Chapter 5 Chapter Five

Aria

Mom and Dad exchanged looks and suddenly, the air shifted. Fighting and screaming could be heard just outside the pack house, before a wave of nausea and pain struck me.

I rush to the bathroom, and mom followed behind me while Dad linked us both to stay in the room before he made his exit with Beta Rabi. I hear the door lock.

I puke into the toilet and lean against the cold wall just as their thoughts consume me.

(Where is the alpha and luna at this time?)

(We need help!)

(They are too strong!)

(These rogues, they're like warriors I've never seen before!) one warrior exclaimed.

Wait...Rogues?

I hiss as the temporary block I use to block out everyone's thoughts, faltered and broke at my weakest point.

Mom was quick and rushed to my side.

"Baby, are you okay? The doctor said you can't move until - "

"Mom, what's going on?" I ask her instead, cutting her off.

Her eyes flicker and she purses her lips in a thin line, yet I was determine to know the answer, so I searched her mind.

(The Rogues are rebelling, Nixon wants our blood.)

I gasp once I manage to find it, pulling away from her thoughts. Suddenly, Jax's words began replaying in my mind.

'For the sake of what we had, I suggest you leave the pack. You have three days,' he said.

"Mom, how long was I unconscious again?" I turn to mom.

"Three days," she replies, and my stomach drops.

Three days. Is this what he meant when he said he's giving me three whole days?

He was offering me a chance to save myself and leave my own pack for dead? How sick is he?

Another wave of nausea rolls in and I bent once again, pouring vomit into the toilet. I shudder.

"Mom, we need to find dad," I say after I was done and flushed the toilet.

"Your father says we stay, so we stay until everything's clear," she says, though she was biting her nails and looking anxiously to the door.

"Mom please!" I beg, my anxiety growing immensely as more and more tethers break one by one.

She looks at me, conflicted. She's clearly worried about her mate, but is also worried for me since I barely survived the first bouts of rejection, and have a baby in me by the very man who's killing members of my family, my pack. I feel it everytime a pack member dies through the link, and their tether snaps in our pack bond. Only the Alpha would feel the pain of their tether breaking in the pack bond, and I knew it would distract Dad if he's engaged in fight.

We need to help.

"Aria, I - "

"I'll be fine! I'll stay out of the way, I promise. I just need to see Dad," My gut was telling me something very bad is about to happen.

I can't shake off the feeling that Jax is here, too. And I need to stop him. Before it's too late.

Finally, Mom lets out a sigh.

"Fine, but you stay behind me," she says her condition, and I nod.

She helps me stand and we walk, when I pass through my vanity mirror making me stop, shocked to see my appearance.

My face was deathly pale, and my body which used to be plump and curvy now reduced to skin and bones. I look like a damn skeleton as I touch my face, only now noticing the bandages thick around my chest.

"The doctor had to patch you up. You lost so much blood," she says sadly.

Taking in my appearance one last time, I swallow the lump formed in my throat and turn away.

"Let's go, Mom,"

She nods and we walk up to the door.

She leans in a bit to hear if there was anyone outside. When she thought it was clear, she steps back before kicking the door once. The door budges with a crack, and she gestures for me to get behind.

I follow as she asks. After all, I didn't really have the ability to protect myself. My mom is a pretty good fighter, and I only found out from my father that she was one of the pack warriors when he met her. I felt safe.

We make our way in the hallway and down the main hall when I spot my father in his nightshade black wolf form fighting a chocolate brown wolf. It was a foot taller and much bigger than my dad, which shocks me and mom because dad is known for his wolf's unbeatable size, the largest wolf in our pack, but the brown wolf made him look like an omega with his humongous size.

I stop in my tracks when I see the wolf had piercing jade green eyes. Almost the same as...

No.

My heart sinks to my stomach. Is that?

"Jax?" I whisper his name, and somehow it made the wolf's ears' perk up before its eyes lock on me. His eyes widen and gazed at me from head to toe, most likely because I look like a skeleton than when he last saw me.

Mom growls and moves toward them when Dad growls her way, telling her not to come any closer and turning his back at his opponent for one second, only for Jax to pounce on him from behind. We both gasp as his sharp teeth clamp around my father's shoulder, making him whimper out as he tried to fight back. But Jax was too strong, his wolf even more so.

He pounced on my dad again, biting and clawing his wolf like a savage, beast. I stood there, frozen, unable to do much of anything but watch while my mom shifted and got in between them.

"Mom!" I scream, panicked that she would throw herself into the fray.

If my dad couldn't beat him, I doubt mom can even lay a paw on his wolf.

Mom's wolf was a magnificent silver that stunned the eye, and she takes a protective stance in front of my father slumped on the ground, weak, snarling visciously just before I see Jax advance towards her, I shout, from the top of my lungs.

"Jax, stop!" I scream, and Jax halted almost instantly. His eyes snap to me, shining with an emotion I couldn't quite understand. He looked hesitant, conflicted.

The next moment the doors to our main pack house opened, revealing a buff, tall man with graying hair and the same facial features as Jax, only more rugged. His eyes briefly graze the scene before locking on my dad.

(Nixon!) My father thought, and I all but freeze.

"That's enough. He is mine," he growls. Jax's big wolf obeyed and retreated, while giving me side glances from time to time.

"Dad!" I yelp. Dad was giving out so much blood from Jax's consequent attacks, and I couldn't help but feel helpless at a time like this.

Mom snarls at Nixon warning him not to come any closer, but when he got too close, I scream as I watch her lunge toward him. My heart skips a thousand beats in my chest, as Nixon moves at lightning speed and catches her wolf by the throat with one hand. I gasp, and saw the exact moment he took out a curved dagger from behind and slashed her across her front.

"Mom!!!" I scream, but my voice fall on deaf ears.

I watch in horror as mom is forced to shift back, but as her body hits the floor, Dad's wolf attacks Nixon in blind rage, seeming to have only recovered his vision and just saw Mom get slashed by the tall, dark man.

However, just as I felt that Dad had a chance, Nixon again grabs his throat and pins him down before he drives the dagger into his backside, and he lets out a whimper.

A gasp tears out of my throat, and I slap my hand over my mouth, when I hear Dad's thoughts enter my head.

(Go, take our daughter, and run!) he mindlinked Mom who Nixon had tossed aside like a piece of trash in a far corner. I rush to her and shake her when an abrupt pain shoots through my body.

"Mom... get up,"

I groan as the pain intensifies, it's coming from below my stomach. Instant worry fills me as I thought of my baby, and I clutch my stomach.

"Mom, please,"

Mom's eyes blink open before they widen like saucers at something behind me, or someone, as I see a shadow and presence loom over me.

'Mate,' my wolf whimpers.

Mom grabs me and we sprint out of the pack house through the backdoor, telling me not to look back. But Jax's voice thundered through the halls like a bloody storm. And his next words utterly broke me.

"Kill them!" he orders.