Alpha Battle (Isle of Paradise)

by Marquaylla Lorette

  Jadelyn didn’t say anything, all her thoughts were jumbled in her mind. She had a feeling the same person who hijacked their letters had something to do with their mothers’ deaths and for some reason, wanted to keep them apart.

  Eli didn’t want to push Jadelyn too far since it was a miracle in itself she left with him. He put the bag into the huge saddlebag on the side of the motorcycle before helping Jadelyn onto the bike. She scooted as far back as she could to give him enough room to get on the bike comfortably.

  “Jae, there is a green and silver helmet in the other saddlebag if you would like to wear one,” Eli nervously said. This was the first time he spoke to Jadelyn in forever, and he didn’t want to screw it up.

  Jadelyn shook her head no to answer him. She felt if she opened her mouth now all her emotions would pour out before she was ready for them to. She took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to control her thoughts enough to speak.

  “Um, let’s go to the place where we used to talk when we were younger. I think there are a few things we need to go over before we head to our secret location,” Jadelyn stumbled out.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Eli said as he pulled away toward their special place to talk.

  Chapter Four

  Ace and Chelsea sat at the table holding their breaths until they heard the door close behind Jadelyn and Eli. Neither of them thought Jadelyn would go. They both were waiting for her to call it off.

  “I thought for sure she wasn’t going to go,” Ace said as he admired Chelsea’s golden-brown wavy hair, rosy pale skin, and deep set light-brown eyes, between bites of his breakfast.

  “Yeah, I thought so, too, but Jadelyn thinks whoever it was taking their letters may also be responsible for their mothers’ deaths. She wants to ask him if he thinks the same thing, and to talk over their problems before the battle tomorrow tonight,” Chelsea said as she marveled at his light olive skin tone, dark-brown hair, and hazel hooded eyes.

  “Jadelyn needs to get it all out before the battle, or else it will distract her during the battle,” Ace said, which surprised Chelsea by his logic. He usually said the first thing that popped into his mind before he thought them through. Chelsea, on the other hand, was the one who thought everything out before she acted. In that sense, they balanced each other out.

  “Okay, enough about them. I have confidence they will sort out their problems. So let’s sort out ours. I need a shower and so do you. So I was thinking we should do something to help save on the water bill,” Chelsea said as she headed out the kitchen door and ran up the stairs straight to their bathroom.

  Ace sat at the table for moment, digesting what Chelsea said until he got the underlying meaning. Without a second thought, he left the kitchen for the shower where they had done a lot more than just wash each other, they stayed until the water ran cold.

  ***

  Jadelyn wrapped her arms around Eli tighter when he patted her hands to let her know he was about to jump the curb. He jumped the curb and pulled along the dirt path that led to a secluded wooded area. Eli drove down the path for two minutes until the park finally came into view. He parked a few feet away from the swings and helped Jadelyn off.

  The park was in the middle of the wooded area with trees surrounding it, a pair of swings, a blue slide, with the paint chipping away, and a bench area.

  As Jadelyn and Eli walked toward the swing set in the park, Jadelyn dropped to her knees onto the ground. A shocking growl escaped through her lips as her she-wolf began to growl inside of her and tried to force her way out. She wanted to mate with Eli, now. Jadelyn was in shock! She never felt her wolf try to claw to the surface.

  Eli was worried. He was on high alert since he learned what had happened to his father over the years, not to mention the mysterious death of their mothers. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Eli asked Jadelyn in a worried tone as he bent down so he could be eye level with her.

  When Jadelyn tried to answer, an earth-shattering growl escaped her. ‘Mate now!’ Her wolf growled so loud it escaped through Jadelyn’s lips. “No, I have never felt anything like this, and I don’t know how to stop it. My wolf wants us to mate right now, and I can’t seem to stop her from trying to get out. What should I do?” Jadelyn said as her hands and teeth began to shift into claws and sharp canines.

