Moon's Rising - 2. Old Scars

The next morning Alec pulled Chris and Jack into a corner of the hallway.

“What’s up Alec?” Chris asked with a state of concern.

“I was attacked outside of Gavin’s house last night while I was out for a run.”

Alec could sense that the other guys were going to want to ask about why he was outside of Gavin’s house during his run. Not that it was going to be any of their business why he was there, he also knew he would be unable to answer the question.

“Do you know who it was?” Jack asked.

“It was Gage and his pack of goons. Gage came to the wood line behind Alec’s and tricked me to a clearing inside the woods where the rest were waiting. I managed to get Gage pretty good, but now I am worried about Gavin being safe,” Alec sounded like he was giving a briefing to soldiers rather than his friends.

The other two agreed to run with Alec at night to protect Gavin’s house from the others, knowing full well this was more of Gage’s stupidity showing through.

Alec’s phone signals a text message

Gavin: Are you at school?
Alec: Yeah. With Chris and Jack getting something together.
Gavin: OK. I will see you guys at lunch then.
Alec: Sorry

------------

Gavin felt really uncomfortable throughout the day. The jocks seemed to be getting nastier towards him than they had been the last few days. He found himself being shoved around more by them during class change and it was getting old.

At lunch Gavin told the others about the increase in activity from the jocks. The boys agreed to keep an eye on him more. After lunch, in History, things got even more interesting.

The four boys walked into the classroom to find Gage and his buddies waiting for them.

“Hey look boys, Alec is walking his little pet again.” Gage calls out to his friends who start to laugh.

Alec tried to get Gavin to the back of the classroom, but Gage and a couple of his friends blocked their path. Gage walked his five foot nine frame over to Gavin and reached out to touch him.

“Has the big bad wolf taught you to beg yet? Does he make you whimper and moan like a good slut?” He taunted in a hushed voice.

Alec had enough of this and stood between Gage and Gavin, slightly pushing the younger boy back into the protection of Chris and Jack.

“The only one around here that is begging for anything is you Gage. Now get out of our way.”

This infuriated the brown haired Gage, who swung a punch at Alec’s face. Not that Alec couldn’t have avoided it with ease, but he knew that the teacher had walked into the classroom and would easily witness Gage getting in the shot. While it hurt, Alec knew that it was better to take the hit this time than to let them get to Gavin.

“Mr. Lowell. With me - now!” The teacher called out from the front of the room. “The rest of you take your seats.”

As the teacher dragged Gage from the classroom, his goons kept giving Alec and Gavin dirty looks. The boys made their way to their seats in the back of the room.

“Alec,” Gavin said to the other. “What the hell was that?”

“I’m sorry buddy. Gage is a bastard and he just won’t let shit go.”

“What was that whole deal with the insults?”

“Remember when I said you weren’t the only gay on at the table the other day? I’m the one I was talking about.”

At that point Gavin realized that the slurs were more targeted to Alec than to him. He felt really bad and it must have started to show in his face.

“Gage used to be one of our friends until I came out. He didn’t accept it and it ruined our friendship.”

“Well,” Chris piped up. “you were dating his older brother.”

Chris meant well by trying to lighten the mood as it was still tense in the classroom.

After class, Gage’s friends hightailed it out of the classroom. Alec and the guys escorted Gavin to his next class and made sure he was safe before making their way to their classes.

As Alec sat in his next class he couldn’t believe that Gage was being this much of an ass to Gavin, a human that he didn’t know, just to get back at him. Alec never could understand what in Gage changed when he and Gage’s brother James came out a couple of years ago.

***Flashback to two years ago***

“Hey babe, you have this.”

“James, it means coming out for you too. Are you sure you want to do this. I’m just going to be a beta, but you are the next Alpha of the pack.”

James leaned down and places a chaste kiss on Alec’s head.

