The Sacrifice of the Cursed {2}

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Two days pass as I bury myself in planning tactics and meetings with the pack's warriors, trackers, witches, doctors, and even regular civilians. I take every opportunity to distract myself from the fact that I was manipulated, and from everything that has happened because of this manipulation.

Amoux has been quietly angry. I can tell he is grieving and that he is choosing anger to show it. So, while I desperately want to talk to him and have his support, I understand his need to express his emotions.

Shadow has been trying to be there for me, but I find that I prefer distraction rather than facing everything that lies behind the mental wall I have built up in my mind. Luckily, she is not the kind of women who imposes herself; she gets the hint and gives me my space.

If I am honest, I am afraid that if I permit myself to let all my feelings in, I will crumble, and I don't want to let down my pack more than I already have.

Just seconds ago, I ran out from a meeting room right after my meeting with some of the witches ended. I just want to lock myself in the house and not come out until I have magically found solutions to all our problems.

I recognize that defeating the encantados will not make how I'm feeling go away, but that doesn't stop me from hoping that it will.

I end up in my office, and I place both my palms on one of the leather chairs before my desk as I take a deep breath to help me push back all my undesirable emotions and notions. Alas, it doesn't work, but being alone in a room does help calm down the panic and I've been feeling for the past couple of days.

Amoux?

Yes, Alex?

Are you okay?

No. You?

No Amoux, I'm not. I was hoping you would be. I thought perhaps that would mean I'll be fine eventually. I just...

I know Alex; I feel it too. The bloody emptiness, the grief, the anger, the frustration, the self-loathing... I feel all of it Alex, but there is no bloody thing we can do about it.

Yes there is; we can save our people and avenge our dead. We just have to figure out how.

Do you have a plan? Don't you dare say bloody yes, because I don't bloody agree with what you're thinking.

It is only an outline of a plan, but I truly think it will work Amoux.

Yes, it will work in bloody killing and humiliating us.

I want to try and convince my wolf of the ideas that are slowly forming in my overwhelmed brain, but I don't think it is a good idea when I don't have a full plan yet. However, the determination of one is the only thing preventing me from breaking down.

I sit on the leather chair I was leaning on, and lean my head to the back as I think through my incoherent ideas, which results in rubbing my temple from the exhaustion.

For some reason, I feel defeated, but I refuse to let anyone to see or sense that. I don't want anyone to know how I am truly feeling.

For a few minutes, I drown in my thoughts until a knock breaks the comforting silence. I smell him before I can see him.

"What is it Clay?" I ask him without asking him to come in. But he does so nonetheless.

After closing the door behind him, he sits across from me, and just watches me silently.

"Is something wrong?" I try to cover my exhaustion by sitting up straight and looking him in the eye, but my tone comes out a little weak.

I was about to ask you the same thing alpha.