  Eli knew what she meant. He was having a hard time controlling his own wolf. He knew Jadelyn’s wolf was more powerful than his wolf since she had never shifted to run off some of her power. “You have to touch me so your wolf will calm down.”

  As they touched, warmth spread through each of their bodies; neither of them had felt anything like it before, and a new awareness was there as well. It felt as though the years they spent apart never happened, until the unanswered questions floating in Jadelyn’s head came to the front of her mind. They continued on their way to the swings when Jadelyn’s wolf was calm enough.

  While they were on the swings holding hands to please their wolves, Jadelyn turned toward Eli and said, “So my father told me there was something wrong with your dad, and he was in the secured hospital. What happened?”

  “It all started a few years ago with a few coughs and shortness of breath. I thought it was a cold like the humans got since we were living on their lands. I decided to take him to the hospital as it became worse, but the human doctors could never figure it out. A few days ago, he couldn’t get out of bed, so I decided it was time to bring him back here for help, no matter what Ella said anymore. When we arrived here, I learned a witch had poisoned him over the last eighteen years. You know, when I learned what happened to him, all I wished was that you were there with me,” Eli answered while he took in everything about Jadelyn. She looked so different in his eye, yet the same, and it confused him. Jadelyn was so reserved now; it was as if she waited for him to pass judgment on her. When they were younger, she was an outgoing daredevil in her own right. One who jumped in head first without thinking about the consequences or what others thought about her. He remembered when they were younger her smile would light up her eyes, which caused everyone around her to smile, or when she got this look in her eyes that let everyone know she thought about doing something incredibly dangerous and stupid but totally fun. It suddenly clicked in his head that what he saw now in her eyes was a look of wanting to do something dangerous and fun. Eli knew his Jadelyn was still in there and the fleeting look he caught just proved it. He was going to bring his fun loving, dangerous, and not-caring-what-others-thought-about-her Jadelyn back if it was the last thing he did.

  “He will be okay. You guys are here now, and you know my father will do everything in his power to make sure your father gets better.”

  “I know, just being next to you helps ease the burden of what is going on with my father,” Eli said as he pushed a lone hair out of her face.

  “Eli, you never really got my letters… And why didn’t you come back when you said you would?” Jadelyn asked. She had to know because in the back of her mind, she still thought maybe he didn’t come around because of her latency.

  “No, I never got any of your letters, and all of mine always came back to me unopened. I wondered what happened to them and who would want our letters? I didn’t return because Ella wouldn’t let my father come to the Isle of Paradise, and I wasn’t going to leave him alone with her. I hope you understand since something about Ella seems different, and I didn’t want to chance it,” Eli said as he turned to look at the ducks that played on the slide a few feet away from them.

  Jadelyn did understand. She would have done the same thing for her father. “I don’t know, Eli, but I am starting to think that maybe whoever was poisoning you father withheld our letters from each other, and we will have to figure out why.”

  Eli wanted them to have a good time before they started going over the scenarios of what happened. He got off his swing and then pulled Jadelyn off hers.

  “How about we go have fun for a little while and forget about all this until after
the battle tomorrow night.” Eli still held Jadelyn up by either side of her coat. His wolf tried crashing into his mental barriers to get out. Eli, nor his wolf, could take it anymore. He pulled Jadelyn closer to him, bent his head down, and crashed his lips to hers in a searing kiss. The kiss didn’t start out slow as he had planned. This kiss started out as he meant to go in this relationship with Jadelyn, holding nothing back. As they kissed, the world around them disappeared and all that was there was a bright light. Their wolves howled in content as the kiss grew deeper. Eli broke the kiss so they both could catch their breaths. When Jadelyn grabbed his hand, a spark sizzled in the palm of their hands and traveled through their bodies. This continued as they walked to the motorcycle and climbed on.

