The Claiming by Cooper Book 5
The Beta Trials by Cooper (Jace & Jordan)
Chapter 57 (Jace)
I wasn’t sure if Jordan was doing the right thing, but when she told me to come tell Gianna that the mind link was real, I did what she asked. She’s right, this woman is smart.
Gianna looks at me as if she really doesn’t believe it.
“Is it just because your mates?” she asks. “No, it’s because we’re part of a pack. Our wolf spirits allow us to speak to each other in our minds,” Jordan tells her. “That has to get confusing. How many people are in your pack?” she asks.
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“Over 200,” I say.
“And you hear all of them!” she exclaims. “No, we can tune them out. It’s more like a phone. You can talk to people on a phone, you can even conference call and speak to multiple people, but if you haven’t opened the line, you don’t hear anyone. It’s a similar concept except without technology having to be involved,” Jordan says.
“I guess that makes sense,” she says, looking at Dr. Teresa.
“So, you can talk to Jace?” she looks at me, frowning. “Or is it Beta Jace?”
“Beta Jace,” Jordan tells her. “That’s his proper title and is a respectful way to address him.”
She turns back to Dr. Teresa. “So, you can mind link Beta Jace?” she asks again.
Dr. Teresa takes a piece of paper and pen and writes something putting it in front of Gianna.
‘Say “Sally sells seashells by the seashore”,’ Dr. Teresa says in my head. “Seriously, you couldn’t have thought of something easier for me to say?” I ask out loud, irritated. I see Dr. Teresa’s l*ips twitching and Jordan leans over to see what is written, snickering.
Gianna raises an eyebrow and watches me.
I press my l*ips together and then try. “Sally shells she….”
I growl, starting again, noticing that now Jordan’s l*ips are twitching.
“Shally, sells….s*hit!”
Now Gianna’s l*ips are twitching. “Some lady wants to sell s*hit at the beach, okay?” I say frustrated. Teresa did that on purpose.
Jordan looks at me. “Thanks, Jace. You can go now. We just needed Gianna to understand that I was telling her the truth. But Dr. Teresa needs to examine her and I’m sure neither of you wants you in here for that.”
“Talk to you later,” I say, waving and heading out.
I jog back to Victor’s office, closing the door. Elijah is gone but that’s okay, it will ultimately be up to me and Victor to run any interference for Jordan.
“Well?” he asks me.
“Jordan told her.”
He blows out his breath. “Okay, what do we need to do to be prepared?”
“Let’s start by looking over the patrols. Who is going to gathering this weekend?
Those are the ones that are most likely to leave us, even if it’s short-term.”
Victor pulls the papers around on his desk then gets on his computer. “So, we had about sixty warriors in all come to us about the gathering,” he begins.
Now it’s my turn to blow out my breath. That’s nearly a quarter of our pack, not including any mates and pups that might go with them for us to lose. We could go from being one of the largest packs to one of the smallest almost overnight.
“However, not all of them are interested in leaving permanently. Most of them, closer to forty or more, just want to help.”
I sit back. “Really? And of those twenty or so that want to leave, how many aren’t close friends with Jordan’s siblings?” I ask.
Victor smiles. “Less than half.”
“So, less than half of our people are interested in leaving permanently, not including the Beta Trials which I understand. Who doesn’t want a chance to increase their rank?” I ask and Victor raises his h*and.
“I’m happy right where I’m at,” he says.
“Good because I intend to get Jordan to accept me as her mate, so the position is yours.”
“Good!”
“I will say, we do have several she-wolves that are going to the event to talk to Alpha Taylor. Since she has a Beta and Gamma position open, they are hoping she will be amenable to female leadership,” he says.
“I’m sure she will,” I say just as a mind link comes through from the patrols.
‘Beta Jace, I wanted to let you know that Carter has come back across the borders safely,’ Charlie tells me.
‘Where was he?’ I ask frowning. “What?” Victor m*ouths to me.
‘He was out looking for the rogue trails? I assumed that it was you that sent him out there?’
I look at Victor. “Do you know anything about Carter going out past the borders to look for rogue trails?”
“No, why would he do that?”
“A good question.”
‘Charlie, how long was he gone?’ I ask. ‘Only about an hour, Beta. Should I stop him next time?’
‘No but let me know if he crosses the borders again.’ ‘Yes, sir.’
I look back at Victor. “There’s no way Jordan would have sent him. She doesn’t trust him and now he’s given us even less reason to trust him.”
I stand, knowing what I have to do. “Where are you going?” Victor asks, standing as well.
“I have to go tell Elijah that I think his son is betraying the pack,” I say.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, stay here and continue working on the patrols. You’re doing great work there.”
He smiles a truly Victor smile. “Thanks bro, I mean Beta.”
“I’ll always be your bro,” I say, walking out of his office.
I want to talk to Elijah before I tell Jordan. I want him to have a chance to confront his son or give me any possible reason why his son is off pack lands looking for rogue trails.
As I head toward Elijah’s new home, my phone rings. I glance at the caller ID and see that it’s my father.
“Hey Dad, what’s up?”
“Hey son. I need you to get Alpha Jordan and get to a private room. I’m going to send you a video link and when you’re together, call me back. We found something and we need to show you.”
