We just couldn't figure it out. It had been a couple of weeks since we had thrown Reynolds off our land and we had yet to figure out a plan of attack. We had sent scout after scout to where his territory supposedly was and each one came back not being able to even find it.
They all would run just close enough to where we were sure it was but there was no way to even pick up another wolf's scent. There was something shielding it, shielding them; not like the one we had around our pack to keep mortals away. It was something more powerful than that.
"What if we get a few more witches-" Damien began.
"And do what? The good ones refuse to get in between our two packs and we don't want to mess with the bad ones." Imani reminded him.
"Yeah but maybe we can convince one or two. That's all we would need right?" He questioned.
"I suppose so but that could take forever. You remember how long it took to find the ones who created the protection spell around our pack's land? They keep to themselves and they're quite elusive." Imani answered as Nicholai began pacing back and forth in front of the room where Ashlyn was lying, unconcious.
The hallway was void of everyone besides us. Rue, Kaya and Amun sat in the chair closest to the door. Rue was silent. That was never good. My sister could talk you to death and then ramble on some more but it was as if she was lost in her own world sitting there covered in Ashlyn's blood once again.
There had been so much when she first carried her down the stairs. There was a terrifying trail of blood leading from the guest room to the pack doctor's office but at that point none of us could have been bothered to even care to clean it.
"If she was awake we could figure something out." He huffed as he stopped in front of the door and simply stared at it. As if staring at the solid mass of wood was going to somehow wake her up.
"She lost too much blood and she's barely hanging on by a thread right now. We can only wait at this point for her to wake up on her own." Mateus told Nicholai.
"Yes but I don't do waiting very well Mateus, I'm quite impatient." He groaned.
"Can we get a kitty?" Owen questioned Set who was sitting on the ground with his arms wrapped around Owen. Owen had taken himself out of the conversation having to deal with Reynolds because he couldn't handle it anymore and no one pushed him to have to deal with it. Owen was natural a sweet wolf, he wasn't blood thirsty like some wolves and he didn't have an urge to fight.
Set was supposed to be keeping him occupied in our room but both refused to be too far away from me after just getting me back. So here the two of them sat outside the medical room as we all waited for some sort of update from the doctor.
"I don't know if wolves and cats mix very well." Set mused as he raised one hand to rake it through Owen's blonde locks. They just looked so peaceful there in the midst of all this drama, like my own personal oasis in the midst of the desert.
"We should get one anyways." I replied. "If Owen wants a cat we'll get one that likes us."
Owen brightened up instantly at that and jumped up to hug me. My arms wrapped around him instantly and I felt a wave of calmness just wash over me. He was always the one to calm me down whenever things were going wrong and he never seemed to disappoint.
"Alphas?" A light female voice questioned.
"Yes Valerie." Mateus answered as we all turned our attention to the nurse who was looking after Ashlyn.
"She's stable now but just barely. We had to give her a lot of blood and she's still unconcious. We'll just have to wait for her to wake up by herself. There's no definite time period, it could be anytime between now and years from now." She explained.
"Seriously?" Nicholai exploded. "She might be the key to finding out how to take down this guy and she may not wake up until after the fight is over? Whatever." He growled out before storming out the room. Without hesitation the rest of our fathers followed behind him with Imani shouting out apologies on behalf on Nicholai.
"Well since she's not waking up anytime soon I think I'll go wash all this blood off me before it tempts me into doing something quite horrific." Rue announced as she rose from her seat. Amun and Kaya followed behind her after calling out a few good nights to us. I thanked the nurse and she nodded her head and left the three of us sitting there simply staring at each other.
Set rose up from the floor and took Owen's hand in one of his and my hand in the other. Without another word he led us from the medical building and walked us quietly back to the main pack house. We climbed the stairs, checked on Eva and when we were satisfied that she was safe we went back to our room.
We stripped out of the clothes we had hastilly thrown on and and climbed back under the sheets. Owen was on one side of Set and I on the other as we cuddled up to our mate and found comfort in his embrace. It was hard but I managed to keep my thoughts from them as we slept. I knew what I was going to do but I needed to pick the right time to do it.
******
"Just eat the pancakes!" Damien shouted.
"I rather starve." I glared at him.
"Well that's what's going to happen because Nicholai and Mateus aren't back yet and Imani refuses to cook. So either eat the pancakes I made or die." He snapped waving the spatula around in my face.
"If I eat the pancakes I will die." I muttered as he slipped to burnt disks onto my plate. I'm sure they weren't pancakes, I'm not actually sure what they were but he was convinced they were edible but I knew better. Set sat besides me jabbing at the hardened pancake and Owen knew better than to even try to eat it.
"You're insolent." He mumbled as he walked away to serve Rue, Kaya and Amun. As soon as the strange pancakes landed on Rue's plate she teleported it somewhere else and sat back in her chair with a grin plastered to her face as if nothing happened.
