"What have we discovered?" I asked Aymeric, forcing myself not to pace, even though my wolf was prowling restlessly. We need to find her. Why are we still here?
"Nothing substantial. When I went through the ancient archives, I found two references to magicks. One was part of an alpha scroll stating that they feared the magicks, especially the magie maléfique, were going to wipe out the wolves, and then the other one said only The magicks are no more."
"I don't believe that," I said, as sure of that as I was of anything else in my life. "Some must have survived. We need to find out more. Are you sure you looked in every text?"
"Three times, Alpha. I went over every last inch of the archives for secret hiding places, in both the books and the shelves and the walls. Every piece of furniture was also checked. In many books from about 400 years ago, many of the texts are missing chunks of pages, as if they were ripped out, purged. All references to magicks and magic were destroyed except for the two that I mentioned that were overlooked."
Slamming my hand on the table, I glared at Aymeric. "I don't believe that! There must be something! What about this Raevyn? There are rumors of a woman who has magic, who can help those suffering from the rejected mate pain."
"We have asked, Alpha," Aymeric said calmly. "No one knows anything beyond rumors, except possibly Owena and Echo. When we questioned them about the Raevyn, they played dumb."
That had me snarling, and Aymeric eyed me carefully, ready to bow his head if he thought I was about to lose my shit. "I think you should talk with them."
"Decree them, you mean."
"Yes, Alpha. If even a few magicks survived and were intent on destroying the wolves back then, we should assume no less now. We need every bit of information we can get."
"Bring them to me."
When the two women were in front of me half an hour later, trembling slightly but trying to be brave, I simply looked at them and then said, "You will share with me everything you know of the Raevyn. Leave nothing out. Tell me every last detail."
For an hour, Aymeric and I listened in stunned silence, asking questions when they had finished.
"And where did you find her?" I demanded.
They explained where, and then Echo said, "But, Alpha, she found us. Unless she wants you to find her, you will not."
"Do you think Neera left to seek her out, to go back to the Raevyn's home?"
This time, Owena answered. "No. Raevyn did something to cloak her location. So only minutes after we left, we had no idea where we were. Her home was lost to us. There was only forward, to pack lands."
"Is there anything left to tell me, anything I should know? Did Neera tell you she was taking off this time?"
"No, Alpha," Echo said, fear and sincerity in every word. Being under an Alpha decree was not the most comfortable feeling for a wolf. "We were as surprised as you that she was gone."
Owena continued, "She didn't leave a note, and since she left her phone behind, we have no way to contact her."
I dismissed them with an admonishment not to share what they had told me with anyone.
When they were gone, I looked at Aymeric.
"This Raevyn shares a body. She uses potions to allow the sharing of the body and to ease the pain of rejection."
"Yes, Alpha."
"So, it's not a stretch to think that somehow, Lindsay Morgan used potions to enchant me for the last three years."
Aymeric shook his head, and I knew that we were both thinking dark thoughts.
"Or worse," he said.
"It could have been a powerful magic that allowed Lindsay Morgan to control my body that day, my thoughts, my words."
"A magic so powerful that it caused both of you to pass out once Neera left the Den. We know nothing of magic, but the power required to do that must have depleted you both."
"She used my body to fuck herself," I shuddered, disgusted but glad to know I had not rejected my Destined One, I had not fucked another woman in front of my Howl, I had not decreed her to watch. I had not made her zeta. I was blameless in the whole nasty business, if what I strongly suspected was true, but convincing my Howl of that might be tricky. What she had seen was unprecedented, something no Alpha had done to his Howl, and I imagined it might take her a while to get over it.
Now can we go?
My wolf had been at me for the week that Neera had been gone to go find her, hunt her down. I'd wanted to, but just leaving my pack to roam the country searching for Neera was not possible.
The pain was intensifying, and my dreams were becoming more and more vivid, making me frantic, a sense of urgency nipping at my heels to find her, make her ours. It was her wolf I saw in my dreams most often, howling her despair, her need for us. Sometimes Neera was in my dreams, curled into a little ball, holding her stomach, crying softly with pain.
