Page 80 of The Chosen One Universe: Volume One

Jack let out a little sigh. Ben was right. Whoever this Santa guy was, he wasn’t going to hurt them. ‘Cause if Daddy didn’t get him, Uncle Meshaq would. Their daddy might be the alpha of their pack, but their uncle was the alpha of all the hellhounds and no one was allowed to mess with them or he’d get real mad and get his flamey eyes. And Aunt Calli had a sword. She was super scary too.

Natasha put aside the book she was reading and came closer. “But it does sound suspicious. They were all in the office with the door closed?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Even Grandpa William.”

Grandpa William’s bad back meant he didn’t go up and down the stairs a lot. Only for meal times, or if something important was going on.

Jack gulped. This must be really important.

Henry closed the book of plants Zaire had asked him to study and came around the table to them. “This sounds serious.”

“What should we do?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “We need to talk to Alpha. That’s what he’d want. We’re supposed to talk to him and Papa when we’re worried about things.”

“But…” Jack hesitated, and all of his siblings looked at him. “Weren’t they trying to tell us it was secret? If Daddy knew I was there?”

“Maybe he didn’t?” Henry suggested. Since Henry was human, he really didn’t understand their senses all that well. He had other powers, though, and they didn’t understand them either. Papa said they were all unique and special.

Ollie snorted. “Daddy hears everything. He always knows when I want to come into his room in the mornings to snuggle. He wakes Papa up and tells him to put his pajamas on. Why doesn’t Papa sleep in his pajamas like we do?”

“He gets hot,” Emily said. “I asked him. He said Daddy is super hot.”

“Alphas do tend to run warm,” Ben said softly. “Pop-pop explained that to me when the lion alpha came in for his hurt arm. Remember?”

Jack nodded as did the others. It had been a super exciting day for them. They’d all heard about lions, and Ben had kinda hoped his lion friend had been rescued from the bad place but… well, Jack didn’t like to think about that.

“So what?” Natasha asked. “We just…”

“Investigate,” Henry said. “This is a mystery. Remember Papa talked about it in science class last week? We have to find clues and put them together like a puzzle. I bet Daddy and Papa were giving us clues to the Santa mystery. We’re probably supposed to do something, but we don’t know about it because we were in that place.”

Jack shivered. None of them liked thinking about that place. They didn’t really talk about it much anymore, outside of their counseling which Papa said they had to go to even if they didn’t really want to. Jack usually just talked about how much he loved his new pack and how cool Ancient Egypt was because of mummies and pyramids.

“So we listen and take notes,” Natasha said.

“But I can’t write my letters!” Ollie didn’t seem happy at all. Not that any of them were super great at writing yet, but Papa had them learning. Another thing that had happened at the bad place. They didn’t get to learn things that normal kids did. Jack scowled. He wasn’t supposed to say they weren’t normal kids. Papa said they were perfectly normal. He got really cranky when anyone said anything like that about them.

“You don’t have to write them,” Natasha explained. “You just have to remember them and tell us so we can all make a plan. This is important, Ollie.”

“I can remember!”

Jack could, too. He shared a look with Emily, who was only a year older than him. Ollie was only a year younger, but Jack was the big brother. He had an important job to look out for Ollie.

Emily nodded and turned to Henry. “We can do this.”

“Okay, what’s first?”

Ben tapped his fingers on the table. “We see if we can find out what else is going on. Everyone listen as much as you can and we’ll report back when we hear something.”

“We should have a code word,” Henry said. “So we know when one of us has something to report and we can come up here.”

“Octopus,” Emily said.

They’d done a really cool unit study on the ocean a couple weeks back, and Emily had decided that the octopus was her favorite animal. Jack kinda didn’t get it because the tentacle things were creepy, but she liked them a lot. He preferred crocodiles. They had those in Ancient Egypt, too. Jack wondered if pharaohs kept crocodiles as pets. He’d have to ask Papa.

“Nice word, Emily,” Ben said with a smile. “That makes a perfect code word. Okay, if you need to talk to us about this, say octopus and we’ll come upstairs and meet here. Everyone agreed?”

Jack nodded as did the rest of them. He wasn’t quite as worried as he’d been moments before. His brothers and sisters were his pack, and they’d always looked out for each other no matter what.