Chapter 37: Chapter 37

ALPHA

Sloan’s wolf motioned for Tristan and Declan to rise and enter the den. When he closed the door, they were just standing around waiting for further instructions.

He chuckled and gestured to the couches.

~“As I was saying,”~ he started, once he’d joined them, ~“I started evolving the moment Sloan took our angel as his claimed mate. I continued maturing when we provided Myra with our seed.”~

“Seed?” Megan questioned. She was a bit confused, but soon realization flashed across her eyes, and she gasped. “Myra’s pregnant?”

~“Yes. I wouldn’t be standing here chatting with you if she weren’t.”~

“Fuck, we need to find Myra safe and sound, and soon.” Declan face-palmed himself in shock.

“Why didn’t Sloan tell us? Shit, this is confusing. So, do you have a name?” Tristan stuttered as different thoughts tumbled out of his mouth, since his brain couldn’t filter through all the information they’d been given.

~“Sloan had his suspicions, but the changes were small and inconsequential. However, he hadn’t shifted since this past weekend to fully comprehend my existence.~

~“Furthermore, the stress of Myra’s kidnapping has solidified my metamorphosis,”~ he proudly explained.

~“As for my name, I have gone by many, but I prefer to be called Alpha, as”~

Tristan’s eyes bulged out. “Ly-lycan? They’re only myths, bedtime stories told to young shifters.”

~“And yet I stand before you, breathing and speaking to you.”~

“I don’t quite understand what’s happening here, to be honest,” Megan finally grumbled, folding her arms and leaning back on the couch.

Before he would answer her, Alpha looked to the door and inhaled deeply. He recognized another familiar scent coming toward the den. He waited, and soon Theo walked in and immediately took pause.

“Son?” he called, and from the corner of his eye, Alpha saw Declan patting Megan reassuringly while whispering in her ear. Alpha provided them with privacy and didn’t listen to what was being said.

~“Sloan isn’t present at the moment.”~

Surprisingly, Theo smiled brightly and clapped his hands in triumph. “A lycan was a fruit of my loins. I could die a happy wolf. Welcome, Great One.”

Alpha nodded to him before turning back to the group. ~“Anything new?”~

“Sadly no.” Tristan sighed in frustration. “The bastards have once again gone underground.

“The video IP address has been bouncing all over the globe, so tracking them through that is useless. The labs are still working to identify the chemical makeup of the animal spirit blockers.”

He took a breath before continuing. “Lastly, the council’s acolytes are still going through various blueprints to pinpoint the type of cellar or basement Myra’s being kept in.”

~“What about Kenny? Has he made any progress?”~

“It’s slow. Whoever hacked our security system was good at keeping themselves hidden,” Declan confessed.

Alpha took a deep, calming breath as each bit of bad news caused despair and disappointment to further burrow deeper into their joint souls.

What he had failed to mention to the group, however, was that he could link freely with Myra’s vixen from anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately, she needed to be conscious for that to happen, and the chemical blocker was making contacting her even more difficult.

“I double-, then triple-checked every house staff member. Everyone was where they should have been, and cleared.” Tristan continued to deliver more bad news.

Just then, Declan’s phone vibrated. He looked at the screen, and his surprised face offered some glimmer of hope. “Speaking of the devil, Kenny wants us in the control booth. He’s found something.”

Alpha was the first to stand and leave the den. He didn’t wait for the others to follow.

As they parted ways, he heard Declan once again speaking to Megan. He wanted her to go find Myrielle and Sian and update them on Alpha’s presence.

While walking through the hallways, he was struck by the lack of Myra’s scent. It had only been two days, but her scent was already fading.

However, he strangely picked up a fresh hint of it. That shouldn’t be. The smell confused him, because it was new and mixed with something chemical.

He shook off the feeling and entered the control booth. Since the break-in, Kenny had been unofficially promoted and had total run of the room.

The young man stood up once he noticed Sloan had entered the room, followed shortly by Tristan and Declan. Alpha, however, didn’t want his presence known to many, so he looked at Tristan and nodded discreetly to him.

Taking the cue, Tristan spoke first. “Kenny, what do you have?”

“A lot. I found it strange that someone could have hacked our unhackable system from the outside,” the man started, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

“It’s virtually impossible. So it got me thinking, and I said to myself, ‘Kenny, stop looking for an external hack, but an internal one.’”

