Chapter 26

Jacob’s POV

The hours dragged by as I waited for my so-called girlfriend to turn up. She hadn’t sounded impressed when I had called her earlier. I told her it was an emergency and she needed to come over immediately. Annoyingly she had fobbed me off, saying she had some jobs to do with Miranda and she needed to pop over to the pack house to help the Luna out. I knew it was a massive lie. The Luna never asked us for help, well, hardly ever. And I knew she wouldn’t ask Stacy if she knew she was helping one of the representatives out.

Jaxon had even bailed on me after an hour or so. Apparently, my mood was bringing him down, and he didn’t want to be around when his sister got here. He knew all too well what her temper was like, and even though we were best mates, he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it.

I had no idea what I would say to her; I was just going to wing it. There was no way I would let her use me and take me for a fool. She’s not the only girl in school I could be with.

“Not her, don’t even think about her. She’s not someone you can even begin to think about being with” I scold myself for letting Ayla slip into my mind. What was this obsession with her anyway? Am I sure I’m going crazy? Goddess Storm was going nuts too. What will I do if I am meant to be with her?

“Jacob, where are you. This better be a real emergency as I cancelled plans to come here instead,” Stacy shouted. My blood began to boil just hearing her voice and how she didn’t care.

“Yeah, I’m back here, in the garage”, I call back.

“Ugh, you know I hate it in your garage; I could get dirty”, she moaned.

“Storm, no! let me do the talking. Control yourself before she knows something is up. I wanna see if she will come out with it on her own,” I tell my wolf.

Stacy walked in, wearing the shortest black mini skirt you had ever seen. It usually wouldn’t bother me, but I knew it wasn’t for me this time. It was for Mason. Her hair was in a tight high ponytail, and she had enough makeup to make a drag queen jealous.

“What is it then?” she snapped at me; she just looked bored, like I was wasting her time.

“Is it such a crime for a boyfriend to want to spend time with his girlfriend?” I say, forcing myself to sound happy?

“Are you fucking kidding me, Jacob? You called me here just because you wanted to see me?” she shouted in my face. She was beyond angry like I had broken her favourite necklace or something,

“What the hell is your problem, Stacy? You have been such a bitch to me lately; what have I done? What has changed?” I ask her, generally confused. It wasn’t long ago she was laying into Ayla for talking to me, saying I was hers.

“Whatever, Jacob, nothing’s wrong; I’m just busy. I can’t be here to hold your hand all the time” she rolled her eyes and turned to leave.

“I know you think you’re destined to be mated to Mason!” I say with a growl, “I know you’re using me as a fallback just in case your plans don’t come to be”

Stacy stopped in her tracks. I could hear her heart rate picking up, I know she heard my growl, and I had her worried.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, babe,” she said in her sweetest voice, the one she hadn’t used with me for around a week. Swinging her hips, she walked over to me, placing her hands on my chest. She went to kiss me, all smiles and attention.

“Get your hands off me; we are done; I’m not going to be played or used, Stacy. I’m nobody’s fool,” I hiss at her. The shock on her face was priceless. No one ever said no to Stacy. This was possibly the first time anyone had ever dumped her.

“You can’t do this, Jacob! Your nothing without me,” she screeched at me, but I was done; nothing she said would make a difference. The way her heart rate picked up when I accused her was all I needed to hear to know it was true.

“Leave now, Stacy. We are done; go find Mason and see if he wants you because I sure don’t,” I say, sounding bored.

For once, Stacy was silent; she looked shocked and confused. It serves her right you can’t treat people like shit and expect to get away with it. Slowly she walked away. For once, I had done something for myself that was not expected. No doubt I’ll get some stick for dumping Stacy, she will make up some massive lie to make herself look like the victim, but right now, I couldn’t care less. She was Mason’s problem now, not mine.

“I need to go for a run”, I moan.

Ayla’s POV

Holding as tightly as I could to Titans fur, the wind whipping my hair out behind me, we ran down the cliff side at quite some speed. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I bent my body over, closer to my mate’s back. Ace and Blaze were on either side of me, never falling behind, just as Aiden had promised.

“Enjoying yourself, my love”, Titan spoke into my mind.

“THIS IS AMAZING, AND SO SCARY”, I shouted back.

Three different laughs greeted me in my head; who knew wolfs could laugh so much.

“Hold on then, let’s go faster”, Titan called back.

“Ahh, no!” I shout.

The bottom of the cliff couldn’t come quick enough; my body still felt sore from the beating I had taken recently; all the jolting up and down on Titan’s back was making it worse even though it was amazing.

The view from down here was just as beautiful but looked different to what it does up top. The river was bordered by a pebble beach that ran the whole length of the valley. Its crystal-clear waters babbled along steadily, looking calm, but no doubt you could get swept away if you weren’t paying attention. There was nothing other than the sounds of nature and the breathing of the three massive wolves around me.