I turn, heading toward the pack hospital. “Can’t you just tell me what it is?”
“Not yet. I’d rather show you and have the conversation once. You’d better bring Victor into the meeting as well.”
“Okay, I’ll call you when we’re ready. Give me about 20 minutes.”
“Talk soon,” he says and disconnects.
As I walk into the pack hospital, I mind link Jordan.
‘Hey, how’s it going?’
‘Good, what are you doing back here?’ she asks, picking up on my closer proximity.
‘Dad called. He needs a private meeting with you, me and Victor right now.’ ‘What’s it about?’
‘Not sure. He wanted to tell us all together,’ I say, and I can hear her telling Gianna that she has to take a call and will be back to check on her soon.
When she walks out, she spots me and walks over. I turn, falling into step beside her as we make our way back to the packhouse.
“He said he wants to speak to all three of us?” she asks.
“On video,” I confirm.
“Well, s*hit. The good news just keeps coming. Have you heard from the council yet?”
“No,” I say as we walk into the packhouse.
“My office,” Jordan says, and I mind link Victor to join us.
When we get to Jordan’s office, I log into her computer and pull up my email with the video link. I’ve just pressed connect when Victor comes in. He closes the door and looks between me and Jordan.
“Did you already talk to Elijah?” he asks. “Not yet, this came up as I was on my way over there.”
“Talk to Elijah about what?” Jordan asks, just as my father connects on his end. “Hey, Jace. Do you have Alpha Jordan and Victor with you?”
I turn the computer and move to the other side of the desk so we can all see the video monitor.
“Hey Balor, hey Dr. Braxton,” Jordan says. “Hey, Little Alpha,” Balor says, making me grit my teeth.
“Hello, Alpha Jordan, thank you for meeting with us on such short notice, but we all think this is very important information.”
“Okay, well, I’m here, what’s this about? If it’s about the human, and it could endanger my pack, I need you to just tell me straight,” she says.
“Well, we think it’s about the human, or one of them, but we’re not yet sure how it may impact the pack, or even what the purpose is,” Dr. Braxton says.
“Cut to the chase,” I bark, I can feel Jordan getting more and more anxious as Dr. Braxton talks and he has a tendency to take his time.
He pushes his glasses up on his nose and looks at someone behind the camera, nodding. The camera shifts and instead of the group around the table, we see a n*ecklace sitting on top of a table across the room.
“Can you see that?” Balor asks. “The n*ecklace, yes. What is it? Do you think it belongs to one of the humans?”
“Yes, we do,” my father says.
“Well, that’s good. Maybe it can help us identify one of the other humans if it’s not Gianna’s, right.”
“Yes…that’s true,” Dr. Braxton says slowly, and the camera turns back to him. “What aren’t you telling us?” I growl.
My dad comes around the table, in front of the camera. He looks at Balor who nods, then back at us.
“The n*ecklace must be some sort of amulet. An amulet that suppresses our shifters. Balor found it first. As soon as his nose t*ouched it, he was forced to shift back into his human form. It took him another 15 minutes to shift back. When I t*ouched it, the same thing happened, but it took me nearly an hour to shift back. We could assume that it’s because I’m not a bear and I’m smaller than Balor that my wolf took longer to return, however, Dr. Braxton doesn’t think so,” my father says and turns to Dr. Braxton.
“I think this n*ecklace has been used for the sole purpose of suppressing a wolf. I won’t let Kyra near it, which is why she isn’t in this room. Even being in here with it, Gamma Luke and I can feel the effects, while Balor is unphased. Again, it could be because of his size, but I think it has more to do with him being a different type of shifter.”
“What are you saying? Why would someone have an amulet that suppresses their wolf?” Victor asks and I’ m pretty sure it’s the same question that Jordan and I are asking ourselves. “That’s what we need to find out. Jace, I’ m sending you a photo of the n*ecklace. We want you to ask Gianna if she has ever seen this before. Maybe it was on one of the other humans, maybe the rogues are using it, we don’t know. But we’re hoping to get some information and get it fast,” my father says.
“When you talk to her, we need any information she has right away. I have to go to the council with this, and I want something to tell them,” Dr. Braxton says.
My phone pings with the incoming picture, and Jordan and I stand up.
“We’ll go ask her now. We’ll call you once we’ve talked with her,” Jordan tells them and we walk out, letting Victor disconnect the call.
“What the f*uck, Jordan. Have you ever heard of anything like this?”
“No, never. This is scary, Jace. Can you image losing your wolf? I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself if I wasn’t an Alpha in a pack,” she says.
I take her h*and. “Let’s see what Gianna knows first. We’ll have plenty of time to panic later.”
We walk into the pack hospital and knock on the door to Gianna’s room. “Come in,” she says, and Jordan pokes her head in before opening the door wider.
Dr. Teresa is gone, and Gianna is tucked up in the hospital bed, watching television.
“Hey, that was fast,” she says, smiling at Jordan.
“Gianna, we have something we need to show you and we’re hoping you can help us identify it. They found it when they were searching for the other humans and it may be a way to identify one of them,” Jordan tells her.
“Sure, what is it?” she asks.
I pull up the picture my father sent me and turn the phone to Gianna.
She looks at it a moment and a smile spread across her face.
“Oh, thank goodness, you found my n*ecklace!”