Alpha Gray by C.J. Primer

CHAPTER  TWENTY-SEVEN

Gray

“Well, what’s the word?” Theo asks as I approach him and the other guys in the arena the next morning. I asked them to meet me here a little early so we could discuss what happened last night and make sure they’re okay with reinstating Fallon. I have a feeling Brock’s going to push back, so I’m already bracing myself for the worst.

“Good morning to you, too,” I grumble, settling my hands on my hips. My eyes are heavy from lack of sleep- I was tossing and turning all night, regretting how things ended with Fallon and dreading this conversation. “I assume you all know what I want to talk about,” I say, looking around at Jax, Brock, Reid, and Theo.

Jax cracks a smile. “Yeah, we figured it was about what your girl did last night.”

I sigh, staring at the ground and kicking at the dirt. “Yeah.”

I wish the fight between Hannah and Fallon hadn’t happened, and I wish even more that it wasn’t over me. The whole situation just sucks.

“You gonna let her stay?” Brock asks, and I lift my gaze to meet his.

“Yeah.”

I brace myself for Brock’s retort, but it doesn’t come. He just nods, and I look suspiciously from him to the others. “Are you guys okay with that?”

Theo claps me on the shoulder. “Yeah, man. Of course we are.”

I arch a brow and look at all four guys skeptically. “Okay, what’d I miss?”

Jax smirks. “We already talked about it. If you want her to stay, we’re good with it.”

“She’s a hell of a fighter,” Reid adds. “It’d be a shame for the squad to lose her over a catfight with another recruit.”

I’m blown away by how cool they’re all being about this and I’m immediately suspicious that there’s some underlying motive or something. Weren’t they just giving me the third degree about hooking up with Fallon a few days ago?

“Brock?” I ask, looking to him.

He shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Look, dude, I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get involved with a recruit… but the girl’s got guts. When she stumbled upon that rogue the other night, she kept her cool. She impressed me. I think she’s got what it takes to make the squad, and we’d be lucky to have her. She should be punished for what she did last night, but I don’t think we have to send her home over it.”

I’m shocked at what I’m hearing. It takes a lot for someone as stubborn as Brock to change his mind, but then again, Fallon has that effect on people. She’s incredible. I guess the other guys are starting to see that, too.

Theo throws an arm over my shoulders. “You also proved that you still put the squad first when you kicked her out last night in front of everyone.”

“Yeah, man, that was ice cold,” Jax laughs.

I crack a smile and shake my head, and we all chuckle.

Brock speaks up again. “I’m not going to tell you what you can or can’t do on your own time, man. Sorry I was such a dick about it before. As long as you can still run the squad, we’re good.”

He extends a hand to me and I take it, wrapping my fingers with his. We pull together and slap each other’s backs in a bro-hug.

I’m seriously stunned at how supportive these guys are being, but I’m grateful for it. Even though I’ve already ended things with Fallon, it feels good to know that they have my back. What the five of us have feels like a true brotherhood. We disagree, we fight, but we always come back together.

“Well,” I sigh, “it won’t be an issue going forward, anyways. I broke things off with her last night.”

“Say whaaat?” Jax arches a brow, drawing out the last syllable.

“Yeah.” I stare at the ground again, frowning. “It’s just pulling both of our focus away from the things that matter.” I swallow hard, looking back up to my friends. “It’s for the best, really.”

Even as I say the words, I don’t believe them. I know the right thing to do is to cut things off, but now that I’ve had a taste of Fallon, I don’t know how I’m going to manage staying away from her. It’s going to be fucking torture.

“I don’t know, bro,” Theo says, nudging me with his elbow. “I was starting to think she was a good influence on you. You’ve been different lately, less of a dick.” He smirks, and I deliver a playful jab to his arm.

“It’s better this way,” I grumble. “Just promise me that you guys will be fair when you evaluate her for partners, cuts, and rankings. Don’t let all this shit influence it.”

I knew before that Fallon wanted to make the squad- I mean, you don’t show up to training camp and go through six weeks of hell unless you really want it- but last night, I could finally see how much she needs this. It’s not just an option for her, it’s everything. I know that kind of passion because I feel the same way about the squad. The last thing I want to do is screw up her chances.

“For sure,” Reid quips.  “Don’t even worry about that, man.”

I nod and mumble my thanks just as the door to the barracks opens and the recruits start to spill out onto the practice field. I’ve already explained myself to the other alphas, but now I’ve got to figure out what the hell to say to these recruits about Fallon staying.

They circle up quickly and Brock, Jax, Reid, and Theo look to me to deliver the news.

“Good morning, recruits,” I say in my typical greeting. I quickly find Fallon in the crowd, but she doesn’t look at me, just stares at the ground. My wolf whines at the sight of her, still mourning his loss.

“So first things first, we need to address what happened last night,” I say. I don’t owe them a full explanation of everything that went down, but I can certainly pull a Brock and use this as a lesson. “First of all, I want you to understand that infighting amongst the squad is never tolerated. We’re a team here, a family, and we should resolve our problems with words, not fists or our wolves.”

The recruits nod in understanding and a few of them shoot sideways glances toward Fallon. She’s still staring at the ground.

“That said, we’ve come to a decision that the offending recruit will be permitted to stay at training camp.”

Some of the trainees look surprised, and several comment to one another in low whispers. Hannah looks absolutely livid. I hold up a hand to quiet them.

“She’s assured me it won’t ever happen again, but while you all practice this morning, she’s going to be running suicides as penance.”

