The Claiming by Cooper Book 2
The Council by Cooper (Jara & Mason)
Chapter 42
Mason
When I meet up with Jonas and Isabella to finalize our plan to attack Alpha Emanuel’s pack, Jonas is different with me, more relaxed. I’m not sure what happened when my mate visited his pack, but Jonas is much more agreeable to being part of our alliance. I’ll have to ask Jara about it when I speak to her.
The she-wolf, Isabella, is something else. I haven’t been around older she- wolves a lot in my life. Lately, it’s only been Luna Nina, but Isabella is wow. She exudes s*e*xuality. If I wasn’t a happily mated man, I might have tried to persuade her to my pack and my bed.
But I have the perfect mate and a little girl on the way, so no matter how incredible this woman is, she doesn’t hold a candle to Jara.
We’re meeting with the groups that have been in place watching Alpha Emanuel’s pack for the last several days. They still haven’t seen a she-wolf but they give us the general lay of the land and the patrol schedules as they’ve seen them over the past few days.
“How many wolves have you seen? Does it look like there are a couple hundred or less than a hundred?” Jonas asks the lookouts.
“Less than a hundred.” One says.
“Definitely.” Another says.
I look at Jonas. “If you lay down a gauntlet to your enemies, do you leave the area where you laid the gauntlet unprotected?” I ask him.
“Never.” He says.
“So, where are they?”
“It could be a trap.” Jonas says.
“Or a diversion.” Isabella says.
Jonas and I turn to her. “What?”
“They pulled you and the rest of us here. They don’t care about those she- wolves. We should still get them, but what else would they be doing with all of their men?” She asks.
Jonas and I look at each other. “F*uc*k!” We both yell, grabbing our phones.
“I’ve got Zaire.” He says.
“I’ve got Luke.” I say dialing Alpha Luke. It rings and rings before going to voicemail.
I’m watching Jonas and he’s watching me, shaking his head.
I hang up and dial Seth.
“What’s up.”
“It’s a diversion, we think they are going after their she-wolves.”
“F*uc*k! Let me get the others on the phone.”
He conferences Asher and Antonio into the line. “We need you to get to Alpha Luke’s and Alpha Zaire’s territory. We think it’s a diversion and neither of them are answering their phones. In the off chance that this is a trap, Seth, Jonas and I will go in with our groups and get the she-wolves out.”
We hurriedly make a plan to stay in touch. I call Elijah and check in, making sure everything is okay with Jara. They arrived in Alpha Davis’s pack earlier today. “We’re good, Alpha. What’s up?”
I fill him in and tell him to stay in alert. While we’re talking, he finds Alpha Davis and puts me on speaker phone.”
“I’ll call Quinton and fill him in. We should expect that it’s Luke and Zaire that are being attacked, but we don’t know that they won’t come after one of us, and Quinton and I have the smallest packs.” He says.
“And you have two Lunas currently in your pack. Elijah, call Joe, make sure everything is okay there then have him send more warriors to Davis’s pack.”
“On it.” He says before hanging up.
While we wait for Seth, we watch the patrols. As we watch, I notice something.
“Why aren’t they going to the edge of their territory. My patrols monitor the borders all around my territory.” I say, looking at Jonas.
“Mine do as well. Something isn’t right.” He says.
Seth arrives around midnight and he we fill him in. Just before we move in, we get a call from Asher. He was closest to Zaire.
“His pack is under attack. We’re almost there and can hear the fighting from here. a*s*sume that Luke’s pack is under attack as well. Get the she- wolves out, we’ll help them.” He tells us.
“Let’s do this.” Jonas says and we start moving forward. We’ve just reached the border of the pack when Ira, Quinton’s tracker throws his arms out to the sides. “STOP!” He shouts.
“Shhhh.” We try to quiet him.
“Don’t take another step, anyone.” He says, ignoring us. His nose is in the air, sniffing.
“What is it?” Seth asks him.
“Metal.” He says,
“Metal? What kind of metal?” I ask him.
He looks around on the ground, finding a large rock. He tosses it in his hand a couple of times, getting a feel for the weight of it before moving back to the border and sniffing again. When he’s found the spot he wants, he tosses the rock.
As soon as it hits the ground, it explodes.
“The kind of metal that explodes, Alpha.” He says and suddenly, we hear the Alpha Emanuel’s pack racing toward us.
“They won’t run through their own minefield. That would be suicide.” Isabella says. “But they will probably have guns and silver bullets.” Jonas says, pulling her to him. “Stay behind me.” “Can you tell how many more there are, Ira?” Seth asks him.
He sniffs the air as we find a place to take cover. “No, but there are a lot.”
“Grab some rocks people, we need to eliminate this minefield. Emanuel doesn’t have back up coming. They are all attacking other packs. This is our best chance to get these she-wolves out of here.” I say.
Just as we start launching rocks at the space between us and where the patrols were standing, the guns start firing.
“Take cover.” I shout before dropping to the ground. I can see that Jonas is covering Isabella’s body with his own.
We continue to lob rocks into the no man’s land between us until the smoke is so thick that everyone is coughing, struggling to breathe.
I’ve thrown several rocks with nothing blowing up and I look at Seth “Let’s do this.”