jonah are talking about something, so at least they are distracted for now.

“How did you not smell him?” Malik asks. I swear, I can hear how he’s furrowing his brows at me.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly scenting my damn car, I can only smell my father and my scent here!” I growl at him.

Malik sucks in a sharp breath and slowly releases it.“I’m sorry, I thought he was with Nora and Zane until I went to go get him. I didn’t realize he stowed away. Do you want me to come get him?”

I check over my shoulder again to see what the menace is up to now. Jonah is already out of the car and is sitting on my father’s shoulders. The boy is pointing his finger up at the tree, trying to show my father a bird that sits on a branch.

As much as I hate it, I don’t have another hour, or more, to wait on someone. “No, we can’t waste time, we will just take him with us.”

“Sorry again, Alpha.” Malik mutters.

“It’s fine,” I assure him, and hang up the call.

“Ready?” my father asks as soon as he notices I’m not on the phone anymore.

I nod and grab our bags out of the car. I toss them over my shoulder since my father is carrying Jonah, and I lock the car. Then slowly, we hike up the trail.

This would be so much quicker if we could shift, but with Jonah it isn’t worth the risk. As annoying as our unexpected little confidant is, I don’t want him falling off one of us and getting hurt.

A couple of hours in, my father stops and places Jonah on the ground to stretch his back. I get it, he isn’t that young anymore and might run out of energy faster than me, but even I’m f*****g tired. Walking around is one thing, but literally climbing up the hill is another.

Jonah sits on a rock, and I dig through my backpack to grab my water bottle out.

“It shouldn’t be too much farther. There are more caves farther up and a few around over that way,” my father says as he points his finger in another direction, where the trail leads off.

“What are you looking for?” Jonah perks up as I sip some more water.

I hand him the bottle and he chugs down some water without second guessing my offer. This kid, he is too trusting.

“We are looking for the cave you were staying in.” My father explains, and Jonah nods.

“It’s near the camp with the berry bushes,” Jonah tells us.

“What camp?” I ask.

Jonah looks between my father and me, and shrugs. “Sometimes I could see the smoke from the fires,” he adds.

I take a moment to scan my surroundings and check if there is anything nearby. I see no campsites around us. We didn’t pass by any either, and being this high up, we should have noticed one. That is, if there are any.

“Maybe on the other side of the mountain?” My father hums, clearly wondering about the same thing.

I just shrug and stand up. We can’t know for sure if Jonah is telling the truth or trying to mislead us, so we won’t find something he could be trying to hide. Honestly, it might be wishful thinking, but I believe he wouldn’t try to lead us away. He has no reason to do so. Right?

I groan as I realize what I’m thinking about. I am a grown man, an Alpha, and here I stand, in the middle of a f*****g forest, doubting a child. Who in their right mind is so suspicious of a child?

“Come on then,” I press Jonah and toss my bag over my shoulder.

Jonah jumps up from the rock and I reach down for him. The next moment, the boy is happily sitting on my shoulders, giggling like someone’s tickling him. s**t, I hope the piss and fart situations were one time things, it would really suck to experience that again while he’s so damn close to my head.

Jonah places his hands on my head, and I have to peel one hand away to see where I’m placing my feet. The happy little s**t doesn’t seem too bothered that his hand might be blocking my eye.

Derrick grabs the other bag, and we head off. We head around the mountain, as if we have a silent agreement to scan the place before we venture farther up. Besides, if we check more places, we could find the camp Jonah mentioned to have seen before.

“So, did you sometimes live in the camp?” I ask Jonah.

“No. We moved all the time. So many times, I can’t count that high. My dad drank a lot, mom always said that's why he couldn’t keep a job.” He says in a screechy voice that I think is meant to imitate his mother. “Once we lived in this house in a city. It had boards on its windows, but I didn’t care because it had a huge tree. I liked climbing it.” Jonah recalls some of his memories.

I assume he’s telling me this with fond memories since it sounds like he’s smiling. However, as much as I wish the boy really has some good things to remember, I can’t get past one of the things he just said.

I furrow my brows and voice my confusion. “It had boards on the windows?”

“No. Trees don’t have windows, the house did, silly.” Jonah corrects, and Derrick chuckles.

This is just what I needed right about now. A smartass kid who’s making fun out of me, and my father, gladly showing off his amusement for the fact. I force down the irritation and sigh.

“I meant the house you lived in,” I stress.

“Yep, that house was cold, nearly as cold as the cave.” Jonah shivers as he speaks. I’m sure it’s not because he’s actually cold, those are memories, pretty vivid ones if anyone were to ask me.

“Jonah, do you remember anyone calling your mom a name that wasn’t mom?” Derrick asks.

“Hmm, dad called her babe sometimes,” Jonah offers. I exchange a look with my father, but both of us stay silent, just in case the boy remembers something. “Oh, but most of the time, he called her b***h,” he adds. Alright, this isn’t going where I thought it would.

My father’s eyebrows lift almost into his hairline, and I press my lips in a line. Clearly, both of us aren’t happy about the things we are hearing here.

“So, no one else used to call your mom another name?” Derrick presses. He is doing the right thing, and just a moment ago. I wanted to press the matter too, but thankfully he’s already at the top of it.

Jonah seems to think for a second. “No, but I heard someone call my dad and my mom filthy rogues,” he quotes.

“So you have no one else? Your parents had no friends or family?” I ask him.

Before Jonah can answer my question, I feel a nudge at my side. “Up that way,” my father says, pointing off toward some caves.