That gets her attention. Fallon snaps her head to look up at me, the silver of her wolf swirling behind her eyes. She doesn’t hold my gaze, though- she quickly looks away, which fucking kills me.

“Alright!” I clap my hands together. “Warm-up laps, let’s get to it.”

The recruits jog off, and I can’t help but watch Fallon’s ass in her cute little shorts as they do. I wish I could make things right with her somehow. It feels like she’s running away with a little piece of my soul, a side of me that I didn’t even know existed.

Her words last night come back to me, playing over and over in my mind. ‘It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted, until you’.

Even though they were her words, I feel them so intimately, like they could be my own.

Fallon

My legs are like jelly after running suicides all morning. Even though I know I deserved it, it was a particularly cruel and unusual punishment.  When the afternoon session rolls around, I’m glad to join back in with the other recruits. I’m itchy with anticipation at what the alphas have in store for us when they return to the field with the whiteboard and call us over.

“We’re gonna switch things up this week,” Reid announces.

I crane my neck to see the whiteboard behind him, and it looks like a sports bracket is drawn on it. No names have been added yet, but there are lines going down each side of the board in columns, reducing each step until two remain in the center.

“We’re going to have a little tournament. You’ll go head to head, single elimination, until we have one last matchup. A main event.”

The excitement that rises among the recruits is palpable. We start looking to one another, grinning, eager to get started. We’ve all enjoyed sparring with each other during training, but there wasn’t much at stake. Now that there’s an actual challenge set up for us and the stakes have been raised, we’re fucking stoked.

Reid clears his throat to get our attention again and the chatter amongst our group dies down. “We’ll do these in the indoor arena, and you’ll have eight minutes to give it all you’ve got. The five of us will decide the winner, and the winner will be moving on to the next round. You’ll all get to observe the matchups, so hopefully when you’re not in the arena fighting, you can pick up some things from your fellow recruits.”

He throws a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the whiteboard. “We’ll draw names at random for the first matchups and whittle things down from there based on performance.”

I nod enthusiastically. I’m actually glad they’re drawing the matchups at random rather than just throwing us in with our partners. I mean, I know I’m good, but Judd’s an intimidating opponent.

“Oh- and one more thing,” Reid adds, grinning mischievously. “We’ve already seen you fight in human form, so in this tournament, you’ll be fighting as wolves.”

I hear Vienna draw a gasp beside me and I just chuckle to myself. I’m practically giddy- I know I’m a good fighter on two legs, but I’m even better on four. With my place in the squad being recently called into question, this tournament couldn’t have come at a better time.

Reid shrugs in response to the sounds of astonishment coming from our group. “You’ve gotta learn to fight both ways, right? Why not mix it up.”

It’s smart, really. We’ve all been watching each other for weeks on the field, so we’ve got a loose idea of what everyone can do, what their best moves and tactics are. None of us have squared off as wolves, so it’ll be a totally clean slate- we won’t know what kind of skill level we’re up against and anything can happen.

“Crap!” Vienna whispers, and I turn to look at her. Her eyes are thrown wide.

I nudge her side to get her attention and raise my brow in question.

Vienna shakes her head, looking discouraged. “I’m not very good as a wolf,” she mutters quietly. “Haven’t had a lot of practice. And my wolf’s so small…”

“Aw, you’ll be fine,” I breathe, offering a reassuring smile. “You don’t even know who you’re up against yet! Just stay confident, you’ve got this, girl.”

She forces a small smile, but she still looks anxious.

“Now for the matchups!” Theo barks, stepping forward with what looks like a shoebox. He reaches inside and pulls out two slips of paper, handing them to Jax.

Jax unfolds each one, reading them. “Connor and Shay!” he announces. Brock goes over to the whiteboard with a dry-erase marker and adds their names to the first two lines.

The process repeats and Brock fills in more and more names on the bracket. Davis got drawn to go up against Judd- that matchup is going to be a doozy. They’re two of the biggest guys and their skill levels are pretty similar, so it’ll be an exciting one to watch.

They’re about halfway through assigning the matchups when I hear my name called.

“Fallon and Vienna!” Jax announces.

My heart sinks. I glance sideways at Vienna, who looks like she could be knocked over by a feather.

Crap. Anyone but Vienna! I was really looking forward to this tournament- but being pit against Vienna has definitely taken the wind out of my sails. I’m at war with wanting to give it everything I have and not wanting to take out my own friend.

I just stare blankly as Brock fills in our names on the bracket.

The rest of the matchups get assigned and we all head into the indoor arena for the first round of the tournament. Since Vienna and I are in the latter half, we won’t be squaring off until tomorrow afternoon, but I don’t know if that’s better or worse. I think it may have been better to just get it out of the way today rather than prolonging the inevitable. Either way, it just sucks.

Connor and Shay are up first. The rest of us amble up onto the bleachers on the back wall of the arena, eager to watch the first matchup and get an idea of how this is all going to go down. The alphas position themselves around the perimeter and Connor and Shay go to opposite ends of the arena, shucking their clothes and shifting.

Gray calls out for the match to begin and I actually allow myself to look over at him. I regret it as soon as I do, because his eyes fly to meet mine, drawn like a magnet. I feel a stab of pain in the pit of my stomach when our gazes connect and look away quickly.

I don’t really have any experience when it comes to guys, but I didn’t expect it to hurt this much when things ended with one. Maybe it’s because it was so abrupt, and I still have to see him every day. Losing him shouldn’t affect me as much as it does, because I didn’t lose Gray, not really.

He was never mine in the first place. You can’t lose something you never had.