AVA
Of course, our bliss could only ever be short lived. We hadn’t even sat down for dinner yet when shit decided to hit the fan again.
I was sitting in my office studying the old Lycan legends when the message came. Well, two messages.
The first was from a team I sent to scout out the Eclipse Mountain pack. I knew what I was destined to do, but I didn’t really know what the situation actually was at the pack. Turns out… It was bad.
The territory was being attacked by rogues most days, they were constantly attempting to push through the defences. No one was entirely sure why, but it was happening.
The pack, my pack, had lost ten wolves in the last month, and another twenty seven were in hospital, critically wounded. Of the twenty seven wounded, six were children under the age of ten. Six.
What absolute scumbag targets children?
“Jacob, Alex,” I called through the mind link. “Can you both meet me in my office?”
They were in Jacob’s office, so reached mine in less than a minute. When they burst in, I had my head resting on my arms on the desk.
“They’re targeting children,” I growled.
“Fuck,” Alex swore under his breath.
“The rogues have killed ten adults, wounded twenty one adults and six kids under ten. And that’s in the last month alone.”
I motioned to the map I had drawn on my whiteboard. “These are all the points rogue attacks have come in. They’re coming most days now.”
“What can we do to help, Ava?”
I paused for a moment, staring at the map I’d drawn. “Any chance I can borrow some warriors? I have a scout team out that is feeding back this information, but this is starting to look like more hands would be best.”
“Of course, Ava,” Jacob replied. “How many do you want?”
“What can you spare?”
He looked like he was deep in thought. “I can give you a team of ten?”
“If you can, that would be amazing.”
“Of course,” he smiled. “Even if it wasn’t your pack that is being attacked, I still wouldn’t stand by and let this many innocents have their lives destroyed by rogues.”
“Thanks, Jacob.”
“What is your plan?” Alex asked.
“I’m going to send them to meet up with my scout team so they have backup. They’re great at what they do, but they aren’t warriors.” I paused for a moment, just long enough to down a mug of coffee. “Once they’re all in one place, I’m going to divide the group and pair everyone up. We need to cover a lot of ground quickly, especially if the full moon is a deadline of sorts.”
“Agreed,” Jacob nodded. “I’m happy to take one of my personal guards and become another scout pair if you need me to, Ava.”
I scowled at him, but before I could rip him a new one, a frantic mind link from Noah came in with the second bit of bad news.
“AVA! Where are you?”
“In my office with your dad and Alex, what’s up?”
“On my way.”
He burst through the door in less than a minute out of breath, he’d clearly run. “Noah… breathe. What’s happening?”
“Theo’s gone.”
My heart fell into my stomach, and from the look on his face, Jacob’s did too.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I can’t find him anywhere and he won’t answer the link.”
I swore under my breath, a lot.
“Does he know about the threats?” I asked Noah, who nodded. “So he wouldn’t have taken unnecessary risks, nor would he be purposefully hiding?”
He nodded again.
“Fuck.”
“What threats, Ava?” Jacob’s voice was low, dangerous. Understandably, he’d come down like a tonne of bricks on whoever dared touch his son.
“Ava had a premonition,” Noah started, voice careful. “The rogues and Matthew’s pack had identified that there was a weak link in Ava’s circle that they could exploit so she wouldn’t be able to get all four marks before the full moon.” He glanced over at me, his face matching the stress I’m sure was evident on my own. “The weak link is Theo. Theo has been holding back.”
I stood, pushing my chair back, taking my shoes off and starting to get ready to shift. “We need as many people as possible looking for him, or at least a trace of where he’s gone.”
Jacob agreed, also starting to get ready to shift.
“Callum, Oscar,” I called through the link. “My office, now.”
Their eyes were wide when they walked into an office full of half-naked wolves. “Theo’s been taken,” I explained. “We don’t know where or who he was taken by.”
Callum and Oscar both swore a lot before also starting to lose items of clothing. If circumstances hadn’t been shit and Jacob and Alex weren’t in the room, I’d have taken my time savouring my boys stripping, but sadly… their dads were in the room and my fourth had been taken away from me.
“Who saw Theo last?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen him since our… session this morning, Ava,” Callum replied, and Oscar agreed.
“I walked back to our house with him to get changed after that, but he wanted to train after, so he headed off to the training ground.”
I sighed. “So we start there.”
Spoiler alert, he wasn’t there. What we did find though was a note from ‘Theo’.
To Dad and Noah,
I’m sorry I’ve left like this, but I can’t do it. I can’t pretend to be happy and I can’t share my mate, definitely not with my brother. I hope one day you will find it in your hearts to forgive me and realise this was for the best.
Theo