“Don’t worry about that. We know what we are doing. Our parents were the hard part and you know they love you like their own son. You make me happy, and only one person could make me happier and that would be my mate, but unless we find our true mates, I will always love you and you know that.”

The boys walk into the room to see all their friends hanging about.

“Thanks for coming guys,” James called out to everyone. “I want to let you in on something going on.”

He reaches his hand out to Alec and signals him to come closer.

“I’m gay and Alec is my boyfriend.”

Most of the guys just stood there shocked. Their future Alpha just came out to them and they couldn’t figure it out. It was part of the Alpha culture that the Alpha have a few pups with a strong mate to carry on the line to lead the pack. With a gay Alpha, no heirs would be coming and it was a very unusual situation. One guy pushes his way from the back and looks at Alec.

“You disgust me. I swear if I had known you were a queer, I would have put you down myself let alone be your friend. What is worse is now you have my ruined my brother. I for one won’t accept him as an Alpha if he is going to be taking it up the ass from a Beta. You don’t deserve that title either”

I looked at James’ face. He was so close to his little brother, who was one of my close friends since we were kids. I don’t think that either of us could have expected this from Gage. It was out of character for him. Growing up Gage was always looking up to James and now that all seems to be thrown away.

“Gage-” James calls out while reaching for his brother. Before he could pull back, Gage swung his fist and it connected with James’ face.

“Leave me alone you fucking faggot. You are nothing to me.” Gage spits out with venom at his brother. He turns his attention to Alec, “And you better hope I never become Alpha, because the first thing I will do is put your disgusting ass down before I’d let you become a Beta in my pack.”

Gage storms out of the room, taking the majority of the people in the room with him. Chris and Jack stepped up to the other boys and looked at them.

Jack was the first to talk, “Alec, you are my best friend and James, you are my future Alpha, I stand beside you in all things.”

Chris simply nods in agreement.

----------

Eight months later, James pulled Alec into the common room of the pack house. This was the first time that they had seen each other in weeks and James had been avoiding Alec since he got home. When Alec was close enough to James, he noticed something off about the older boy. It wasn’t just his behavior, even his scent was off.

“Alec, I need to tell you something.”

Alec knew something was wrong. After almost a year of dating, he could tell a lot from the tones in James’ voice. Even if they weren’t mates, Alec could always tell what James was feeling. Even with James away at school, they still tried to be close.

“Alec, I am leaving the pack.” James said bluntly.

“Why are you leaving the pack? I know you are at school, but that doesn’t mean you need to leave. I mean you are going to be our Alpha soon enough and everything will change.”

“It isn’t that,” he said with a disappointed sigh.

“What is it then?” Alec started to feel choked by a sob forming in his throat.

“I’m mated.”

“Then bring them back to the pack and we will celebrate them as our Alpha-mate.”

“I can’t do that. It’s -” James stuttered. “- complicated.”

“What do you mean it's complicated?”

“He’s the Alpha of the pack near school and he claimed me as his. He didn’t give me a choice or an option, I have to be a good mate and leave my home pack for my Alpha’s pack”

Alec could see the pain in his boyfriend’s eyes. He pulled the older boy into a hug and then they both lost it. The always knew there was a possibility and it was likely that this would happen, but neither boys thought it would happen this way.

“No matter what happens Alec, remember I always loved you.” James manages to get out between sobs. “I hope you find your mate and they make you happy in the way I never could.”

At that point, James’ father and a strange young alpha came into the the pack room. The younger alpha comes up to the boys and stares Alec in the face before sucker punching him.

“Touch my mate again without my permission Beta and it will be the last thing you do.”

“I’m sorry sir, it's my fault,” James strong personality was gone and only this husk of the wolf remained.

“I will deal with you later,” the Alpha growls at James. “Get out to the SUV. NOW!”

James just cowered in fear and made his way out of the room, barely giving his father the time of day as he ran out of the pack house. The rage in the older Alpha’s eyes and the anger radiated throughout the room. The older wolf came and grabbed the younger Alpha and backhanded him across the room.

