CYRUS
I swiped, answering the call.
“Marcus? I was just thinking about calling you.”
“Sick timing.” He said and I detected the urgency in his voice. I instantly stood at alert.
“I can tell that something isn’t right from your voice. Whats wrong?”
He exhaled audibly. “Its Mariam.”
Mariam was one of the women of my clan. A distant relative of my father, she was a mother of two boys, one only two years older than the other. The elder one was no more than seven years of age. She was quite close to Marcus and I and we supported her in any way that we could. We sometimes took the older boy with us when we went hunting. It was how the children learned.
“Did something happen to her?” I asked with my heart in my throat.
Please let it not be what I was thinking. If it was, I would never be able to forgive myself.
“Krassius’ men came into the clan yesterday, turning everywhere inside out in search for you. They believed you could still be here hiding.”
“What? You told me that he already had his guards tailing my ass. Why the fuck would he come into the clan in search for me again? Why would he assume that I’m hiding there?”
“I don’t know, Cy. It doesn’t make sense to me either. But I watched it happen.” He sighed. “I tried to stop them, prevent them from going in, but it was an order from the main alpha, Cy. It was either I let them in or they take my head. And they were intent on their mission.”
I understood him. There was no way he could stand against the Alpha’s word. Technically, he was also the Alpha of my clan, but not even the Alpha of a clan could stand against the general Alpha of the werewolves. That was suicide. And even though I knew that whatever happened afterwards definitely couldn’t be a good thing-not with the tone Marcus was using-I was glad he hadn’t opposed them. There were few things worse than seeing one’s own brother’s head on a pike. I shuddered to even think about it.
“They stormed in, practically turned the whole clan upside down, and when they couldn’t find you, they were pretty mad. They were really really mad, Cy.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“What did they do? And how does it link to Mariam?”
He exhaled again, acting like whatever he wanted to tell me was too hard for him. “Cy…”
“Fucking talk to me, Marcus!”
“They took Mariam’s little boy.”
My heart dropped into my stomach, and I would have dropped the phone if I hadn’t been squeezing it like I wanted to smash it Ito pieces.
“Fuck.” I dropped down on the bed, my legs feeling like they couldn’t hold my weight anymore. I wanted to shout. I wanted to punch myself for what I had caused and at the same time, I wanted to kill the Alpha with my bare hands.
I blinked, but all I could see was red. An angry red that demanded me to kill everyone who had ever dared touch someone that was connected to me. Someone under my protection.
“I know, its so awful, man.” He said gruffly through the phone. “Mariam has been crying since morning and I had to for her to eat something because she wouldn’t otherwise. I just feel so bad and so guilty. ” he sighed, and I could picture him rubbing his eyebrows. I did that too when I was stressed. “I feel like I have failed her.”
“You didn’t fail her. I failed her.”
“No.” He said with vehemence, “I was here when it happened. I could stop them. You were miles away, there was nothing you could have done. If there is anyone that should have done anything, it’s me. I should have done anything that I could to stop therefrom taking the child. They should’ve taken me in his place-”
“No!” I yelled before he could even finish, “It’s me they were after.” I hit my chest in my anger, “Its me they were looking for. If anything, I should have been the one they took. No one should have taken the blame for me. No one deserves to take the blame for me.”
There was silence on the line for a while and if I had to guess, I would say that he was trying to come up with something to calm me down. Marcus was like that. The yin to my yang. Whenever I was losing it, he was always there to pull me back in. He was the level-headed one while I was the one with the temper.
“You can’t blame yourself, brother.” He said finally, “You couldn’t have known what you were going to be walking on. It’s not your fault they were having such a conversation and couldn’t have been more careful about it.” His voice turned rough, “And it damn sure isn’t your fault that they’re taking it out on a child. Only cowards would take a child to get someone’s attention.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I was still finding it hard to stomach the news. They had taken Julius, the younger brother of the boy we usually took with us when we went hunting, Felix. How was the mother feeling? How was Felix feeling?
I tried to put myself in their shoes. Wondered how I would react if anyone ever took Marcus and I didn’t know their whereabouts. Didn’t know how to get him back. Damn if I wouldn’t do anything in my power to get him back.
The exact same way I was going to do every goddamn thing in my power to make sure I returned Julius to his mother. Even if it fucking killed me.
“I can literally hear you plotting over here, Cy. Don’t do anything stupid.”
The hell did he mean by that? Okay, well, I might have been plotting the death of the Alpha, but I sure as hell didn’t do anything without plotting and planning my every move. I wasn’t known to act rashly. Hot-tempered yes, but I wasn’t known to get myself into foolish situations.
“And you can argue with yourself as much as you want that you don’t do stupid things, but we both know you do. You have a temper that you can’t control most of the time.”
Okay, maybe he was partly right.
“Calm down, okay?” I said, “Its nit like I can do anything right now anyway, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling so fucking helpless. The child is probably suffering right now, this very moment. Don’t you know how ruthless the Alpha gets when his mind is set on something?”
“Shit, I know, Cy, but you want think like that. It would only eat you up on the inside and distract you from what you should actually be focusing on.” He paused, “Trying to come up with a way out of this mess. ”
“What are you saying?”
“Im saying that you should forget about Julius right now. I know how hard it is. Hell, its even harder to see Mariam but if I am here and I can do it, then you can too. You just need to focus on that matters first. Thinking of a plan to get out of this situation that you are in now. In that course, a plan to rescue Julius will surely arise. I’ll be over here supporting Mariam in any way that I can and reassuring her that we are going to get her back, because we are. Just focus on the plan for now.”
A breath left my parted lips. This was exactly why I had wanted to call him in the first place. He always had a way of cooling me down. Of making me ignore the bad side and focus on only the good side. He made everything sound so easy, and even if it wasn’t, it was a welcome illusion.
What would I do without him?
“Thanks, Marc.” I told him, “I mean it.”
“Sure. Any time.” He sighed, “I need to go now. I don’t want everyone wondering where I am.”
“Sure.” I hung up.
My body was already dried at this point so I just grabbed a jean and shoved my legs into it, frustrated as hell because I still didn’t have a plan.
I still didn’t know how I was going to go back home.