Arthur's POV
My mate was taking the whole situation with the media reasonably well. Amongst the accurate articles written about our engagement party, there were several more negative ones, and of course she had picked the worst one to read.
I hadn't wanted to tell her at all, but she'd been so insistent with Andre that she know the facts, and it was unlikely that no one else would mention it. Better just to put it out in the open, even if I would have preferred to simply have a nice meal with her.
So, I quietly watched her while she read the nonsense that they wrote about her. Pierce wasn't so quiet.
{How dare they even suggest that we reconsider her as our mate? She's our destiny, and what right do those puny pups think they have? They exist as they do because of our good grace.. I could destroy them in the physical world in the wag of a tail, and even easier in the realm of wolves.}
{You know Anne isn't going to want that.}
{I adore our mate, I truly do, but she is too hung up on human ideals. As are you, but even moreso. If Maria were in control, she would rip them apart herself.} He continued on, extolling the virtues of forcing the rebellious wolves of the media to heel.
It was mostly talk, but I didn't like how he was speaking of Anne. Werewolves were by nature divided individuals, and it was all too easy for the human to become contemptuous of the wolf, or vice versa. Things never went well when that happened, and I suspected that was where Anne and Maria ran into difficulties, because they were quite different, although I found both halves wonderful in their own ways. Pierce and I were more like-minded most of the time, so there was less struggle, and we knew how to handle each other. Like right now.
{Would you really change Anne if you were able to?} I asked him, already knowing full well the answer.
He stopped his diatribe midsentence. {No. Of course not.}
{Then we have to allow Anne to be Anne, and Maria to be Maria. That's just who they are.}
{You're not wrong, but...}
{We'll deal with them once we find them, through legal means.}
As if she could hear my internal conversation with my wolf, she asked what I would do if I found the source, and I assured her that it wouldn't be anything but what was permissible by rule of law. I would have liked to reassure her more, but then Lucas's words in my head interrupted me.
{There're rogues attacking Hemmingswood.} Lucas said tersely. He'd probably tried texting, but I'd left my cellphone in the office.
Hemmingswood was a small town just south of the capital. We'd been having increasing issues with rogue attacks in the last few years, but never any so close to home. This could be my opportunity to get my hands dirty and find out more about the root of the rogue problem.
"Sorry Anne, I'm going to have to go, there's an issue."
"What is it?" Her eyes were worried, and I hated to make it worse. But Anne didn't want to be kept in the dark, so...
"More rogue troubles. I'm going to go and try to get information."
She nodded tersely and stood up and rounded the table to my side. "Be careful," she said. She kissed me quickly on the lips. I didn't want to leave, but time was of the essence, so without even a lingering backwards glance, I hurried away, ordering Lucas to meet me at the south exit with some fighters.
Moments later, I had shifted into my powerful wolf, and Lucas, Brandon, and several warriors also shifted, and were running through the city, dodging cars and pedestrians. Our wolves had excellent reflexes, so the worst thing I did was startle a few old ladies, but it was an emergency.
The worst thing until Brandon almost ran down a vaguely familiar homeless woman in a flowered shawl.
{Watch it,} I cautioned.
{I didn't hit her, she's fine.}
{Just everyone be careful,} I said, although we were getting close to the edge of the city. It only took a couple of minutes for us to make it through the suburbs, and then we were running alongside the highway, and we reached Hemmingswood.
{Where are the rogues?} One of the fighters asked.
{I tried linking the officers stationed here for direction, but I'm getting no response.}
That wasn't promising. Hopefully they were just unconscious rather than dead. Then a scream split the silence and gave us direction.
Lucas ordered the fighters to sweep the perimeter of the town, and the three of us pivoted towards the sound of distress. It took us only moments to find the source of the scream. A female wolf was growling and trying to shield three children from a pair of rogues who were snapping and snarling as they circled her, clearly going for the young ones.
Pierce had been quiet throughout our frantic run, lending me his strength but not interfering, but the sight set him off. {How dare they attack pups!?} he snarled and the sound leaked out my own throat. Fully in agreement with my wolf, we charged forward and grabbed a rogue's hindquarter with our sharp canines. My friends went for the other one, leaving me to my prey.
{We should try to keep them alive for questioning,} I said to my friends and fighters as much as to my wolf who was out for blood, digging into the rogues flesh with all the force of his powerful jaws.