  ***

  They pulled up to their hiding spot; it was just as they left it seventeen years ago except for one thing, the floating table and chairs in the middle of the field. They were on top of a small cliff that was five feet above a small waterfall and pool. Bright green grass covered the cliff with silver roses, green daisies, and turquoise tulips, and in the center of the cliff grew the tree they planted almost twenty years ago. Jadelyn noticed the tree had grown at least five feet since the last time they had been there, and it now had something carved into it. As she walked closer, the carving became clear to her. Carved into the tree with a heart around it and the infinity sign underneath it was “Jadelyn and Eli.”

  While Jadelyn investigated the tree, Eli had grabbed the food and wine out of her bag and was now setting up the table. By the time she turned around, everything was ready to eat, and she was starving since she skipped breakfast. When she finally made it to the table, Eli lowered his right hand and the chair on the right followed his command until it was close enough to the ground for Jadelyn to sit on. “Hold the sides of the chair until I finish lifting you up.”

  Jadelyn grabbed the sides of the chair as he raised her up. She was surprised with what she saw at the table since Chelsea woke up right before her. Jadelyn didn’t think Chelsea could make all of this in the short time she had, but somehow she did. Looking over at Eli, she noticed he was so tall he didn’t have to lower the chair for himself. On their plates in front of them were baked eggs in bread bowls, with a peaches and cream breakfast cake, and white wine in their wine glasses.

  With the force of their wolves trying to shift, Eli and Jadelyn had to eat with one hand while they held each other’s free hand so they wouldn’t be knocked to the ground. Jadelyn’s now active she-wolf kept screaming out ‘my mate’ and ‘mate now’ in her head as she tried to get to Eli. It was hard for her to deal with her wolf, so she gripped Eli’s hand tighter.

  Eli knew why Jadelyn was tightening the hold she had on his hand since he was going through the same thing with his wolf.

  They decided to take their wine to the edge of the cliff after they were finished eating. They dangled their feet off the edge of the cliff as they sipped their wine and watched the peaceful looking waterfall. “So you really thought I was not writing you back?” Eli turned to Jadelyn and chuckled as he asked her then took the last sip of his wine.

  “Shut up, jerk. As I recall, you thought the same thing about me,” Jadelyn said as she playfully punched him in the shoulder. She noticed as the look on his face became serious.

  “We need to find out who was intercepting our letters and why they wanted us to believe we never wrote each other. We also have to find out what really happened to our mothers, but we have to find the time in between the Alpha Battle schedule so we will not alert anyone else to what we are doing.

  “We have to win all of our battles tomorrow night, that way we won’t have to battle again until next week. There will be three battles. If we only lose one out of the three battles, we will still have a chance the next night. The first battle we will be on our own. You fight once alone and I fight once alone, and then we fight as a couple. Whoever wins two out of three battles will battle against each other the following night until they find a winner. We will only have to battle for the title against the person who won the losing battle the following week if we win all three battles in the first round. So we have to win all three of our battles.

  “We can also bring Chelsea and Ace along for backup and a cover story,” Jadelyn said as they sat there in silence trying to figure out who would do something like that. When Eli noticed the look on Jadelyn’s face, he realized it was time to take her mind off everything by having a little fun.

  “Come on, time to jump off the cliff and into the water,” Eli urged trying to get her to have fun just for a little while.

  It felt as though they were kids again. They both stood up and stripped down to their swimwear. As they walked back to the edge of the cliff, they grabbed each other’s hands because their wolves began pushing against their barriers in their minds. They both closed their eyes and after Eli counted to three, jumped into the water; it was something they did when they were younger to make the jump seem higher than it actually was. The adrenaline rush from the free fall off the cliff rushed through their bodies until they hit the water, and the coolness of the water calmed them back down. Jadelyn came up to the surface first and pushed Eli back under as he took a breath of air. Using the momentum, he grabbed her by the legs, pulling her under with him, and then pushed her to the surface and tossed her three feet behind him before he rose up to the surface. Jadelyn swam under the surface toward him. Once she was close enough, she grabbed his feet and pulled him under the water with her. As they separated in the water, they once again were assaulted on the inside by their wolves. He turned around and kissed her deeply while under the water, until they had no choice but to come up for air. Jadelyn’s wolf took control a little and wrapped her legs around him as he pushed her now wet hair out of her face and kissed her once more.

