BLACK

(27) Secrets

EDITED

-Aris-

Outside the tinted window, trees and houses passed in blurs. I didn't see them, or even the black window itself. I saw nothing, though my eyes were wide open. I didn't want to see anything. Anything dark, anything beautiful. Anything to remind me of her.

My vision became my thoughts, and my hearing was replaced with ideas. As time went on, I became more and more lost in a maze of mystery.

"Alpha."

"Alpha."

"Alpha Kostas," It took moments before I could blink and realize the trees had stopped moving.

I turned to the front of the car, no energy or care left to take in the sight of Beta Yianni. In his eyes, the concern and worry for myself as an Alpha was evident, but I just turned my gaze back outside the window as he continued.

"We've arrived at Alpha Black's pack house."

He was right. The familiar, fortified structure of a stylized, and rusticated building stood tall and proud. The golden bricks lay in curves over the arched, black barred windows. Every pack house looked the same, the only difference in Oeta was the over use of symbolization outside. Here it was plain, bland, ordinary.

I didn't move at first, sitting back in the car and staring. In my hands, I cracked my knuckles slowly, barely acknowledging it was my own fingers cracking.

I could still feel her pain. Her shock. Her fear.

It was the only way I could find out if she was still alive. Still breathing. Still living.

I missed her, terribly. But every wave, every nerve, every punch of her emotions made me angry. What is causing her pain? Why was she surprised? What is she so afraid of? The bond between us had never been this bad before, not when she was safe, under my wing. If we were home together, I felt her discomfort instantly. When I left her to work at the packhouse, it was nearly a single brain cell alerting me of her night terrors. When she went away for days, there was no spike in my worries. I barely felt anything from her unless it was serious, due to the distance. But this time, I knew she wasn't anywhere near. I couldn't find her anywhere. But every aching moment of my life my chest tightened, my heart pounded, I lashed out because I didn't know what was happening to her. If someone was torturing her, beating her, breaking her. My mate. My beautiful, young mate.

I clenched my fist, sighing. I opened the door and stood while holding my breath, shaking out the pant legs of my suit. I inhale a final time while shutting the car door behind me, accepting another layer of guilt and failure onto my shoulders. She wasn't here, either. I couldn't scent her. All over the world, in every pack, in every rogue village, she was missing. Disappeared off of the face of the planet.

My soulmate.

I clench my jaw and straighten my mouth. A hard exterior, a relentless need for answers. I hadn't let anyone know my true feeling on the subject, other than Yianni. No one else was allowed to see my distress, my fall back because of my lack of protection for Noire. To everyone else, I was surviving. I was still well and strong, on the search for my mate. A kidnapped mate wasn't uncommon in the shifter world, it went public every three or four years, but this time was special for the media. Due to Noire's circumstances, no one believed. Or some did, but it was beyond my mental capacity to care who did and who did not. The media wanted it to be a lie, wanted Noire to be hiding in my basement for another publicity stunt. My everlasting desire for that occurred too. If only... but against my luck she was far gone.

In the middle of the day, sun high and sky blue, I step up the pack house stairs very slowly. No one appeared to be around, so I didn't need to show success and confidence in my step just yet. Every movement was painful, every passing second had me wishing she would send out another emotional call of distress just so I could know she was still on this planet here with me. My knees are tired up the ten steps, but I shift my collar under the jacket, and build up the scary, intimidating Alpha reputation I wanted.