Even though I was much larger than the rogue, it wasn't willing to go down without a fight. It wrenched itself away from me, shredding its own flesh with the harsh movement. I spat out the foul fur and blood that were left behind as it turned and started to dash away, abandoning the other rogue that Lucas and Brandon had already taken down. The rogue was surprisingly fast.
{I don't think so,} Pierce said, eyeing the running rogue with a wolfish smirk. I released control to him because he loved a chase, and moments later we were hurtling after the fleeing rogue. It leapt over a fence into some poor citizen's backyard, and I did the same, clearing it easily. Then the rogue cut through hedges into a back ally, but rather than trying to follow him through the small space, I ran around, losing valuable seconds.
Pierce wasn't concerned about the loss. He put on a burst of speed and soon we were at the rogue's side. It quickly darted in the opposite direction, but Pierce wasn't an alpha wolf for nothing, his reflexes were unmatched, and he copied the move a split second later rendering the evasive manoeuvre futile.
Pierce ran until he was almost beside the wolf, then lurched to the side, sinking teeth deep into the rogue's neck as he threw our greater weight onto the wolf, breaking through a backyard fence and ending the chase as quickly as it had begun. {I've caught him.} I informed the others where I was.
Lucas was quick to respond. {Brandon has this one secured, and the fighter's have taken down another pair.}
A few moments later, a completely naked Lucas appeared. Most wolves tried to avoid nudity to keep their mates happy, but Lucas was completely unperturbed as he crouched down beside the wolf I was still holding still with my weight.
"Shift," he said, throwing his dominance as my second towards the rogue. It did not move other than the rise and fall of its huffing breaths. Strange, most wolves couldn't stand up under even Lucas's power.
He tried again, and it did nothing. {I couldn't get anything out of the other one, either,} he said.
We spent the next half of an hour securing the town against further threats. We discovered that the officer stationed at the town and both deputies had been killed by rogues early in the attack, although they had taken out three in the vicinity of the office, and a fourth rogue had died at the end of a bloody trail a few blocks later. Without the officers, the town had been rendered relatively defenceless, although several civilians had done what they could to fight back. To my dismay and my wolf's, three civilian pack members had also been killed, and two more gravely injured.
Using the officer's station, we locked up the three remaining living rogues, and began investigating while the fighters guarded and secured the town. Besides being my friend, Brandon had a particularly keen nose, and he was convinced that the rogues had come into town and went straight for the officer's station.
Lucas was now wearing a towel wrapped around his hips completely shamelessly, and was receiving appreciative glances from a couple of the gawking women. The crowd that was starting to form was clearly watching me as well, whether because I had been recognized as the prince, or because of my awkward clothing, or because I was the prince wearing the most awkward outfit I'd likely ever been spotted in, uniform pants that were two sizes too small, and an officer shirt I couldn't quite button all the way. There hadn't been even a prayer that I would fit into the matching jacket.
Hopefully no one was taking pictures, because I didn't want Anne to see me looking like this later.
Lucas frowned, using the mind link to keep our conversation quiet. {It can't be coincidence that they went straight for the defence we had stationed here in the town.}
{Maybe not, but I've never seen rogues use strategy,} Brandon said. He was right. Rogue attacks usually were seemingly random. A wolf would see something it wanted and go for it, causing general mayhem, but on a much smaller scale. They also tended to avoid authority or anyone powerful enough to stop them. Larger groups of rogues were rare, having rejected the whole pack structure of our society.
{Lucas, have the more recent rogue attacks all been larger numbers of rogues?}
He paused. {Not this many. Maybe four or five at most.}
{But isn't even that a lot? Think back to when your father was teaching us, he said that rogues tend to go alone, or with one or two others at most.}
{That's my experience with my pack. We don't get many rogues, but I've never seen more than two at a time," Brandon said.
Lucas nodded. {Yeah, you're right. Why didn't we see this?"
{We were dealing with incidents separately. And it's not like our fathers spotted it either. We should go through the records when we get back to figure out if what we're seeing is a new behaviour pattern,} I decided.
The three of us finished up and left the situation to the reinforcements that had arrived.
We used one of the vehicles the reinforcements had used to return to the capital. My mind was swimming with thoughts. What I wanted was to return straight to my mate, but she'd be busy, and I had my own work to do as well. This attack, while enlightening in some ways, had opened up a lot more questions.
