LIAM

How f*****g dare she? What possessed her? How did she even disguise it for so long?

I saw nothing but red when the door finally budged. I could not possibly fathom what she was hoping for with this little stunt. Gavin was angry too, but not quite as much as me. He was quiet for the moment as I paced my office floor.

I was rough, probably too rough, toward her. I couldn’t help it, though; she pushed me past any tolerable limit this time.

The look of defeat mixed with fear on her face when she admitted that all Warwick wanted was her made me think she finally realized you couldn’t settle everything peacefully. Sometimes, there is no compromise, and we can’t treat every dispute as if there is one.

“Little Mate is upset,” Gavin pointed out. I didn’t care at that moment. She needed to think about what she had done. There were so many ways that could have ended with her getting hurt.

My rage bubbled up once more as I thought about the various ways Warwick could have used this witch to get to Azalea. I lashed out, sending my lamp across the room. It exploded with a crash on the bookshelf.

The door opened behind me, but I didn’t bother to turn around. I could smell Damien immediately. He stepped inside but remained otherwise silent.

I tried to reign my temper back in. Breaking furniture would not help the situation. I needed to get to Warwick, and I needed to do it soon before he could create any more frisson in my pack. I was running out of friends and family he could attack.

“Are you going to keep her locked up then?” Damien asked blandly. He knew I was angry, and he probably already knew why.

“She is staying put; I can’t trust her,” I told him.

“You’re f*****g stupid,” he sighed.Belongs to - All rights reserved.

I whipped around, glaring at him. “You want to reword that?”

“No, I don’t,” he said. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “Be mad that she went behind your back, but also don’t be stupid enough to know why. She isn’t like us. We were bred to fight Liam. Fight first, think second. Act. It was ingrained in us. Not Azalea.”

“Do not defend her actions right now, Damien,” I warned him. “She is perpetually drawn to situations where she can get herself hurt.”

“And she is perpetually adverse to people suffering,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall. He raised an eyebrow. “You could not possibly understand why that is.” He left my office and me with even more frustration.

“We can’t leave Little Mate to cry,” Gavin insisted.

“She shouldn’t have lied to me,” I shot back.

“She was helping,” he said.

“Like hell she was. She lied and did this behind my back! She knew it was wrong,” I argued. “Warwick could have gotten to her thanks to her blind trust.”

“It was not blind,” he said. “Her bodyguard, who has been trusted to her for seven years, trusted the witch and brought her here. That is not blind.”

“Do not try and excuse this!” I could not believe he was on her side about this. He was just as panicked as I was locked outside that room.

“You forget, the Moon Goddess made her that way,” he said. He was oddly calm, and I was not in the mood for it.

“I don’t care what the Moon Goddess did. She isn’t here to keep Azalea alive,” I argued. “She left that job to me, except my mate wants to make it an impossible one to do!”

“You should not speak about the Goddess that way. Azalea is simply a product of what has happened to her,” Gavin said. I hated when he tried to act all reasonably. He was usually a s*x-driven, mindless brute ready for a fight.

“She has to learn where the line is and stop willingly walking into danger!” Gavin was only riling me up more now.

“Little Mate is the bravest wolf in this pack,” he stated. “She does not pick a fight she cannot win. She will always look for a way to protect us.”

“I don’t need protecting! She does!” How did Gavin and Azalea not see this? I was going to destroy this stupid vampire; I just needed the right opportunity.

“As you worry for her safety, she worries for yours. She has to protect you in her way, and she does that by finding a way to end the fighting,” he pushed. He seemed to be getting angry with me now for our disagreement. “Little Mate will always be empathetic to a fault and will never accept fighting first.”

“Pretty insightful for a s*x-driven fleabag,” I insulted him.

“Better to know and watch our mate than try to control her blindly,” he argued. “You really have nothing to complain about. It is not the worst thing to have a Luna that would give up her life for the safety of her people.” I pushed him away, completely done with his onslaught. I pounded my fist into the desk again.

This whole day had turned to s**t in a matter of moments, and now everyone had an opinion about how I treated Azalea. None of them would ever understand the constant anxiety, the fear that literally anything could separate us. This was precisely why Alphas with human mates rejected them or lived a life of stigma. You cannot focus on being an effective leader when you are always chasing away threats to your mate.

An ache started to invade my skull. The adrenaline coursing through me from all the rage, arguing with Damien and Gavin, and Azalea’s emotions were creating an unpleasant cocktail inside of me.

A knock on my door caught my attention. I turned around, ready to shout at whoever was interrupting me to find Missy in my doorway. Her face was distressed, and I knew something was wrong.

All my frustration was Azalea, and her stunt vanished in an instant; my pup needed help. “Dad?” she said softly.

MISSY

I barely made it through school. When I got home, I couldn’t sit still. My legs kept moving, pacing all over the house. Holland and I were certain that something was wrong. Something didn’t go their way. Surely, I would have felt it if Maddox were gravely injured? Wolves can sense when their mates are badly hurt.