Echo and Owena had told me that Raevyn had blocked their presence in her home so none of the trackers I had sent to find Neera could locate her. But unless Raevyn was helping Neera again, this time I had a chance of finding her. I'd sent out my eight best trackers but they'd found nothing yet in the week since she'd disappeared. Again.
We could find her. I know we could.
My wolf wanted desperately to find Neera. As Alpha, I was needed here for the well-being of my pack, but I wanted to go find my Howl just as badly as he did. Unfortunately, I couldn't be gone for weeks on end; the Alpha was critical to pack members calm, to keep the wolves steady, even if it was just a word from me or a touch of my hand every day. I had to wait to move until one of my trackers closed in on her. The pack could function without me for a couple of days.
My dreams continued for two weeks, and my wolf met Neera's fur-girl every night, and she began to show my wolf clues in her limited way. The minute I woke up, I'd call a tracker in the area that I thought she was and they'd head there during the night while she slept.
It took two more weeks, but my trackers finally located her and paid a man to put a tracker on her car.
The next day, when she stopped, she was only three hundred miles from pack lands. One of my wolves who was a pilot flew me to the closest municipal airport to Neera. I rented a car, stopped at a nearby Target to gather a few items I suspected I'd need and backed into the empty parking space right next to Neera's car. Working quickly, I readied the trunk for Neera, just in case she proved to be troublesome about returning to pack lands with me.
The ache in my chest had eased immediately since my Destined One was near. Just as I finished with the trunk, a pizza delivery man pulled up and headed for Neera's door. I casually followed him -- and the meat-lover's pizza -- to her door.
Her scent was all over the door, and I breathed deeply, relishing my Destined One's scent.
I heard Neera open her door, and as soon as the delivery man left, I stepped in front of her door and slapped my hand against it. Following her into the room, I kicked the door shut behind me.
Sniff her hair. Let's sniff her hair. She smells so good. So good. So good!
Stop, I ordered my wolf. Now was not the time.
Can we lick her face, then? I want to lick her face.
Ignoring him and his joy at being reunited with Neera, I allowed myself to relax in relief that we'd found her, but at the same time, all my bottled-up anger for the last three weeks surged to the fore. Although I forced myself not to yell at her, I did allow my displeasure to be known through the old standby of sarcasm and biting little nicknames to force a reaction from her. My Howl had left the safety of pack lands and was therefore unguarded. She could have found herself hunted by other packs or worse. My girl's wolf was on the smaller side -- lovely, but definitely not big enough to overcome most wolves. A Howl without her mate was vulnerable, and for three weeks she'd been alone. Unprotected. Vulnerable.
For a moment, I remembered my mother's wolf, returned to the pack in pieces -- No.
Since she proved unwilling, I threw Neera over my shoulder and carried her out to the car. I popped the trunk, and once she stopped her screaming, explained all the luxuries I'd put into the trunk for her comfort.
I put her into the trunk and slammed it shut. Immediately she started screaming and pounding on the trunk lid. I listened to her swearing at me for a minute.
"My parents were definitely married, Neera!" I called to her, trying not to laugh when that made her shriek even louder.
She's not happy.
To say the least. But she'd soon come to realize that this was for her own safety. She might even thank me for it if she calmed down enough to think things through.
We drove for about one hundred miles, my Howl not letting up for even a minute with the kicking and yelling. I was kind of proud of her for being so ornery, but at the same time I wished she'd settle onto the cushions and just go to sleep. The constant noise wasn't making for a fun drive.
For the hour and a half that I drove, my wolf growled at me the whole time while I listened to Neera yell and lash out with her fists and legs.
And then suddenly...utter silence.
My wolf went on alert and then we heard the faint sound of her sniffling. "Please, Night, help me. I hurt myself," she cried out to me, her voice growing more frantic with each word. "Please -- I must have cut myself and I'm bleeding bad. Ple --"
Then nothing. Not even sniffling. No sound of movement.
My wolf went nuts, and it was all I could do to hold him back. He was trying to force a shift, something he'd never done before, and given that wolves didn't have opposable thumbs, that would make driving pretty fucking difficult.
"Hold on," I snapped, fighting him back. "I'm going to get off the highway and find a safe place to pull over, you asshole!"
Two minutes later, I was off the highway, off the beaten path, and parked behind an abandoned gas station. I ran to the back of the car, still listening in vain for any sound and threw open the trunk.