I sat there and jabbed the pancakes wishing for something else more edible to appear on the plate when the burnt pancakes changed before my eyes to something out of a food catalog. I looked up to see if anyone else noticed and luckily for me my mates had. Owen was looking at my plate longingly and Set was staring at me in awe.
'It seems you've been picking up more and more of my tricks lately.' Set laughed.
'Huh?' I was confused. I hadn't done anything at all.
'You've seen me make things appear and disappear before. That's one of my abilities.'
'Pancakes?' Owen questioned staring at my plate.
Not knowing what it was that I had done before to make the pancakes appear I simply stared at Owen's plate and thought really hard about resturaunt quality pancakes. I thought so hard that I'm sure my head was seconds from exploding but the squeal of delight that I heard from Owen let me know that it had worked.
"Ehrm...Sho dummy." He moaned with a mouthful of pancakes.
"See! Owen loves his pancakes." Damien cheered as right as Mateus and Nicholai walked into the kitchen.
"You made breakfast?" Nicholai questioned.
"Yup! And our boy loves it." Damien replied smugly.
"Imani! Get the stomach pump!" Mateus called out to our other dad.
"Why? The kids know not to eat the food Damien makes." He called back from upstairs.
"It seems Owen forgot." Nicholai called back.
"Well I guess he's just going to die."
"What?" Nicholai called back. "If you don't bring down the damn stomach pump..." He threatened.
"Can't hear you!"
"Thanks for all the support babe." Damien grumbled.
"Owen's not going to die so how about you tell us about Ashlyn?" I questioned changing the topic.
"Well she's stable and Valerie said that there's a chance she could wake up in the next week or so. She's been showing remarkable improvements over the last couple of days as if her wolf has finally kicked into overdrive."
"Eva!" I shouted finally remembering something.
"Yes?" She questioned as she popped up in the dining room. She was lucky enough to have woken up with Mateus and Nicholai and had gotten breakfast with them.
"Does your Alpha poison the pack with wolfsbane?" I questioned. She took a step further into the dining room and sighed before she began her explanation.
"From what I know he's been doing it for a while now. Maybe a couple of years after he became Alpha and right around the time when he was challenged for the first time. It was one of the things that I never agreed with him on.
He felt that he was doing it for the pack. He made them eat or drink it by slipping small doses into the food and drink. No one besides the cooks, the witches and his small rogue army knew."
"So is that why Ashlyn hasn't really been healing this entire time?" Imani questioned as he walked into the dining room.
"I hadn't thought of it before but that probably is the reason why." She mused.
"Well it's probably mostly out of her system by now but I've just informed Valerie about the wolfsbane. She said that she tested her blood but found nothing." Mateus explain.
"He's been giving it to every pack member for years in such small doses so that it wouldn't be found out. He's a very paranoid man. He was afraid that another Alpha would somehow found out what he was doing and be able to tell."
"The words sick and bastard come to mind every time I learn something new about him." Mateus muttered.
"If there was a way to get those people off the wolfsbane then I think that we'd have a good chance of overthrowing him and taking him down." Set mused.
"But in order to do that we would have to be able to get into his territory and that seems to be impossible at the moment." Damien replied almost instantly.
At that moment my decision was becoming easier and easier to make. If I could get in there and somehow stop them from being poisoned then I could maybe convince a few of them to help me out. Unfortunately I didn't know how I would be able to pull that off?"
'What are you thinking?' Set questioned me.
'Nothing.' I replied. I knew neither him nor Owen could read my mind anymore since I had decided to run off. I didn't want them accidentally finding out and stopping me from doing it. I could tell that they wanted to question me about it but didn't want to force me into explaining anything to them.
The conversation died down at that point as we busied ourselves with pointless chatter and fond memories until breakfast was over. Kaya and Amun took to training with Damien and Mateus as Set and went back to Duat to see if anyone had heard from his nephew.
Owen disappeared with Eva and Rue an hour or two ago and Imani and Nicholai had been discussing battle plans with Devon for the rest of the morning. I told them that I just wanted to relax and I know they knew that wasn't true but they never pried.
What I was really doing while sitting here was figuring out a way to go back to my uncle's territory without him really questioning my motives. I needed something that would help to convince him that I was on his side.
I still hadn't figured that part out but it didn't matter because today was the best time to leave if I wanted to get out before my mates took notice. I could just dip into Set's power just a little bit and teleport to where I needed to be.
Jumping up I rushed into the closet pulling out a duffel bag that was tucked away in the back and tossed a few shorts and shirts in there along with other essentials and zipped it up when it was full.
Xerxes was howling inside me, telling me it was a terrible idea and I believed him but it was the only idea I had. So it would have to work.