  They opened their eyes when they hit the ground and tumbled apart. They both laughed as Eli said, “I haven’t done that in years, remember when I used to teleport us to the weirdest places. Can you just imagine if we had ended up somewhere else besides the cliff?” Within the blink of an eye, Jadelyn had jumped onto Eli as he was sitting up and pinned him to the ground.

  “Looks like it’s my point now,” she laughed as she pinned both arms on either side of him.

  “I think it looks like you spoke to soon,” he said with a smile on his face as he rolled over on top of her and gained the upper hand.

  ‘Mate now.’ Both their wolves growled loud enough to shake the ground.

  He caressed the left side of her face as he leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips until she let him in. As they began to explore each other’s mouths, Jadelyn wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a deeper kiss. She moaned as their tongues began to fight for control over the other. The deeper the kiss, the more cream she felt between her thighs. She never felt anything like it and began to want as much as Eli would give her.

  Eli groaned as he caressed her body. He needed more skin-to-skin contact, so he ran his hand up her body until he reached the strings of her bathing suit and pulled. The top of her bathing suit fell open and his hands and mouth immediately zeroed in on her perfectly round D cup breasts.

  “Your tits are perfect,” he said as he sucked her nipple into his mouth. He felt his cock grow harder as her nipple pebbled against his tongue. After switching to the other nipple, he knew he had to free his cock soon or suffer through the consequences.

  “Hold on, baby,” he said as he sat up to take his swim trunks off. Before he lay back down on top of her, he pulled both the left and right strings of her bikini bottom loose. Jadelyn spread her legs just enough for him to lie in between them comfortably. Eli leaned down, stopping inches from her face, and just stared in awe at how beautiful she was. He felt like the luckiest shifter alive. Not only was she his best friend, she was his mate. She was the strongest person he knew even though she didn’t think she was, and he would prove it to her. Eli didn’t like how the other shifters treated her just because she was
a latent shifter, and he would stop them no matter what he had to do.

  He looked once more into her eyes right before he leaned down and kissed her. As he imprisoned her tongue into his mouth, his cock pressed into her wetness, causing both of them to groan in awareness.

  “Umm, I need more, Eli. I can’t wait anymore.” He heard Jadelyn moan as she began to move her hips up and down, which caused her pussy to rub against his cock, triggering his body to overheat. He could feel his body about to explode. Shit, he had to have her soon.

  “You will soon, baby, soon, but you just are not ready yet.” He kissed his way down her body and made sure not to miss a single spot on her skin. When he reached her pussy, he cupped her mound before he ran his finger up and down her clit. As her juices coated his fingers, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer and had to taste what he knew would be paradise. He spread her legs just a bit more, then ran the tip of his tongue up and down her clit in a fast swiping motion. Eli felt a new pool of cream coat her pussy as he slowly pushed a finger into her. Eli couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He ran his free hand up and down her leg.

  “I need more, Eli.”

  “Umm, I got you, baby, just hang on,” he moaned as he slid another finger into her and began to push in and out of her while sucking on her clit. A strange sensation began to take over her body, she never felt anything like this before, but she was sure she wanted to feel more of it soon. Her body began to convulse as her orgasm took her over. Eli licked her cream off his lips as he moved back up her body then looked into her dark sedated eyes. “Damn, baby, you taste so good, I can’t wait to taste more. Spread your legs more, baby, and if it hurts, tell me to stop and I will,” he said before he captured her lips possessively as he lined up his cock to her pussy and slowly slid in, inch by inch.

  “How does it feel?”

  “Eli, it feels…so fucking better…than anything I have…ever felt before…keep going.” Eli rubbed his thumb across her nipple and kissed her deeply as he pushed past her barrier. Jadelyn whimpered a little as the pain took over for a short while, but then the pleasure returned once more, she was back in heaven. Jadelyn moved her hips in tune with Eli’s movements.