Michael's POV
He wasn't the same.
I mean, I don't expect anyone to be the same after they rise from the dead two years after their death, but he was so different. He looked just as I remembered him before he was poisoned, but his being was different. He was brooding more than I'd ever seen him, doctors had run their tests to make sure he wouldn't end up back in the grave and when everything had checked out to their surprise, he'd locked himself in his wing of the pack house and hadn't made an appearance since then. That was a month ago, his parents assumed that this was his way of grieving for his family and everyone just accepted it, especially since our knocks and calls for him went unanswered.
A few weeks later though, that changed when he walked into the kitchen one day as Avery and I were feeding the twins. He didn't say anything as he stood there, he just seemed to home in on Nathaniel, transfixed as he watched the baby smack on the baby food that he'd just been fed.
I don't think he even realized that he was slowly moving closer to us as his eyes remained fixed on Nate, who'd finally noticed the large man making his way toward him as he reached out to him.
A look crossed his features that I'd seen rarely but I knew exactly what it meant.
"Hey, how about we go up and talk."
He just nodded and turned to make his way to his wing of the pack house.
"Can you handle them both for a few hours?"
Avery gave an encouraging smile and nodded.
"Yeah, I've got them, I'll call Ariel and Alana if I need any help. Go ahead and talk, he needs it."
I nodded and gave her and each of the kids a kiss on the head before I made my way up.
**
He was sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the wall.
"How did it happen?" He said lowly.
"Doctors said for Amina, multiple stab wounds, Steve from suffocation, and James from a- a broken neck. He sent them back after, in boxes."
I didn't have the heart to tell him that his family was sent back in pieces and were so unrecognizable that it took DNA tests and a full team of doctors to separate the parts and put them with the correct bodies. But as always, there was nothing that I could get past him without him knowing and calling me out on it.
"Tell me the rest, you're holding something back."
I took a deep sigh.
"When he sent them back, he sent them back in—he sent them back in pieces. They were unrecognizable, it took DNA tests on the blood that soaked into their clothes. They couldn't be put back together, but I did my best to make sure they were laid to rest properly."
He leaned forward and held his head in his hands
"And you never found him?"
"No."
He hunched in on himself and spoke so softly that if I didn't have enhanced hearing, I wouldn't have heard him.
"I didn't have enough time with them, they didn't have enough time to be free, to be happy. Amina went through too much in her life because of him and Steve and James, they never even got the chance to live, to be children that weren't always on the run and being hurt by a man that I should have taken care of the minute I laid eyes on him. So all of this? It's on me."
He rose to his feet, wiped the tears from his eyes and turned to me, his face hardened into that unreadable, hard mask that I hand seen since he found his mate.
"Bring me everything you have; I'm going to hunt this bastard down like the animal he is."
And just like that, the Alpha King was back.
And he was out for blood.
Titus' POV
"Walk me through step by step, I want to know everything that happened after Jaxon attacked me."
"Jaxon was working for Tony, he was one of the moles other than your mother and that kid you killed in the prisons that day. The plan was to kill you and then everyone else in line for the throne so that he could take over as king and hand Amina over to Tony, a few weeks later you were still down so I had Amina crowned and the boys introduced officially as your children. A few days later Avery woke up and we got the news that you were getting worse and that there was nothing that could be done to help you. That night I caught Steve and James trying to sneak out to see you so I brought them to you instead, within forty-eight hours Steve was missing, there was no trace of him other than a set of footprints that led into the forest but they stopped and we searched for weeks until Amina remembered about a secret spot Steve had in his room, we fund a burner phone and a map that led him to a meeting point during a shift change so he was able to go undetected, the phone had one outgoing call from Steve to who we assume was Tony but no one answered when we called the number back. We followed the map of course but it didn't led us anywhere but we continued to search the territory for weeks with nothing to show for it. That same night we realized that Elaine forged paperwork and was able to sneak Tatiana off the territory. We searched her room; she was the woman who was hurting Steve. She had recordings and photos hidden in her room. Amina got the news that you passed a few weeks later the, everything was temporarily stalled and was meant to continue after the funeral, but you hadn't even been buried a full five minutes before he attacked."
"That means he's been watching us. He needed to make sure I was dead before he made a move. What happened after the attack?"
"We fought but we were outnumbered, and he made a deal with Amina. She told us to stop the fighting because she knew we wouldn't win that day so in exchange for the fighting to end and for Tony to call off his army, she had to turn herself over to him, but he forced her to bring James with them, four months later he sent their bodies back here. That was two years ago so we stopped the searches for them after they were laid to rest."
Hearing that my family was dead made my heart clinch painfully and I felt like I was suffocating, but I would have time to grieve their loss later but now it was time for me to avenge them and end this monster's reign once and for all.