Fur and fangs fucking flew out of the trunk, aiming straight for my throat, and at the last second, I caught her in my arms and held her away from me.
She's fucking perfect! my wolf howled, happy that our Destined One had just gone for our throat.
Neera's fur-girl struggled mightily, jaws snapping, desperately trying to free herself from my grip.
"Shift, Neera."
Growling, she tried to bite my hand that was stroking her neck, fighting against my hold.
"Shift so we can talk," I tried again. I refused to use an Alpha decree on her.
"Shift or I'll shift and we'll take the blood as wolves," I threatened her.
YES! YES! YES! DOOOO IT! DOOOO IT!
He really needed to calm down.
I squeezed Neera a little to show her I was serious.
I suddenly had a naked woman in my arms, a soft, curvy woman who had riled up me and my wolf. She wriggled out of my arms and turned to face me, hands on her hips.
"Are you insane?" she demanded. "In what world did you think it would be OK to lock me in a motherfucking TRUNK? You stupid asshole! I'm going to kill you when you least expect it! I can't believe you thought that would be a good move! How stupid are you that you thought kidnapping me from my hotel room would be a good idea?"
I looked at her, breathing fire and enraged, totally adorable. "You'll get over it."
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, even if it was the truth.
"That's your answer to everything, you idiot! Get over being rejected! Get over you forcing me to watch you fuck your long-term girlfriend! Get over being rejected in front of the pack! Get over being made a zeta! Get over it, get over it, get over it! That's all you can say, but you sure as hell haven't acknowledged the pain you put me through!"
And that, in turn, triggered me.
"Because I can't acknowledge it!" I bellowed at her. "To acknowledge your pain, to think about what you saw, what I said to you would destroy something in me, Neera! I can't even think about what I did to you! You're my Howl! You are the last person in the world I would have hurt. I have to focus on what caused that shit and eliminate it so it's never a threat again and just not think about the pain I caused you because it would destroy me."
"You destroyed me, Night! Just because it inconveniences you to think about it, I don't have that luxury! It's right there in front of me in excruciating detail every time I close my eyes! And I saw it because you decreed I couldn't move or take my eyes off of you. I had to watch my Destined One fuck his girlfriend right in front of me. And then watch her clean your dick off with her tongue. You want to talk destroyed? You really want to talk destroyed?"
"That right there should tell you it wasn't me doing that. I would never use a decree on my Howl. I would never make you zeta. And I would never have wanted another woman once my Howl was revealed."
"And yet, you did all of that, even though you deny doing it." She sighed, and her shoulders sagged a bit. "How did you even find me? I was better off without you."
"Really, Neera? The pain you were in, the pain I was in -- it was excruciating for both of us to be apart. Your wolf was calling to my wolf in our dreams, begging us to find you. She didn't know where she was exactly, but she gave clues, as many as she could, and she kept calling out to my wolf until my trackers finally found you."
Crossing her arms over her chest, she refused to say anything. I sighed.
"Let's head back to pack lands. We can talk more when you've calmed down."
"Oh, can I ride in the front seat now? Or is it back in the trunk so I'll have even more reason to hate you?"
I hesitated too long before answering.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" she screamed -- screamed -- at me. This having a Howl business was going to take some getting used to.
"You can sit in the front seat as long as you promise not to pull any shit that could hurt you."
"Oh, thanks, daddy," she snarked at me, then went and pulled her clothes out of the trunk, having had the foresight to pull them off before she shifted.
Neera went and sat in the front seat like some sulky teenager, arms crossed over her chest, legs kicked out in front of her, head turned away from me.
And she didn't move for the next hundred and fifty miles, didn't speak. Nothing.
My phone buzzed beside me.
"Can you check the text in case it's pack business?" I asked her nicely.
She picked up my phone.
"The passcode's 63372," I told her, wondering if she'd figure it out.
She didn't say anything, just stabbed at the numbers on the screen, then sat up, rage energy pouring out of her.
"What? What's wrong?" I asked.
She tossed the phone back on the console, but I got the feeling she wanted to toss it out the window.
"Nothing's wrong. Aymeric just wanted to let you know that Lindsay Morgan's back and she's refusing to leave your house until she talks to you."