“That’s it! That one up there!” Jonah squeals excitedly. He points a little ways off from the direction my father pointed, and I see a cave.

We head in the direction of it. “So you never met any family?” I repeat the question Jonah didn’t get a chance to answer.

Talking can distract Jonah, so even if I don’t get any helpful answers, at least, he won’t freak out and start thrashing on my shoulder. The last thing we need is a nasty fall.

“No, only uncle Lior. My mom had a brother too. Well, I think he was her brother because they smelled the same as you and Mr. Andrei's dad.” Jonah explains his reasoning and I chuckle.

“My name is Derrick, Jonah. You don’t need to call me Mr. Andrei’s dad.” My father tells him, and I smirk.

In the meantime, Jonah is patting my head softly as if I just became his damn pet. It is annoying, but I ignore it since we are trying to get information from him.

“So your mom’s brother… Does he have a name?” I ask him.

“I only met him once, mom said he wasn’t a very nice man. He looked like her, but I can’t remember his name,” Jonah confesses.

Shit well so far this isn’t bringing us anywhere closer to figuring out a thing. Maybe, if I try a different approach, it might work. “What do you remember of him?”

Jonah hums and pats my head with more vigor. “I remember he called my mom some names, so dad punched him, and they had a big fight. My dad was winning until that man pulled his gun out. Dad said it was just a toy, but we still had to leave.”

“Leave from where?” My father asks the question that runs through my mind. I glance at him, and he sends me a nervous glance. It’s clear to both of us that Jonah’s parents don’t exactly sound like upstanding citizens.

“My grandma’s house. She died a long time ago, and she gave mom the house,” Jonah sounds excited as he explains it. I almost let out a breath of relief as this is information we can use to find his family, but then his little body tenses on my shoulders and Jonah whispers, “But then, he took it from us.”

“Do you know how long ago that was?” I ask him.

“I don’t know, it was lots of sleeps ago. I was only short then.” He tells me and I chuckle because he is still short now.

We make it to the cave entrance, and I spot a small sitting area around a fire that has been out for a long time. It looks like there is barely anything left from the wind, just burnt rock under the debris. I place Jonah down, and my father uses his flashlight to look inside the cave.

Jonah runs away to a tree with some red and purple berries. I furrow my brows because the damn tree looks so out of place here. I have a feeling it isn’t supposed to be in these surroundings as such, let alone grow here and have the shady-looking berries.

Jonah quickly plucks some off and happily tosses them inside his mouth. He’s still chewing on the berries as my father approaches him.

“Oh, a mulberry tree,” my father point out, picking one of the berries off.

“Yep, I love mulberries,” Jonah chirps while eating some, his lips staining purple.

“Are you alright with him?” I ask my father, and instead of giving me an answer, he tosses me his flashlight.

I enter the cave, it isn't very deep into the mountain, and it doesn't take long before I trip over and kick some beer cans. Using the light, I spy blankets on the ground, a couple of garbage bags and some clothes, a man's jacket, a crate with empty food cans in it, but that's it.

It’s clear someone has spent time here and actually lived inside this cave, but I’m not sure if everything I find are just leftovers or everything was owned by them. While I would boldly assume some rogues must have found this place and cleared it out of everything of use, I can’t be an ignorant prick and take it as a fact either.

So, either I am looking at freaking leftovers after a robbery, or it’s everything an entire family once owned.

Stalking back over to the bags of clothes, I huff as I pull the clothes out of the bags and check every pocket. I find nothing of use until I pick up the jacket and rummage through the inside pockets.

Finally a lead, a club card with the name Marshall Peters on it. There’s a photo on the card too, and the man looks very similar to Jonah. I suppose this could be his father, but thankfully, I have Jonah right here and he can tell me who the owner of the card is.

I bring the card with me as I leave the cave and hike back to find my father and Jonah. They are standing at the edge, looking at the trees down the mountain. Hearing me approach, my father turns around and waves me over, a pair of binoculars in his hands.

“Found the camp,” he calls, and I walk over.

I pass him the ID, and he hands me the binoculars. “Marshall Peters?” he reads the ID. “This your dad?” He prods Jonah while I look for the camp.

“Yep, that's him,” Jonah says, just as I spot the camp in the distance amongst a small clearing in the forest.

Alright, now that we have found a lead, an actual name of a relative, I can focus on surveying the rogue camp from a distance. It's a rather large camp with tents and small structures set up all over the area. It's big even for a rogue camp, easily a hundred people could fit. Children frolic around, dodging back and forth in their play and women hang their clothes on makeshift clothes-lines, chattering amongst themselves. Small fires dot the area.

“Pretty big for a regular rogue camp, Kat told me they have had reports of a growing number of rogues. It has to be because there are far too many packs at war these days, and people have decided to flee from their homes to stay alive.” Derrick notes next to me, and I nod, handing him back the binoculars. “What do you want to do?” My father presses.

“Nothing, let's head back, I want to do a background check on Jonah’s father,” I tell him.

To be honest, finding this camp leaves a weird aftertaste in my mouth. I know we need to head home, but I still hesitate, if only for a brief moment. There are so many families down there. Children, women, and elderly.

Shaking the feeling off, I grab Jonah and place him back on my shoulders. Once again, he acts like the happy little s**t he is and starts running his hands through my hair. God, I’ll need a shower after this trip. One with bleach possibly.

“Are we going home now?” Jonah asks.

“Yep.”