Chapter 57

Cheyenne's POV

I woke up the morning feeling sore down there, but still completely refreshed. I laid on Gunner's chest and listened to his heartbeat. I never thought in a million years that the sound of a simple heartbeat would calm me so much. I sat up and stretched out and then tried to wake Gunner, but there was no response.

I knew he was breathing and his heart was beating but I still jumped to the thought that he was dead. What was going on?! I started to panic, grabbed his shoulders, and shook him violently.

"Great if he wasn't dead before, I'm sure he is now. Or at least has brain damage!" Koa said in my head.

"Shut up and help me! What is going on with him? Why won't he wake up?" my voice trembling now.

"You're half lycan, of a royal blood line to top it off. Your mark was much stronger than his that's why it didn't affect you but affected him instead. We're going to need some help getting him back to the pack house." Koa said just before a howl came out of me and broke the silence of the morning.

"What's wrong?! Are you ok?" Jax had mind linked me and I could hear in his voice he had just woken up.

"I can't wake up Gunner. I need help!" I said shakily still trying to fight back the tears.

"Grabbing Alpha Nik and heading your way." Was all he said before the link was cut.

I hurried to find the rest of our clothes and got dressed before anybody else showed up. Gunner already had shorts on so that would just have to do for now. It didn't take long for Jax and Alpha Nik to find us.

"Alida, are you ok?" Jax asked running up to me and looking over my whole body for any wounds.

"I'm fine, it's Gunner I'm worried about." I said pointing to his body.

"What happened?" Alpha Nik asked while squatting down closer to Gunner.

"He brought me out here last night and then…well we mated and marked each other." I rambled that last part out as fast as I could while pulling my shirt over so they could see my mark.

"Ooohhhhh ok. He's going to be just fine." Jax chuckled.

"You think this is funny?!" I shouted.

"Alida, calm down. He's just going through the transitioning period. He's going to be fine." Jax said grabbing my shoulders again.

"How long is he gunna be like this?" I mumbled.

"I don't know exactly. Few days tops. All depends on how strong he is." Jax said now looking towards Alpha Nik.

"Well he was next in line to be the Beta of this pack. His dad is my Beta now." Alpha Nik said.

"Then I'd say 24-36 hours and he should wake up. If he's not awake by then…" Jax started but I cut him off.

"Oh no. Don't you dare. You just said he was going to be fine." I said sharply.

"99% chance that he will be fine. Calm down." Jax said looking back towards me. "Can you carry him or do you need help?" Jax asked Alpha Nik.

"I might be old but I think I can manage." Alpha Nik replied with a smirk.

Jax just gave him a nod and then grabbed the blanket after Alpha Nik picked up Gunner. All of us started heading back to the pack house and as we got closer, we saw a bunch of people standing outside. Ben and Chelsea had come running from the crowd towards us asking a million questions when they realized it was Gunner and me.

Jax reassured them that Gunner would be fine and told them exactly what he had told me in the clearing. I'm sure he was just saying it all again to make me feel better but it wasn't helping. I wouldn't be ok until I knew that Gunner was awake. Alpha Nik commanded all the bystanders to go about their business while he took Gunner up to his room.

"I know this is hard, but we have that meeting with the Alphas. You need to be focused on that. Spend your time up here with him for now, but I would also take this time to come up with an itinerary for the meeting. Once you get it done, I can email it out to all the others so they have plenty of time to come up with questions or anything and so they know what to expect." Alpha Nik said.

"I don't know if I can think right now." I mumbled staring at Gunner's sleeping body.

"Take some time to gather your thoughts. We still have a couple days." Alpha Nik said more for comfort than anything. He knew that if he didn't give me something to do, that my thoughts would drive me crazy until Gunner woke up.

With that Alpha Nik left the room to go rescue Jax from the people downstairs who were asking all the same questions over and over again. I on the other hand, laid down next to Gunner and begged the Moon Goddess for him to be ok. I'm not sure when it happened but I fell asleep at some point.

There was a soft knock on the door that woke me up and brought me back to reality. I quietly got up and opened the door.

"I brought you something to eat. I know you haven't eaten today and it's not going to do you any good to starve yourself." Jax said pushing past me and setting the tray of food on the desk on the opposite side of the room.

Although I wasn't really hungry, I had to admit it smelt good. I walked over after closing the bedroom door and looked at what he brought up. There was some fried chicken breast with mashed potatoes and a side of veggies with a roll. I offered him a small smile to say thank you before he pulled out the chair and motioned for me to sit.