I walked through the halls, and Brandon left us to get changed into his own clothes. Lucas turned down the hall towards my office without missing a beat, but I stopped him. "Man, what are you doing? Go clean up and get dressed, I've seen enough of you today for the rest of my life. There was no way I was letting his towel-covered ass anywhere near my office.
"But we've got to—"
"It'll take five minutes, you can meet me there."
He peeled off, muttering about how we had no time for social niceties. I ignored him and went to my office. Conveniently, there was a simple shower in the attached washroom for just these sorts of emergencies, and I made sure there wasn't a speck of blood left on me for when I finally saw Anne later. Then I dressed in my own clothing, relieved to be comfortable again.
Lucas joined me shorty later, and then Brandon came as well, although his mood was much darker than when we had been chasing rogues. I didn't ask, but he'd probably had another spat with Serenity. Thank the goddess Anne was her amazing self.
We quickly updated my father and his beta on what we had observed in Hemmingswood, and set to work looking through old records. Brandon grumbled about the lack of digitization, and he was right, it would have been easier with a search function.
We were just getting into it when there was a knock on my door. I called for the visitor to enter, and the other two didn't even look up to see who it was.
It was Herbert, of all people. He bowed. "My apologies, Your Majesty, but I was looking for Captain Lucas."
Lucas spun in his chair and looked towards the uncomfortable guard. Couldn't be fun for him to interrupt two alphas and his superior.
"What do you need, Herbert?" Lucas asked.
"Well, I... Your father told me to talk to you about my assignment. I was given some time off to consider my options."
Lucas didn't look impressed with the interruption. "And?"
He didn't answer immediately, probably with an audience, although Brandon still seemed absorbed in the rogue report he was reading. If I were kind, I would have suggested he talk to Lucas alone, but I was bothered that he had upset my mate, and I didn't want to spare the time while we were working. Finally, he said, "Does this break mean I'll be reassigned or decommissioned?"
"Why would it? You were given a couple of days to figure out how you want to proceed."
He rallied himself. "Yes, but I didn't ask for that. My assignment is my duty, and I don't want to give it up. Even for my mate."
Lucas frowned. "I would have given up everything to get my mate back, but that isn't an option for me. The fact that you—"
I cut Lucas off. We were all pumped from the chaotic afternoon, and Herbert had unknowingly struck a nerve. "Sir Herbert, I appreciate your dedication to your post, but the reason you were given time off was so that you could discover your priorities for yourself. It was not a penalty."
He nodded, meeting my eyes for a brief moment before inclining his head.
"As you are undoubtedly aware, my parents' rule has been one of supporting fated bonds, and mine and my mates will undoubtedly be the same. My parents do not believe finding your mate will detract fro job performance. In the short term it causes disturbances, but in the long term supporting the bonds leads to healthier staff and subjects. However, I have no intention to punish you for your decision regardless of what you choose."
"I understand."
"I don't say this to try to sway you, but I can't promise my mate will be so magnanimous. She is very reasonable, but at the same time your mate is her friend, so I doubt she'll wish to have you guard her if you choose to reject Jane."
Herbert looked alarmed. "I never said I wanted to reject her, Your Majesty."
"No?"
"I only said that I wanted some time to figure things out, and she got upset. I was initially planning to speak to her in private when I was off duty, but that didn't work out."
He seemed sincere, so perhaps his mate and mine had somewhat misinterpreted the situation. "So, what you're saying is that you don't plan to reject her?"
"I don't."
If only all the kingdom's problems were this easy to solve. "Very well. Here's your new orders. You are to go to your mate and inform her that you've had a misunderstanding, and then you will explain exactly what you've been thinking and feeling to her."
"Your Majesty, she's not exactly speaking to me right now. I'm told she's giving me time."
"If she doesn't want to talk, tell her that her prince ordered it."
I paused. "I want it to be clear that I'm not ordering the two of you to be together. Only that you communicate clearly. If you decide not to fight the bond, I'm sure we can find something for Jane to do in the palace, or we can reassign you to your mate's location instead. Now go."
He saluted. "Yes, Your Majesty."
I wondered if Anne would think I'd abused my power. I hoped not, because I didn't want her to be disappointed in me.
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