Julie watched me with worry. “Missy, you don’t know that something is wrong. What if this is just you missing him?”

I shook my head. “No, I know it, Julie. Something went wrong, and Maddox is in trouble,” I told her. My throat was scratchy, and my voice kept catching in it. I had no idea what to do.

“Look, your father is the Alpha. If something were wrong, he would know. He would be the first to know. Go talk to him,” she reasoned. “Surely, he would tell you if something happened to your mate.”

“What if he didn’t? What if he was waiting?” I asked worriedly. She came over to stop me from pacing. She planted her hands on my shoulder and held my gaze.

“Missy, go talk to your dad,” she ordered. “It’s the only thing you can do right now.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay,” I told her.

“I’ll be here,” she said with a sad smile.

I left the house and ran right to the packhouse. If he didn’t know what was happening, maybe he would contact them. If I could just hear that Maddox was okay, I think I could calm down.

When I got inside, the packhouse had an odd atmosphere, not helping my fear any. I raced up the stairs. Lea’s office was hanging wide open, and she wasn’t inside, but I needed Liam right now. I went right to his office door that sat ajar.

I stopped in the doorway, hearing growling and something slam. He sounded angry, and my heart felt like there was an icy hand squeezing it. He couldn’t be mad that they were caught; I wouldn’t accept it. After a minute, there was no more growing, but Liam stood pinching the bridge of his nose.

I knocked on the door and pushed it open timidly. Liam turned around. At first, his face was full of rage, and his mouth opened like he was about to shout. Then he stopped, his expression changing.

“Dad?” I croaked out.

“Missy, what’s wrong?” he asked breathlessly.

“Something happened,” I said. His eyebrows knitted together. “I think something happened,” I clarified.

“What do you mean?” he asked, coming toward me.

“With Maddox and Alpha Langston. I don’t know, I just-” I stopped trying to find the words. “I have had this feeling all day. Holland too. Something is wrong. Maddox isn’t okay, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, okay,” Liam said, setting his warm hands on my shoulders comfortingly. “Take a breath. Tell me everything.” He listened earnestly while I explained the sinking feeling that I had had all day. He nodded his head when I finished.

“Okay,” he said. “Nothing has been brought to me. We haven’t heard from them since they last checked in, but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong. If things went right, we should see them tomorrow or the next day.”

I nodded my head, but Holland wasn’t accepting his words. “Can we contact them? I need to hear his voice. I have to know I am wrong.”

Liam looked torn. I looked at him with pleading eyes, hoping he could understand how much I needed to know Maddox was okay. This far surpassed any of the loneliness and longing that I had felt so far.

“Alright,” he said. He turned around and went to his desk. Pulling his phone toward him, he dialed the number quickly. He had a worried look on his face as it rang and rang.

When no one picked up, he turned to me. “Let’s give it a few minutes and try one more time. We don’t know where they are or what they are doing.”

My l*p quivered, but I nodded my head. I wanted desperately to walk in here, and he tell me everything was fine, not this.

Liam watched the clock while I watched him. I tried to focus on just breathing evenly and not what could be happening with Maddox. Exactly ten minutes later, he picked up the phone and dialed again.

With every ring, the icy fist around my heart tightened its grip. Liam looked up at me with uneasiness as he hung up the phone. “Missy, we can’t jump to conclusions,” he started as he walked towards me.

I stumbled back. “No! Don’t touch me!” I shouted. This was confirmation. Something happened to Maddox and Langston. Something was wrong, and my mate could be hurt.

Liam stopped walking toward me. “You did this!” I screamed at him as tears fell. “This is all your fault! We were happy! I’m not even your daughter! You had to make it so that stupid vampire could take him away! You couldn’t leave us out of it!”

I was out of my mind. Resentment bubbled up inside, exploding out of my mouth. “You said you wanted us nowhere near this and now look, you took my mate away! You ripped him away from me!” Every word was a knife in Liam’s chest; I could see how they cut, but I didn’t care. “He was good for me! We were good for each other! He made me feel whole! Now I may never see him again! You took him from me!”

I didn’t recognize the girl yelling at her adopted father. She was hurt, lonely, and scared like I had never been before.

Two people pushed into the room behind me. “What’s going on?” I heard Austin say.

“Missy, please calm down,” Lily said next to me.

“He took Maddox away!” I said, falling to my knees. I dropped my face into my hands, and powerful sobs racked my whole body. This wasn’t fair; none of this was fair.

There was whispered conversation around me, but I didn’t care. I let myself fall deeper into my endless pit of despair. We didn’t have any time; we just got each other. I knew it would come, the pain. I knew at any time I would feel Maddox’s death, and it would kill me. I wouldn’t be able to live with the pain just like my mother.

Small strong hands pulled me up. “Come on,” Lily said softly next to my ear. She supported me as she guided me out of Liam’s office. It didn’t matter where she took me because Maddox wouldn’t be there.