“It’s fucking bad enough that you have relegated my oldest son to the point of being what he is. I would have your pelt hanging on my door for taking my son without his consent, which I will let the council decide about your continued status as an alpha, but I will be damned if you will lay a hand on a member of my pack in my pack house. Get the fuck off my land and stay off.”

“That won’t be a problem. I have what’s mine and have no further need to be here.”

As the younger Alpha left the pack house, the Alpha stood next to Alec and just hugged him.

“I’m sorry pup, but this is one of the problems with this, we don’t choose our mates, for better or worse.”

“I’m worried about James.”

A voice came from the hallway from the common room.

“If you ask me the little faggot bitch got it easy. At least he has someone to make him beg and won’t have to worry about being the weak waste he is.”

Both the Alpha and Alec spin around to see Gage standing in the hall with a smug look on his face. Both Alec and the Alpha let out a growl, but before Alec could comment, the Alpha marches at his younger son and repeats the action he just did to his son’s ‘mate’.

“Speak of your brother like that again and I will throw you out of the pack lands so fast and hard you’ll be a feral rogue by the time you land.”

“You wouldn’t dare, old man.” The younger boy called out to his father. “You still need an heir to take over when you get feeble and I am your only son now.”

One thing as a wolf you don’t do is challenge the Alpha, blood child or not. A growl let loose from the chest of the older man. Since the meeting with James and Alec, Gabe has become more of a nuisance to everyone, including his parents. The older wolf grabbed his son by the throat and pushed him up against the hallway wall.

“You will never be the Alpha to this pack, even if you were its last member.” The words flowed from the Alpha’s mouth like venom. The Alpha dropped his son and the younger wolf got up.

“We will see about that, old man.” Gabe spit out, between heavy pants, as he walked away from his father without being dismissed, yet another sign of disrespect.

The Alpha looked at me, “I tried to save James from that excuse for an Alpha. The Alpha already has a Luna and pups, but when he found out James was his true mate, things went sideways real fast. Apparently, the only reason he claimed him was to get it over with. This is seriously a violation of everything a wolf should do with his mate. I’m sorry Alec. I know you and James cared a lot about each other.”

Alec started to cry. He loved James and it broke his heart to see what the one person in this world that was supposed to love and cherish him had turned him into. The look on James’ face as he cowered to his ‘mate’ made Alec want to beat the other man into submission. James was a member of his pack first and he wouldn’t stand for that to happen to anyone else he cared about.

As Alec was about to walk out of the pack house to head home, he caught the scent of Gage nearby.

“Gage, you should really stand downwind of me if you want to hide.”

“Oh I wasn’t hiding queer, I was just waiting for the old man to leave so I could beat you too. Make you my bitch. James got what he deserved and that Alpha knows how to rule his pack.”

“That Alpha is a sad excuse and you are too pathetic to waste my time with.”

Alec felt a fist make contact with his jaw and instinctively backhanded Gage in retaliation. As Gage flew across the lawn, he shifted into his wolf form before attacking Alec again. As the brown fur flew towards the human form shifter, he didn’t see a grey wolf jump from the deck of the pack house and pin him to the ground. Several other adult wolves came from around the pack house and as everyone shifted back, the grey wolf turned into the Alpha. The Alpha dragged his son back into the pack house with little incident. Before reaching the door to the pack house, a now human shifted Gage called out.

“This is only the beginning Cameron.”

***Ends flashback***

Alec jumps when he feels himself being shaken by Jack.

“Dude, what is it?” Jack asks to his spaced out friend.

“I’m concerned what Gage is going to do to Gavin when we aren’t watching.”

“We have your back and Gavin’s too. We won’t let anyone hurt him.”

Alec looked down at the ground. He didn’t know what the feelings were that were bubbling inside of him. His wolf was pacing inside him with concern and Alec still couldn’t figure why he felt such an urge to defend Gavin with his very being.