"I'm not leaving this room until you eat everything on that tray." Jax said as he plopped his ass down on the couch that was under the windows.

I just shook my head and laughed because I knew it was true. He would force feed me if I didn't take care of myself. Which brought up a question in my mind.

"Jax, have you talked to your mate anymore since yesterday?" I asked softly.

"Yeah. I actually called her last night. She was upset because she told her family about us being mates and they didn't approve obviously. You know how dragon's are, being private, nonexistent, blah blah blah. She's afraid that if she doesn't reject me that her family will banish her from their lands and she doesn't know where else she would go." Jax said quietly.

I just nodded my head in acknowledgment since I had just shove a mound of mashed potatoes in my mouth.

"I don't know what to do Alida. I don't want her family to banish her but at the same time I don't want to lose her." He was looking at me with pleading eyes.

I swallowed down the food in my mouth and asked, "Have you told her this? What are her thoughts?"

"She says she doesn't want to reject me and that she's always wanted to see the world. Apparently her family doesn't treat her well anyways." Jax's eyes were flickering between his and his lycan's.

"Jax listen to me. All you can do in this case is tell her exactly how you feel. If you want her by your side then tell her. Just be honest with her. If her family really isn't all that great anyways, then maybe once she knows how you feel, it won't be such a hard decision on her end." I shrugged and shoved a piece of chicken in my mouth. Apparently I was hungrier than I thought.

"Yeah I know. But…" he started.

"No buts. Man up and be honest with her. Trust me on this one." I shot him a wink and sideways smirk.

"Ugh fine! But if this goes badly, I'm blaming you!" he said pointing his finger at me causing me to chuckle and almost choke on my food.

"Go on then. You can step out on the balcony if you'd like that way you can still make sure I'm eating as well." I said that last part a little sarcastically causing him to glare at me.

Jax took out his phone and dialed a number before putting it up to his ear. As he got up off the couch and walked towards the balcony doors all I heard was, "Good afternoon my love." I couldn't help but smile at the thought of Jax getting a second chance mate. Yes, a dragon definitely changed the game but I knew he has so much love to give and by the sounds of it, that's exactly what his mate needs.

I was lost in my thoughts when I heard someone clearing their throat and snapping me back into reality. Jax had cracked the door open and pointed at the tray of food and then to his mouth telling me to eat. I laughed and threw a notebook at him that was laying off to the side on the desk. Jax stuck his tongue out at me when I missed and then closed the door again to go back to his phone conversation.

After I was done eating I decided that I needed a shower. Hopefully, that would help relax me. I grabbed a change of clothes and then a towel and went into our private bathroom and turned the water on.

"A nice magma hot lava shower sounds nice." Koa yawned in my head.

"I couldn't agree more." I said as I stripped down and then stepped into the shower.

I was standing right under the shower head, just letting the hot water roll down my body. I was thinking of what Alpha Nik said and to start preparing an itinerary for the meeting with the alphas in a couple days. I worked through my thoughts and decided that I better hurry this shower along before I forgot anything. I quickly finished, or at least thought I did, because when I got out and looked at the clock, I had been in there for almost 45 minutes. I got dressed and had my hair wrapped up in the towel when I came out of the bathroom.

Jax was sitting there on the couch again staring at his phone in his hands and my heart dropped. There's no way she rejected him over the phone. Does that even work? I thought you had to be face to face with the person to reject them?

"Jax?" I asked softly. "What's wrong?"

"She wants to come here. She chose me." He said still staring at his phone.

"That's awesome!" I shouted.

"Will Alpha Nik even let her come here? I mean considering her species and all." Jax mumbled.

"We can go talk to him. If he's worried about conflicts, then I'm sure we can find some place for you and your mate to live off the beaten path. We can make this work Jax. Besides I'm the Queen now right?" I shuddered at that title. It still didn't feel right.

Jax's eyes lit up as he looked up at me. "Are you serious? You would help me?"

"Jax are you serious right now? I owe my life to you. I would have never had made it those months in the mountain. You got me through that! So yes, I will help you!"

Jax tossed himself at me and wrapped his arms around my neck saying thank you a million times before I finally had to push him off of me.

"There is just one little condition to me helping you though." I said trying to be serious and holding back the laughter.

"Anything. You name it." He said wide eyed.

"I need to know her name! I can't be calling her 'my love' like you do." I lost control and busted up laughing at the look he was giving me. That one you're friends give you when they think you're being serious and then find out you're really not. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself." I said between breaths. "But I really would like to know her name."

"Her name is Tora. Tora Maie." Jax started blushing. He was actually blushing! It was so adorable.

