Chapter 40: Chapter 40

ALPHA

Richie’s legs kicked out wildly as he tried in vain to remove the hand choking him. Alpha took pity on him and loosened his grip, barely.

“I swear…I don’t…know. We were b-blindfolded once…we met up with…the carriers.”

Alpha shook his body by the neck, willing some sense to form in his traitorous head. The boy started crying. It was truly disgusting and hilarious at the same time. Some from his team even laughed at his display.

“I swear…that’s all I know. She seduced me. She needed my help to get them…to set Elizabeth free,” he confessed in a panic.

“~She? She who?~”

“St-Stacy…”

A couple of individuals stood up and ran out of the gym. Alpha knew either his brother or Declan had ordered Stacy’s detainment.

For the simple joy of it, Alpha punched Richie again, knocking his body to the floor.

The blow further broke more bones and punctured more internal organs. The type of damage Alpha was inflicting on him was too extensive for his animal spirit to heal promptly.

“~I suggest you use whatever is remaining of your meager life to remember something significant.~”

“I—I—I’m…I’m only…a foot sol-soldier…new to the group.” Richie wheezed, confirming that Alpha had punctured at least one or both of his lungs. “The alph—leader a-always wore a…a mask.”

“What did he smell like? What type of shifter are we dealing with?” Tristan asked impatiently.

“H-he…” Richie groaned and gasped for air.

Losing his patience, Alpha stomped down on his left leg, shattering his fibula and tibia. Richie screamed out in pain, looking at his mangled leg in horror.

The pain of his broken leg transformed his face into something ugly, earning some grimaces and chuckles from their audience.

“~Tick tock, bitch. Now speak~.”

“He didn’t…he didn’t… Um, he smelled…like…like different shifters…,” Richie stuttered through his pain.

“Damn, Alpha. Maybe he’s lacking oxygen to his brain,” Declan wondered aloud, causing the room to erupt in laughter.

Choosing not to laugh as well, Alpha raised his paw to stomp on the opposite femur. Richie held up his hand in front of his leg with fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

He was drenched in sweat and smelled like he’d either pissed or shit himself. Possibly both.

“I’m tel-telling the truth,” he cried. “There wasn’t…there wasn’t one scent…un-uni-unique to him,” he tried to explain through his tears, but his eyes never left Alpha’s still-risen leg.

“~How many are in his rank?~”

“I…um…I don’t kno—OWWWWW!” He screamed as Alpha shattered his femur. Instead of removing his paw, he twisted it into the broken bone, making Richie howl out in pain.

“He has spies in every pack, clan, and coven. Their numbers are…ma-many!”

Tristan was the first to recover from laughing and said, “We want a number, dumbass.”

“Thr-three to four members…per pack, clan, et cetera.”

“Wait a minute. This group isn’t rogues at all?” Declan questioned in shock, and the rest of the group stopped laughing immediately.

Richie took too long to reply, so Alpha twisted his paw again. “N-NOOO!”

“Fuck!” Tristan and Declan said.

“~Time’s up. Any passing remarks for your family?~”

“Wait…wait…” He held up his hand, begging for his life.

Alpha just grabbed it and twisted it. He dislocated his shoulder, popped out his elbow, and broke his wrist with a simple jerk.

“~Why? You didn’t give us anything useful~,” he growled but stopped suddenly when a sweet sound echoed clearly in his mind.

~“Sloan!”~ Myra’s terrified voice called to him.

Alpha stared at Richie, waiting to hear the sweet melody that made his heart skip a beat.

~“Myra?”~ he called out, waiting, but got no reply. Did he imagine the sound due to stress? ~“Myra?! Angel, can you hear me?”~

~“Sloan?”~

It was her!

The fact that he could hear her meant that her vixen wasn’t completely blocked by the drug and needed time to work it out of her system.

However, Myra sounded unsure, and he realized his voice, even in his link, would be different. She started to doubt their connection, and he quickly reassured her that it was him and that a lot had happened since her abduction.

With this connection to his angel, Alpha momentarily abandoned the sweaty, broken, crying disgrace of a creature curled up in pain.

~“Angel, where are you?”~ he asked, but she was too confused by their shared communication to focus and answer his questions.

He knew his other angel would know. Now was definitely a good time to introduce Myra to her other half. ~“Skye?”~

He waited as her vixen took control and gave him what he needed to locate them quickly. He glanced at Tristan and nodded a silent request for pants before he shifted back into his human form.

Unfortunately, Myra and Skye were having a one-sided bickering match. At least that’s what he assumed from the bits that were coming through the link.

~“Girls, you can foxfight at another date. I need to find you before…”~ He let the thought trail off. He refused to acknowledge that outcome as a possibility.

However, Skye popped that bubble and voiced what he couldn’t anyway. She started to describe what she could smell.

~“I smell dirt, blood, chemicals, and something else,”~ Skye’s angelic voice cooed in his mind.

~“What kind of chemicals?”~ he asked when Tristan returned with a pair of pants.

For good measure, Tristan kicked Richie in the stomach while glaring at him. Declan had recovered the blade and stopped, sniffing the blood-covered item. His head snapped to the alpha’s face and then to the boy.

“You fucking bastard. This is coated with wolfsbane and deadly nightshade!” Declan growled as Alpha, who had shifted back into his human form, wiped his face and realized that he was still bleeding.

He ignored the scene before him and concentrated on his angel.

~“I can’t name most of them, but I do smell rotten eggs and sea salt.”~

~Rotten eggs? That could be sulfur. Where in Seattle was there a sulfur manufacturer? ~he thought to himself.

Skye further explained that she was most likely underground, with several individuals keeping her. Her next words caused him to see red.

~“But Alpha, you need to hurry. Elizabeth plans to uphold her challenge.”~

The word ~challenge~ repeated in his head like a broken record.

So that was Elizabeth’s plan all along, to weasel her claim to him. But little did she know…

It took a while for the rest of her statement to register. He turned to Richie and punched him again, this time in the face, cracking his skull and knocking him completely unconscious.

He then addressed the room. “~He won’t die by my hands. Lock him up, and we’ll let the council handle his fate alongside his band of rogue buddies. That is, if he doesn’t succumb to his injuries first~.”

Finally, the second part of her statement made sense to him—~“Leanne’s gravely injured; her brother is behind all this”~—and his growl shook the house.

~“Fucking Brainy Brian!”~ He desperately pleaded with Skye to find any distinguishing sounds, smells, or sights, anything to help narrow down her location.

Meanwhile, he stormed out of the gym, leaving the team to remove Richie’s battered body. He returned to the security booth, since it was closer.

Kenny was still working on Richie’s computer system. He’d hacked his computer and employed an algorithm to sift through the system.

Alpha took the computer next to him and immediately started searching for sulfur processing or manufacturing plants that were near the sea and abandoned.

~“Wait a minute,”~ Skye murmured.

“What is it?”

“There’s something on the door, but it’s so faded. H…”

She started listing, so he quickly grabbed a pen and booklet and wrote down the different letters she called out.

H _ _ E V _ L _ E W A _ _R _ _ _ L

He stared at the random letters on the page, then at the screen. The third link in his search list was the Haleville Watermill.

It was an abandoned saltwater processing plant that was shut down decades ago when the water reservoir became contaminated with the sulfur deposits found in the reservoir’s bed.

“Found you!” he said to the room in general.

~“Alpha, please hurry.”~ She suddenly sounded anxious. Her panic drove him forward.

~“We’re coming,”~ he reassured her just as the link between them unexpectedly dropped.