“Are you saying the hack was an internal leak?” Tristan questioned, and Kenny nodded. “We did theorize that there may be a spy among us.”

“What we didn’t conclude was that the spy was a member of the security team in charge of monitoring the CCTV feeds,” Kenny confessed. Everyone froze and stared at the smiling, glasses-wearing shifter before them.

“Come again?” Declan frowned.

“I traced the hack to a particular computer in this room, and the log-in details were specific to one person, and that person alone.” Kenny’s smile brightened as another security shifter walked into the booth.

Alpha turned as still as a rock as the hint of Myra’s scent from earlier was now overwhelmingly pronounced.

“Thanks for coming in, Richie.”

The look of horror on the new guy’s face solidified his guilt. Before he could escape the room, Alpha’s lightning-fast speed had the young boy slammed up against the wall with his hands around his neck.

Alpha leaned in and sniffed his struggling prey. ~“Where the fuck is she?”~

MYRA

She ached all over.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been unconscious this time around. Her eyes—well, her right eye—opened up, and she could glance about the room.

She vaguely remembered being moved from the cellar to another room, but this room looked like a makeshift operating theater.

Her arms and legs were still numb and not responding to her brain’s commands to move. Furthermore, she still couldn’t sense her vixen, and that was frustrating.

She needed to escape.

She needed to live, not for her own sake, but for that of their unborn child.

Suddenly, her angry stomach growled, protesting the lack of food. ~How long have I been here? Dammit, I can’t remember the last time I ate.~

“Finally, the slut’s awake.” Elizabeth’s ugly face soon hovered over Myra’s. For several minutes, she just stared down at Myra as if analyzing every pore on Myra’s face.

The stare-off was discomforting, but Myra wasn’t going to be the first to look away.

“That stupid bitch, Stacy. She set us back a couple of days. Bri-Bri wasn’t happy. I’m afraid he lost his cool,” she cooed, roughly jerking Myra’s head to the side.

On a gurney next to Myra’s was Stacy. She was sickly pale and very still. Myra gazed upon her chest and soon realized she wasn’t moving, indicating that she was dead.

Myra gazed beyond Stacy and saw Leanne. She was restrained to the wall and unresponsive as well.

~Please still be alive~, Myra prayed. She kept staring at Leanne’s body. Myra breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed a slight movement of her chest as she inhaled and exhaled.

Myra ignored Elizabeth, who was going off about Stacy and how she had to die. But Myra couldn’t care less about the girl who had betrayed her. Her death was meaningless.

~“Leanne? Can you hear me?”~ Myra tried linking with her. She waited a moment or two before trying again. ~“Please, Leanne. Answer me.”~ Myra waited a bit longer.

But the longer the silence spanned between them, the deeper a sense of despair filled her. The seconds ticked by with no response, until finally, she heard a whispered reply in her mind.

~“Myra? Is that you?”~ Leanne whispered, almost unsure of herself.

~“Thank goodness. I thought you…you were…,”~ Myra started to say but decided against it. ~“Forget what I thought.”~

~“I’m so sorry. I’ve failed both you and the alpha,”~ Leanne confessed.

~“Leanne, none of this is your fault, so take that thought out of your mind,”~ Myra scolded her. ~“Can you shift?”~

~“No. My…my panther. I can’t sense her.”~

So the rogues had done something to their animal spirits. Myra was now certain of it, because she couldn’t sense her vixen either.

“Now that you’re awake, the main event can occur,” Elizabeth cackled, causing Myra’s eyes to snap back to the deranged woman standing above her.

The eerie smile on Elizabeth’s face told Myra she wasn’t going to like whatever this main event was.

“Main event?” Leanne voiced from across the room. “What event?”

Myra saw Elizabeth’s right eye twitch in annoyance.

“No one was FUCKING TALKING TO YOU!” Elizabeth screamed, throwing something at Leanne.

A glint of silver flashed across the room, and Leanne groaned in pain.

A red stain started gathering around the dagger that was sticking out of Leanne’s upper thigh. Her blood soaked through her jeans and ran down her leg.

“Leanne!” Myra croaked, glancing back at Elizabeth’s smiling face.