"That is a beautiful name Jax." I smiled at him. "I gotta make an itinerary for the alpha meeting and then I will get started on hunting down some property for you guys."

"That's great! Thank you again! I have to tell her!" Jax got excited and jumped off the couch dialing her number again.

I couldn't help but smile as I watched him walk back out on the balcony. Then I went over to the desk, moved my food tray off to the side, grabbed some paper and a pen and started writing down a list of things to cover in the meeting.

There wasn't much to it, just that basically things would run as previously, but when it came to changing pack laws, it all was going to be pushed threw me first before becoming law. If there was any disputes of any kind, then it would be brought to my attention as well, and hopefully I could find a solution that both parties could at least tolerate. I wasn't here to uproot things and completely change how things have been, with the exception of the lycan's now living amongst us. I have to say though, even that has been going rather smoothly.

After I was done writing it all out, I took it down to Alpha Nik's office. When I got there I knocked on the door before hearing someone telling me to enter. When I opened the door and walked in, Alpha Nik and Beta Derek were sitting there.

"How's Gunner doing?" Derek asked.

"He's ok, still sleeping though." I said trying to sound reassuring.

"What you got there?" Alpha Nik asked trying to change the subject.

"Oh this is the itinerary you asked me to write out for the meeting." I said handing over the paper to him.

He took it and looked it over before looking back up at me. "Is this it?" He asked.

"Yeah, that's all I could think of. I really don't want to change how things are ran. You alpha's have been running your own packs for ages without the King's help. So I don't want to come in with guns blazing so to speak and just take all the power away from you guys. That's not my intentions." I said.

"Fair enough. I will send this out to the others then." He said laying the paper down in front of his computer.

"Thank you. Also there is another matter that I just thought of that I might need to add to that list depending on your answer." I added.

"What's that?" Alpha Nik questioned.

"Jax found his second chance mate. She's a…well…no easy way to say this so just going to blurt it out." I took a deep breath as Derek and Nik both stared at me before I blurted out, "She's a dragon." And then instantly covered my mouth with both my hands.

Alpha Nik and Derek both just stared at each other than at me and then back at each other again.

"Well that's definitely different. How is it going?" Alpha Nik asked.

"They want to be together. She's willing to leave her family and live with him, but he wants your permission to still be able to stay in this pack, live within the boarders, and still help train the warriors." I said as fast as I could. Why was I so nervous?

"Well, I don't see a problem with that. Do you Derek?" Alpha Nik asked.

"All I would say, is to bring her here so we can meet her. Like a trial run basically. If the wolves were so accepting of the lycans, I don't think we'd have much of an issue with a dragon moving in." Derek replied.

"The only requested that her and Jax have, is to have their own place that's out by itself. You know how dragons are with their privacy." I shrugged.

"I think we can manage that." Alpha Nik nodded. "But I do agree with Derek about the trial run idea. Bringing in the lycans was different in the fact that we're all wolves in some way, but she's a totally different species. So instead of just throwing her out to the wolves, no pun intended, I would like a trial run to show her around and so she can see how we live."

"Fair enough. I will let them know." I smiled at both of them before waving bye and leaving the office.

I ran back to my room to check on Gunner and to see if Jax was still there. People moved out of my way without asking any questions. Most already knew what had happened, and some even tried to say that I attempted to murder him. All of us higher ranking wolves couldn't help but laugh at that rumor. This pack had no idea what Koa and I were capable of.

I made it back up to my room and just as I reached for the handle, I heard voices coming from inside. Who was in my room? I thought recognize their voices, but I couldn't be sure.

"My room NOW! 911!" I mink linked Jax. I could hear doors slamming and people shouting which told me that Jax was on his way.

While I waited on him I took my phone out and sent the same message to the Alpha and Beta. Same thing, matter of seconds I heard the office door thrust open and them two running towards me. As each one got to the top of the stairs, I held my hand up to signal them to stop and then put my finger to my lips to tell them to be quiet before motioning them all towards me. I didn't have to say anything else. They all heard what I was hearing, although Jax's face was turning red from his rising anger.

I nudged him in his ribs and gave him a questionable look, but all he did was lean over to the Alpha and tell him to get warriors to block all exits including all the windows. I watched as the Alpha's eyes glazed over and then he nodded, signally that the order had been sent. Jax then looked at me and then pointed towards the door telling me to go ahead and open it.

I gripped the handle hard and then thrust it open sending the handle threw the bedroom wall. I only made it a few steps into the room before I stopped dead in my tracks. How did they get in here? What were they doing in here?