The Alpha's Lost Mate [Completed]

Chapter Five: The Training Room

*Jamie's POV*

The next few weeks were the most difficult weeks of my life. After the realisation that Cain had kept Gracie locked in his dungeon for over two years everything turned to chaos. Finn and Evan were so enraged I had to order them off the island to let their wolves run the energy out of them. They didn't return for days, and only responded via the pack link if I ordered them to let me know if they were okay.

Word spread like wildfire around the pack; one of the biggest problems of a pack house is that no conversation is private with our heightened sense of hearing. I was filled with an immense sense of pride by the anger my pack felt at their Luna's mistreatment. Long before any of them met her Conner and Derek were kept busy night and day with delivering home cooked meals, clothes, shoes, toiletries and anything that Gracie could ever need.

And Gracie, well, Gracie was utterly lifeless. It was like the realisation had sucked all the spark out of her. We spent most of our days on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket to try to keep her warm. The only words she seemed able to muster were yes or no, and she was crying more often than she wasn't.

She wasn't left alone for a second. I had so much work to get done, working with other Alpha's to track Cain and get to the bottom of his plans, and the tourist season was fast approaching so the pack businesses needed my attention. Finn or Evan sat with her mostly at first. She was more comfortable with Finn, but for a few days neither she or Evan seemed to know how to exist in the same room. He quickly took to reading to her, and would spend several hours a day standing over the breakfast bar reading her the old classics he's always loved, encouraging her to eat and sending me updates every  five minutes.

Sarah visited every morning and night for the first two weeks just so she wasn't alone when she was getting changed or showering until she was too busy on the mainland with her family's bakery.

As the season started to ramp up and demand more and more attention from myself and my beta and gamma I reassigned Derek to be her bodyguard full time. He did not take this role seriously. Having grown up with Derek, I should not have been surprised by this. But he made her laugh one day playing a stupid board game, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. It was only the tiniest of giggles, but he mind linked me immediately and I raced upstairs to see her. She smiled at me when I came in, it was barely visible but it was the first time in three weeks I'd seen even the slightest hint of emotion on her face.

"What did you do?" I asked Derek, surveying the chaotic scene on the floor around the sofa. Game pieces and cards were scattered across the room.

"I lost," he said, with a sheepish grin on his face.

Unfortunately, feeling even the slightest hint of emotion seemed to spark something inside Gracie. She started crying, just sniffling softly at first as we both watched in panic. It quickly turned into a full blown panic attack and I raced across the room to her. She clung to me as I scooped her up and lay her down in bed next to me. We laid like that for hours that day, until she finally blacked out.

Dr. Beckett visited the next morning. She cried through the whole conversation.

"I don't think there's a right or wrong way to process all of this," he said, with a sigh.

"Is there nothing I can do to help?" I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose. Gracie was still tucked under my arm in bed, her face buried into my chest while she sniffled.

"Let her feel it. She lost two years of her life, she has no memory of who she was before Cain took her, she had a lot of sadness to feel. Let her feel it and be there for her," he said firmly, and left us in peace.

I tried to do as he said. I let her cry for a week. It was almost relentless. It came in waves, leaving her numb for a few hours and then crashing down on her leaving her sobbing so hard she couldn't catch her breath. If I left her side for even a few seconds she had a panic attack. Seeing her in so much pain felt like it was going to kill me. I couldn't do it anymore.