"Give me that map that Steve had; I'm going to start there. See if there's anything on those recordings and photos that were found in Elaine's room, tear the whole thing apart if you have to."
I turned to Michael.
"Is Jaxon dead?"
He shook his head.
"No, I was hoping maybe he'd feel guilty and fess up once he found out they were dead, no luck so far."
I nodded.
"Good, I'm going to have a little chat with him."
Michael got to work, easily falling back into the role as my second in command as I made my way to the pack prisons.
**
I whistled a slow, daunting tune as I walked toward his cell, the sound of my boots hitting the ground echoing through the stone walkway.
His back was facing me as I entered his cell and I took a moment to take in his appearance. His hair was filthy and had grown past his now narrow shoulders and his spine was visible through his thin shirt, he was hardly the man that I remember him to be, the man that I thought was my friend.
"You look like shit."
He sat up as if someone had just shoved a rod up his back and turned around faster than his frail body should have been able to.
I almost smiled at the gob smacked look on his face.
"What's wrong Jaxon, you look like you've seen a ghost."
He was doing an amazing imitation of a fish as he looked for words to say.
"B-but you're dead, you were supposed to die."
I chuckled humorlessly.
"I was, you killed me Jax, but now I'm back and I'd like to have a word with you."
I walked further into the nearly empty cell and leaned against a wall near him.
"He killed them. The man you betrayed your pack, your family for murdered my mate and children and I know that you know where he is and you're going to tell me where he is."
He remained silent.
"You know, I heard that Tatiana is your mate and to my knowledge she's still alive."
He looked at me, surprise and fear wiped from his features as absolute rage filled his eyes.
"Don't you dare touch her!"
I got right up in his face before I spoke.
"Tell me where I can find that bastard and I won't make you watch me rip your mate's throat out, I'll just tell you about how much I enjoyed it instead."
He swallowed audibly.
"I don't know where he is, I swear."
"Wrong answer."
I stood up and walked from the room as the man that I once called a friend, begged for the life of his mate. He didn't care about what happened to my mate so I damn sure didn't give a fuck about his.
**
It took a week before we had a breakthrough.
We'd been doing the same searches that Amina had ordered two years ago and as expected, the results were the same, a whole lot of nothing. Until today as I followed the crudely drawn map that was made for a child to understand and reached the last point drawn on the map that directed me straight which in the end led me nowhere. It wasn't until I glanced up at the trees that it hit me.
"Mike!"
He was next to me within seconds.
"What? Did you find something?"
"I think so."
I pointed to the map in my hands.
"We kept going straight because that's what the map says right?"
"Right, it doesn't lead us anywhere no matter how far we go."
"Exactly. It isn't telling us to go straight, it's telling us to go up."
I started running toward the tree that had been marked off on the map. As I approached, I started climbing and as I reached the a place near the top, I noticed a familiar t shirt sticking from a hole in the trunk. I pulled it from the tree and unrolled something hard that the small t shirt, Steve's shirt I noticed after a quick look at the familiar Iron Man logo on the front, was wrapped around. Inside the plastic bottle that was wrapped in the shirt was a note written in Steve's familiar messy handwriting.
The place where princes live.
"Oh my goddess."
I quickly made my way down the tree and immediately started barking orders for warriors to start gathering.
"Titus, what's going on? What did you find up there?"
I turned quickly to him, sure that I looked rather manic at the moment.
"My son is a goddamn genius that's what."
I said as I held up the note and shirt in the same hand.
"Steve. I don't know how he did it but he was able to leave a clue behind before they got their hands on him."
He took the note from my hands so that he could read it himself and once he was done, he looked up at me, disbelief written across his face.
"No fucking way."
I looked at him, in full alpha mode.
"They're in my fucking castle."
**
Avery, ever the level headed one even with two infants to mind put everything on hold for the night until Christian and several other close packs agreed to loan their warriors over to help fight Tony's army.
Goodbyes were said with Avery and Greyson temporarily in charge and an army behind me, we were on our way and within forty- eight hours we were more than halfway through the three-day journey to the castle.
We were setting camp for the night when I heard it, a rustling not too far from where we were setting up. I didn't smell anything unusual, so I left it alone. The rustling came three more times until I growled with full alpha authority behind it and a pitiful, muffled whimper sounded.
The scene was familiar but I brushed the thought away as I located the whimpers and walked purposefully toward the area where the noise was the loudest, Michael and several warriors flanking me. I reached out to the bush where the noise was centralized and ripped the whole thing from the ground and threw it to the side. I'm positive my heart stopped beating completely at the sight before me because instead of the pesky animal that I was expecting, there were two figures covered in mud and dirt but I would know them anywhere.
Blue eyes, blonde hair, concerning rattling in his chest with every intake, a brown haired, silver eyed boy on his back.
Oh my goddess.
"Daddy?"