Chapter 3

-Well then, this is going to get interesting because the pull is getting stronger.- Midnight pointed out, -Her scent is stronger here, too? Why is this far from the packhouse? What would make her come here?-

-We must be coming up to the old border between the packlands.- Dante said, -Not sure why she’d come out this far, though, to the best of my knowledge, she hasn’t been out this way in years.-

-Wait, something’s off. I don’t like this. I don’t hear anything?-

-Midnight, what do you mean you don’t hear anything? You said that you could smell her nearby?- Panic now flows through his thoughts.

-No, she’s here. I can hear a heartbeat, but no crying, which I would have expected. She should be crying.-

-We need to get to her now, Midnight now.-

-We’re close now, Romeo, but still we should shift back. She might not take it well if she sees me over you, even though I’m less of an ass. I tried to stop you, I tried to tell you.-

-Ok, ok, I get it, I fucked up, ok, Midnight. I’m still trying to work out why she could be out here.-

Midnight stops in a nearby wooded spot where they can see Aretha’s still form. Panic and horror wash over them as they shift back, and Dante finds clothes in the clothing stash and slips them on. The last thing he wanted to do was to give her the impression that he was going to take advantage of her right now, emotionally raw and vulnerable.

‘She’s just lying there on that cold ground, why?’ His thoughts running wild, he could hear her heartbeat with his wolf senses, but why wasn’t she moving? ‘Huh, the old border stone where the packs once met, but wait, what’s that other stone in front of it. Whatever it is, that’s what Aretha is lying on.’ He couldn’t silence his pounding heart or the wild thoughts crashing over him like a cold wave.

He moved silently at first to ensure that he didn’t spook her, but she didn’t move; her eyes were closed, her cheeks stained from tears. His heart broke at the scene, ‘She’s passed out from either fleeing her coming-of-age, from the whole pack and me, now why are you really here, beautiful?’

Dante pulled the small torch out of his pants, making sure the beam was low, not to scare Aretha if she woke, ‘Wait, hold, this is a grave stone she’s lying on a grave, but who’s. Holy Goddess, this is her father’s grave.’

His eyes wide, he began to kneel down to check her over for wounds, -Explains why she came here then.- Midnight rumbled, -After her flute was destroyed by Fawn and her friends, she must have come here to feel closer to him.-

‘Looks that way,’ Dante agreed, “Aretha, it's Dante. I am just going to check you for injuries, ok? Please tell me if anything hurts or if you want me to stop.”

As his hand touched her skin to check her over, the coldness of her skin made him freeze. “Aretha, please wake up. We need to get you back to the packhouse. I’m going to pick you up, so don’t freak out, ok, I’m going to get you home, please don’t leave me not like this.” His voice broke on the last words.

Through the pack’s mindlink, he reached out to his father, Father, I…I found her, I found Aretha, she’s so cold. Tell the pack healers to be on stand by, we’ll be there as quickly as we can. I found her at the old stone that once marked the boundary between the two packs, and I learned why she came here: her father’s grave is next to it.

Understood, son, just bring our girl home. She might have been my friend's daughter by blood, but I love her as my own. It seems the Goddess and I were on the same page pairing you together. I’ll have the special suite set up in the pack hospital. If she is like this, she’s going to need you close by, and that means the special bed that a mate can sleep next to her.

Father, I can’t do that, not after I kept…

Choosing Fawn over her. Son, she had been deceiving the whole pack, bar a few. Those who just happened to be there before she realised she had been caught, or those loyal to Aretha’s father.

So what happened to her Alpha Heir unit? Or do they just not go near her since the joining of our packs?

They talk, but in coded messages or when people are too busy to notice, like Fawn, she would have run to you, saying that Aretha was going to try to take over the pack that was partly hers. But before you saw the real Fawn…

I would have believed her.

As Dante carried Aretha back towards the packhouse, he asked the question that had been crashing over him like a wave. Father, how can I stay in the same room as her, let alone sleep on the same bed as her, while she heals? I…I haven’t been the best mate in the world, now have I? I believed another she-wolf over her. What kind of mate does that?

The same man and mate who has loved her from afar but never really let himself have her in his arms till now, when he realises how close he was to losing it all.

Father, you knew how I felt? Why didn’t you tell me that the contract was your idea?

I tried once, but you wouldn’t listen. You were 14, and I had first noticed your interest in her. Being two years apart in age, it made sense, and after your mother and her father died, it made sense to me that my mating with her mother would bring you two together. Aretha at 10 and you at 12, I didn’t want other Alphas and their heirs trying to take advantage of her or her mother. They had already lost enough. It isn’t uncommon for the last Alpha to be laid to rest near an old border stone when packs become one; it marks the end of one and the beginning of a new era.

Then why didn’t you try again?