The Claiming by Cooper

The Claiming by Cooper Book 4

The Beta Trials by Cooper (Jace & Jordan)

Chapter 03 (Nolan)

Fitness Fun in the Park

"She's not here, Nolan. I have no idea when she'll return. I'll leave her a message letting her know you stopped by," Jace says, moving papers around on his desk.

When I don't leave, he looks up. "Don't let the door hit you on your way out."

"Where is she?" I ask ignoring him. "I need to speak with her."

"She's visiting family, Nolan. If she wanted to talk with you, I'm sure she would have picked up the phone."

I shouldn't let his snarkiness bother me, but his comment hits home. I've been calling Jordan for the last couple of days, and she hasn't answered. But this isn't about my pride, this is about her safety. "What about Alpha Mason, is he around?" I ask.

Jace's eyes narrow on me. "What is this about?"

I ignore him. "Do you know which pack she's at?"

"No. I'm her Gamma, Nolan, she's the Alpha. I tell her where I'm going, not the other way around. If this is something that impacts the pack, you need to tell me," he says.

"Is she answering your calls?" I ask him.

"Yes," he says, in a much less snarky tone. He reaches for the phone, putting it on speaker and dialing Jordan. I close the door behind me.

"I'm nearly home, Jace, can it wait?" Jordan answers. I'm glad to hear she doesn't want to talk to him either. "Nolan's here," he says, and I hear her sigh.

"Just have him wait in my office. Don't get into it again with him, Jace, please," she says, and I raise my eyebrow at him. Obviously, our animosity toward each other is affecting her. Maybe that's why she left. "How far out are you, Jordan? What I need to discuss is important," I say. "Oh, Nolan. I didn't realize I was on speakerphone."

Of course, she didn't. She would never have said that to her Gamma if she had. Gamma AND potential mate since he still hasn't accepted her rejection. "I'm less than an hour away, Nolan. Why don't you get something to eat and by the time you're done, I'll be there," she says.

"Have you eaten, Jordan?" I ask her. I know Jace thinks that all I do is take Jordan on dates, but he obviously hasn't noticed that unless she's made to eat, she skips meals all the time.

I hear her snort. "No."

"Then I'll wait for you. See you soon."

"Okay, see you soon," she says before disconnecting.

"I'll go wait in her office," I tell Jace who is watching me intently now.

Forty-five minutes later, Jordan comes blowing into her office, her hair is all over the place as if she was driving with the windows down.

"Hey beautiful," I say, standing to greet her.

"Hey, Nolan. I'm so sorry to keep you waiting," she says, coming over to hug me.

"You didn't know I was coming Jordan, why would you apologize?"

"Habit?" she says, dropping her bag and coming to sit beside me. She's got the smell of the wilderness on her.

"I thought we agreed that you were going to stop apologizing for things that aren't your fault." I say.

She gives me a look. "I'm working on it."

"Did you see all of your siblings?" I ask her, changing the subject.

She smiles. "I did, it was great to see them. They are all so excited and in various stages of cleaning up their packs. Evangeline looks like she's about ready to pop. They'll be coming back here in another week or so for her to have her baby. I'm excited since I'll get to meet my nephew right away."

"That's great. I know you miss your brother," I say, since it's something we've talked about.

"I do," she says, just as there's a knock at the door. I can smell the food even with the door closed, and I hear Jordan's stomach growl making me wonder how long it's been since she's eaten.

"You ordered food, thank you. I'm starving!" she says. She starts to get up and I shoo her back down, going to open the door and letting the omega bring in the cart of food.

"Thank you," I say to her, taking the cart from her. "I've got it from here."

"Welcome home, Alpha," the girls says to Jordan.

"Thank you, Alicia. Did everything go okay while I was away?" she asks. "Sure did."

"Good."

I close the door and push the cart over to Jordan.

"Let's move to the table where we'll have room to spread out," she says, going to the table and helping me carry the food plates over.

"Smells like grilled cheese, tomato soup and rotisserie chicken," she says, sniffing the covered plate before pulling the lid off.

"Excellent sense of smell, as always, Jordan."

As we sit, she looks up at me. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Nolan? I thought you were out training bear shifters or something crazy like that," she says.

The question slips out without me meaning to ask. "Is it a pleasure, Jordan?"

She stops with the sandwich halfway to her mouth and sets it down. "I'm sorry I haven't been answering your calls, Nolan. I needed to get away."

I shake my head. "No, I apologize. I wasn't going to say anything about that. You have your reasons and I think after hearing you on the phone earlier, I may have an idea of what those are."

She reaches out, touching my hand, about to say something.

"And that's not why I'm here anyway, Jordan. I came here to warn you."

She sits back, frowning at me. "Warn me about what?"

"Eat while we talk," I say.

I wait until she takes a bite of food before continuing.

"As you mentioned, I was deep in the woods with the bear shifters. They have a community of sorts out in the wilderness away from humans. Not that it's a community like what we have as wolves, but it is for them."

She nods, watching me as she chews. "There have been some rumblings about rogue wolves being out in the wilderness for a while now," I tell her. "Rogue wolves? We haven't had rogues in forever. I don't know of anyone that has banished a pack member since.... well, ever."

"Not your generation, Jordan. These would be the children of the people your parents and the other packs at the time banished."

She frowns, looking at me. "The only pack members that were banished back then were those that were low level criminals."

"No, those aren't the only ones. Some packs banished those with feral fever or those that came back in the claiming haze, ones that never were able to get back to being normal."

"But they all died. They couldn't live alone, and even if they did, they would have gone crazy by now. Surely, they are all dead." she says.

"That's what everyone thought. But the bears say that isn't the case. It used to be sporadic, a wolf here and there. Sometimes they would hear the sounds of screams or a baby's cry. They even told me about finding human females that had been ripped apart. But now, they've started to see an increasing number of wolves, angry, violent wolves, in the last month."

"The last....month?" she asks, and I watch as she realizes what I'm saying to her.

"You think that these wolves, these descendants of the ones who were criminals, had feral fever, and maybe some with the claiming haze, were living in the pack lands that were vacant but now that they are being taken over..."

"Now, they are displaced with nowhere to go."

"How many are we talking about?" she asks.

"According to the bears, enough that they have more than one pack. It's why the bears asked me to come train them. Bears have started to go missed or are showing up dead, torn to shreds, their bodies eaten."

"The wolves are attacking the bears?" she asks, incredulous.

"And not just that, Jordan. The leader of the bear clan told me that he's heard rumors that the Alpha of one of those packs is coming for the Alpha female wolf so he can take over her pack and reclaim his right as a true Alpha."