“Here,” I say, handing them the backpack, turning around to give them some privacy whilst changing. I couldn’t help but sneak a quick peek. Looking over my shoulders, I was greeted by the gorgeous site of immaculate, God-like figures. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on either of their bodies; muscles rippled down the length of their arms and shoulders. Watching my naked mates shift and stretch did all kinds of crazy things to me. For a moment, I forgot they could hear my thoughts, every type of image ran through my mind. I imagined running my fingers down their perfectly sculpted chests, tracing the lines of each muscle. Each of them supports a perfect six-pack. I imagined what it would feel like having them surrounding me, succumbing to my every desire at the mercy of their hands and feeling their lips kissing every inch of my body.

Lost in thought, I hadn’t noticed they had moved towards me, surrounding me as they did in my thoughts.

“Was it something like this” Aiden whispered; his voice was so rough that my breath caught in my throat.

He ran his hand down my arm and kissed my neck. Axel was on my other side, doing the same; my body was on fire where their lips touched my skin. Archer stepped up in front of me, captured my lips in his, and kissed me so passionately that I couldn’t breathe. My mind was racing, and my core was pulsing to the point it hurt!

“Umm, something like that, yeah”, I mumble; I look down, focused on the ground; I couldn’t make eye contact with either of them; it was all a bit too much.

“You got to do better at controlling your thoughts, Ayla. I can’t guarantee we won’t hear them and act on them,” Aiden said quietly, right in my ear; my breath hitched in my throat again.

“I…umm…I’m sorry I shouldn’t have turned around,” I stammer. The three of them chuckle at me.

“Never apologise for that, my love”, Archer replies. Just remember we are fully grown men, it’s hard controlling ourselves as it is, so when you do things like that, it sends us crazy.”

“Come on, let’s get going”, Axel interrupts; he kisses my cheek, then retrieves his t-shirt from the bag. Archer follows him, leaving me with Aiden.

“You okay?” he asked, wrapping his arms around my waist. I sink into him, still entirely mortified they had caught me staring and heard me thinking about them again. “It’s okay to be nervous, you know”, he reassures me, reading me so well.

“It’s just… you know, I haven’t ever…. done it before; I don’t want to disappoint you,” I say as embarrassment washes over me.

“Disappoint me? you could never do that, Ayla” he catches hold of my chin in his hand and tips my face upwards to look at him. “Your perfect in every way; I want your first time to be as perfect as you are; trust me, we all do.”

“You two coming or not”, Axel shouts at us, breaking the perfect little bubble we were in.

“Coming”, I call back. “We better go,” I say just before he plants the most incredible kiss on my lips, “Damn, I wish you would give me some warning before you do that; my legs go to jelly, and I can’t breathe,” I thought and sent it to him, he laughed cutting the kiss short.

“Sorry”, he laughed. “Come on, let’s go.”

Archers POV

“That girl is going to kill me if she keeps doing that!” he sent the thought to his brothers; they laughed quietly but fully agreed.

Walking alongside the running water of the river was easy enough. We followed its twists and turns for around half an hour before coming to a fork. Taking the lead, I chose the right fork and carried on walking. This place was beautiful, but hopefully, something cool would come into view soon. I wanted to explore a bit more. Ayla was doing amazingly with the walking, too; I had to give her credit. She was no quitter.

“What’s that over there” she called, pointing off to the side.

“It looks like a mouth to some cave”, I call back. Now, this is what I’m talking about, something cool to investigate. “Wanna check it out?”

“Sure, but I might need a lift it if gets steep,” she said sheepishly.

“Not a problem, my lady; we are at your service”, I joke.

“Archer, you’re such a dork” Axel laughs at me.

“Oh, shut up”, I shout.

The opening to the cave was higher than I had initially thought. Good job, we were good climbers, really wasn’t it. The rocks were slippery due to falling water; there wasn’t a full-blown waterfall, just water trickling down the rock face.

“It’s quite steep, Ayla. You might wanna piggyback with Aiden or Axel,” I shouted down; I was halfway up already. Reaching the top didn’t take me much longer, and I was soon joined by Aiden carrying Ayla, and Axel was right behind just in case she slipped.

“Anyone got a light?” Axel asks; it was pretty dark in here.

“Here, how about this,” Ayla says, taking a deep breath.

The air around her shimmered, then popped suddenly. The place lit up wherever she moved.

“Whoa, Ayla, that’s a Light Gorge pack skill; how are you doing that?” I was puzzled. I was sure she was originally from the Sun Valley Pack!

“I don’t know; I have always been able to do it; I just never shown anyone”, she admitted. “I was always treated like a freak and not wanted around, apart from Michael and Laura to some extent. So, I guess I just always hid what I could do.”

Ayla moved up ahead, leading the way with her light. The cave seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary cave. That was until Aiden spotted something on the wall.

“What’s that? Ayla, can you get a bit closer over here” he beckoned

“Wait, is that the same image we saw in the archive?” Axel asked

The image of the three males with the one female, the same one on the scroll, Aleena read out as best she could to us.

“I think it is”, I confirm, “But there are words under it this time.”

“Damn it, we need Aleena for that”, Axel says, frustration filling my voice.

Ayla steps a little closer and reaches out her hand, placing it on the image; slowly, she runs her fingers over the words written below.

“Alune will rise again”, she breathed. Suddenly she was thrown backwards with such force. She slammed right into Aiden, who was behind her, sending him flying back into the wall behind with a grunt.

“What the hell was that!” she shouted!