Chapter 5 - Prisoner

Milton's P.O.V

Accompanied by Richard and Adam, I walked back to my office, thinking about where she could have gone. She had disappeared from the pack, and this I was certain of when the guards I ordered to find her returned with downcast looks on their faces.

“What do we do now?” Robert asked. “If she's out there in the woods, we have to find her.”

“I thought you were against keeping her in the pack?” I asked him. “Shouldn't you be happy she's gone?”

Robert was a complicated and indecisive man. He had this habit of developing a sudden change of heart towards situations without a reason.

In this case, the hatred he had for this lady, Daciana, was still visible in his eyes, but for reasons best known to him, he believed now it was better to have her close enough and monitor her.

I waited for Robert to think of an excuse for his decision as always, and seconds later, he began.

“She could be a spy. Maybe even an assassin.” He accused her.

My eyes closed faintly as my lips spread wide in an enormous laughter. Roberts' words amused me, but he was very serious with his accusations.

I conducted myself and stared at him. Soon, Adam's voice broke the silence. “I agree with Robert,” he said.

“That Daciana is a spy, or worse, an assassin?” I asked with a smile.

“No,” Adam answered. “I agree that we have to find her. Landon seems to have taken a keen interest in her. I'm sure there's something he's hiding from you.”

“Do you think it has something to do with the red moon?” I asked, but Adam shook his head.

“I'm not ruling it out, but we'd know better once she's here to answer our questions.”

The red moon myth had become an ancient folktale, but like I was told by my father, during a red moon, it was believed that white wolves, although rare in their breed, would go rogue and wild with an insatiable thirst for blood.

It had been years since a white wolf was last born into any pack, so if London was interested in Daciana because of the red moon, “Could she be a Frost Demon?” I asked both Adam and Robert.

They exchanged a worried look and turned back to me as they both chorused. “I don't know.”

I pondered on the words of my Beta - Robert, and Adam, my childhood friend. For no reason in particular, I felt responsible for her safety, and so I tried my hardest to fight that feeling.

“She couldn't have gone far.” I rose to my feet. “We'll split into three groups of five and search the nearby woods. She couldn't have gone far -”

“Alpha, the elders wish to see you,” a guard announced, interrupting my closed door meeting.

I exhaled to suppress my annoyance. “Is it the elders? Or Davies?” I asked him.

“Davies,” he answered. “It's about the rogue girl. He found her.”

From the look on the faces of Adam and Robert, I wasn't the only one surprised to hear that Davies - the leader of the elders - had handled our rogue emergency.

Usually, he would report matters as pressing as this to the rest of the pack elders before calling my attention, but he didn't.

“Tell him we'll be there,” I informed the guard.

Adam asked to be absent, as he had to find out how Landon could waltz into the pack undetected, so Robert and I were the ones who answered Davies in his home.

I was astonished when I found him and Daciana seated like old friends, reminiscing about their childhood days over a cup of coffee.

Davies looked up when we walked in. “Milton,” He called me. “I'm glad you made it. Daciana here tells me you rescued her from Landon.” He smiled.

Robert snorted. “Foolishness,” he muttered. “How can you sit here and dine with this mysterious woman?”

“Robert, watch your tongue while in my home.” Davies warned.

“That's enough,” I said to both of them.

It was strange that Davies couldn't sense it, that Daciana was a rogue. Yes, her scent was different. She appeared innocent and fragile, like one who had just gone out for a stroll and got ambushed, but I knew she was rogue, so did Robert and Adam. Why couldn't Davies see it too? I wandered.

“Why didn't you report this back to the elders? That you saw an unfamiliar woman in the pack?” I asked Davies, but before he could answer, I turned to Daciana.

“And you,” I said. “Why did you run away?”

“What gave you the idea that I tried to run away?” She looked me dead in the eye and smiled. “I simply went out for a walk in your garden to clear my head,” she said.

“But I sent guards to look for you. Why didn't they find you?”

“Because I had taken her with me. A strange woman in the Alpha's garden this close to the full moon celebrations has only ever meant one thing,” Davies smiled. “She's your mate, isn't she?”

Daciana and I glanced at each other in an unpleasant manner and chorused, “No!”

Apparently, Davies had gotten the entire situation mixed up. I had promised him and the elders I'd find my mate before the village festive seasons began and seeing Daciana, he must have assumed she was the one. If he knew she was a rogue, he would have ripped her apart. 1His hatred for rogues surpassed that of Robert.

“If she's not your mate, Milton. Who is she?”

Davies became more wary of the person he let into his home. His eyes stayed on Daciana as he stalked her, cautious of every movement she made.

I stepped in between them. “Davies, this is Daciana. Robert, Adam, and I found her being attacked by Landon in the woods. We suspect she's a rogue and that this might have something to do with the red moon.”

I whispered the last part of my sentence to him, ensuring that Daciana didn't hear me, but to my disappointment, she did.

“What's the red moon?” She asked. “And what does it have to do with me?”

All eyes in the room turned to her. I felt relieved that she knew nothing about the red moon, so maybe she wasn't who we were after.

“What if we're wrong?” I asked Robert, but he didn't respond.

Davies placed a hand on my shoulder. “I don't know what's going on,” he said. “But if she's a rogue, then she can't be trusted.” He raised his voice somewhat like he wanted to draw the attention of the villagers walking past his house.

“Davies is right,” Robert supported. “Until we learn more about her, and why Landon attacked her so late at night, I suggest we keep her in the dungeons. She's our prisoner, not a guest.”

“She's not our prisoner,” I declared.

“Are you insane, Milton? You can't possibly want her to roam the pack freely, do you?” Robert was getting annoyed.

“No, I don't, but she's not our prisoner,” I said again.

“We could have left her in the woods to die. We could have never fought Landon for her, but we did. We brought her to our pack without her consent, so what gives us the right to make her a prisoner? She has done nothing wrong to us,” I explained.

“Not yet,” Davies chipped in.

The argument about what to do with her continued to go back and forth until she growled, frustrated by our bickering.

“Just do what your people want,” she said blankly.

“Do what?” I asked her.

"I'm a rogue and I understand if they don't trust me. I don't trust any of you either,” she said calmly.

“You can keep me in your dungeons as a prisoner until you've decided about what to do with me. I'll answer all your questions as honestly as I can, then you can decide if you want me here or if I should continue wandering in the woods,” she continued.

I wanted to talk her out of it, but she had made up her mind.

“Right now, I'm your prisoner,” she said. “Treat me like one.”