Alpha Jax

2

Jax

I wind my fingers around the necks of the empty beer bottles on the table, carrying three in each hand and walking into the kitchen to discard them.

"Thanks, man," Reid grumbles, pressing his foot on the pedal of the stainless-steel garbage can to pop the lid open.

The bottles clatter together as I toss them inside. "No problem. Wish those guys didn't have to take off already, I could use a few more brewskis after that shitshow."

We're at Reid's place- the packhouse in Stillwater- after enduring a particularly stressful meeting with the council for the six-pack. My buddy Reid is Alpha of his pack and therefore a member of the council. It was his turn to host the meeting on his home turf. Council meetings are usually boring as shit, but tonight's got heated because tensions are running high over an incident in Denver with the shadow pack.

I should back up. The six-pack, as we so affectionately refer to it, is an alliance of six shifter packs. The name for the collective started as a joke, but it caught on and stuck- which I'm pretty sure I deserve some of the credit for. The alliance was originally formed as a way to increase numbers and shore up defenses against a massive pack that has been forming over the past six or so odd years- the shadow pack. It's as ominous as it sounds; the crazy Alpha that runs the shadow pack is intent on overtaking every pack in North America. I was still a teenager when my father made the difficult decision to uproot our pack and move us to Colorado to join the six-pack, but as Alpha, he felt it was in our pack's best interest to be proactive against the threat of the shadow pack.

Our pack now occupies the town of Westfield, so we're known to the others as the Westfield pack. My dad's still the acting alpha of our pack, but as his only son, I'll fill that role one day. The original pack in this territory was the Summervale pack, led by Alpha Anders. His son Theo is one of my closest friends. Then there's the Riverton pack, which my buddy Brock is poised to take over as alpha in just a few weeks, and the Goldenleaf and Stillwater packs, which are run by my friends Gray and Reid. See a trend here? My buddies and I are all in our twenties, all current or soon-to-be alphas of our packs. All thick as thieves.

The security squad was what brought us all closer together. Gray started it up when his pack moved to the territory- he had this big idea of creating a trained faction of fighters responsible for the security and protection of the entire six-pack territory. He asked Reid, Brock, Theo, and I to come help him start up and run the security squad, and in doing so, we all became fast friends. That was years ago- now we're more like brothers. The only outlier is the Norbury pack's future leader, Alpha Vaughn's son Chase. The kid's only seventeen, but hopefully he'll come join us at the squad complex next year so we can get to know him and bring him into the fold.

The six-pack's council is made up of the alphas from each pack and their betas- twelve members. I'm not part of it yet since my old man is still the alpha of our pack, but when the council has to discuss security issues, squad leadership has to sit in. That's how I wound up at the meeting tonight- we've been brokering an alliance of sorts with the shifter pack in Denver, and they had a security breach involving the shadow pack. It's a little too close for comfort, so we're all on high alert trying to figure out how to best shore up our defenses.

You know the saying 'too many cooks in the kitchen'? Well tonight it was too many alphas in the living room. The meeting was an absolute shitshow since nobody can seem to agree on a strategy for fending off a possible attack- or aligning our resources with Denver's, for that matter. After most of the council left, Gray, Brock, Theo, and I stuck around to help Reid clean up and have a few beers. I was hoping Theo would want to go out to the bar after the meeting, but he's been a lot more subdued since he's started dating someone. The girl in question? None other than the twin sister of Gray's mate. He swore me to secrecy about their relationship, but I'm pretty sure shit's gonna hit the fan when that all comes out.