With a deep breath tried to remember how I used Set's power before when I brought Eva here. With a deep breath I closed my eyes and pictured where it was I wanted to appear; right inside their territory lines.
I thought I was doing it right but for whatever reason I just wasn't going anywhere. I concentrated, squeezed my eyes shut tightly and tried several more times before a voice startled me.
"Going somewhete mate?" Looking up my eyes locked with Set's and I just knew I was in trouble.
"Nowhere in particular." I answered trying to sound genuine.
"You have a bag packed Decky." Owen whispered as he stepped out from behind Set. His eyes were brimming with unused tears and the guilt had just begun to eat me alive.
"I would have been back soon." I tried to explain.
"But you would have left anyways without saying anything to either of us." Set snarled, taking a step closer to me
"I didn't want you to worry."
"We were already worried when you shut us out. We knew you were keeping secrets but...but we didn't know you wanted to leave us." Owen wimpered.
"I'm not trying to leave...Well I am but not because I don't love you. Its because I love you that I need to leave." I was desperately trying to explain without having to really explain.
"Bullshit!" Owen shouted.
Needless to say I wad very shocked. Not very often did I hear Owen curse and never when he was sober. The fire in his eyes behind the tears though told me that this was a different side of my mate. One I had never seen.
"You're nothing but a liar! You've been hiding something from us all this time and keeping secrets. That's not love. If you loved us you'd tell us what's going on...." He was practically begging me to tell him the truth but I needed him to stay safe.
"I...I can't." I whispered, looking down at the ground.
"Fine. Don't tell us you've already said enough actually." Owen replied and his voice made me want to just crawl into a hole and die.
Looking up I briefly caught the look of confusion and disgust on Set's face and I cringed inwardly as Xerxes howled non-stop. I knew if they found out I was leaving they'd react this way but I needed to help them. I just wanted them to stay safe and be as far away from that deranged wolf as possible.
"I hope you come to your senses soon mate before you do something you'll regret. Regardless of what's really going on we still love you and we will always love you." Set reminded me as he wrapped Owen up in his arms as my mate broke out in a tearful sob.
"I love you guys too." Was my only reply before Set walked Owen towards the door without so much as a glance back. Before they left he began to speak once again.
"Just remember that no matter where you go I will always find you. You are my mate and I will go to the ends of the universe and back to find you. I will give you access to my power so that you can leave but I promise that this is merely me allowing you a small head start before I come for you." Set warned.
"Wha-" I began.
"Make no mistake Declan you belong to me and Owen and there is nothing in this world that will take you away from us not even you yourself." With that he left the room leaving me confused and turned on. I was conflicted on whether or not I should leave.
On one end I wanted to tell them but I knew that if I did tell them exactly where I was headed I knew that they wouldn't let me go. I'm sure if they even had a mere hint as to where I was headed they would tie me down and never let me leave.
On the other hand I wanted so badly to protect my mates from something that I inevitably caused. It had been me that felt the need to trust Horus regardless of his and Set's relationship. If it hadn't been for me trusting him I'm sure we would have never lost our memories and we wouldn't have been kidnapped and tortured.
I just wanted to make everything right again but should I hide this from my mates and my family? Should I tell them what's going on with me? What do I do?
I say we tell our mates.
"Well clearly you're biased because you always want to tell our mates everything." I sighed in response to Xerxes.
Would you want them hiding something from you? He questioned.
"You forget that Set already did hide something from us. He didn't tell us that he found out about our past without ever asking us and then shut us out of his life for a while. He felt like he had a good reason to hide something and I feel like I have a good one too.
I love our mates and I would never want to hurt them but I know that if I let my Uncle do what he wants to do then I may not have a family or mates to come back to. I just want them to stay safe and if he gets me then I think that it'll probably stop him from trying to destroy our lives. At the best I can buy my fathers some time to figure out something to stop him for good." I tried to explain.
Xerxes fell silent and I knew that he at least understood what I was trying to do. If anything I just wanted more time for my loved ones. Just a little more time to figure everything out.
At least leave a note.
He was right, once again. I could at least leave something behind to let them know where I had gone. Hopefully by time they found it they would understand that I did this to help them. I pulled out a piece of paper from the bed side drawer and began to scribble out a note for Set and Owen making sure to stress how much I loved them and how much I would always love them. They were my mates and nothing would ever change how I felt about them.
In the end this was my choice to make and I prayed that I made the right choice because once I was gone that was it. There was no coming back until this was done. I would be my Uncle's heir and that alone would be soul crushing. I needed to remind myself that what I was doing was for the ones I loved. It was all for them.
"Everything I'm doing is for them." I reminded myself as I folded the letter and placed it on the bed where they could see it. Hopefully they'd understand that before it was too late.
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I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'm sorry for not updating sooner...ugh...life lol but I updated now and I would appreciate votes and comments.