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Chapter Twenty-Three

A LARIC HELLS

The only reason I left Lina and Lila, no matter how bad I wanted to stay at home, was because Elder Matthew called for an urgent meeting.

He said urgent meeting was about Irene and grilling me about abandoning trivial pack issues. The meeting had been going on for a day and a half and it was already up to my neck. Sure, we took breaks, but we’d been stuck on the same thing for the last thirty-six hours or so.

I could have let my wolf’s anger out, told the geezers seated in front of me in that conference room that my mind was eons away from Irene because I was head over heels in love with Lila Winter, but I didn’t.

Instead, I sat down and in about four hours, most of the elders there had lamented about me getting the position of interim Alpha and not working hard enough in finding my Mate.

One of the elders, Elder Lincoln, I think, had asked if I had any distractions that were deterring me from finding Irene.

I wanted to tell him straight that I had a little girl waiting for me because the last time I’d seen her, she wasn’t doing okay.

Sure, I’d given her a glass of water the other night and Lila said they’d go to the hospital for a regular checkup this morning before I left, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t worried.

Were it not for the elders summoning me for an urgent meeting I wouldn’t even be here.

I wanted to tell him that Lila, my fated mate, was waiting at home so I could make sweet love to her and praise every curve of her body all night.

That despite me calling her yesterday to know how they were both doing, I still missed her terribly.

I might have also wanted to tell him I had a few suspicions on Irene’s whereabouts as well as her identity.

Instead, I’d remained quiet.

Hours later, I watch as all the elders walk out of the conference room. I’m about to switch my phone on when the elder who barely talked during this entire meeting walks towards me.

Elder Tenno has a few years on him and by a few, I mean he’s older than Elder Matthew and a year away from kicking the bucket. He’s been the keeper of all the records for both Blackwood and Moonlight pack and an important member of the werewolf council.

I’d called him a day ago asking about any other records he had on Irene. The minute he regards me with cautious eyes, I know I'll be delayed from getting home for another hour. Make that one day and fourteen hours from my girls.

I stand up, stretching my hand out when he finally approaches me.

“Elder Tenno, always a pleasure—”

He ignores my hand and adds a scowl to his face before he spits, “Are you still interested in looking at the other Moonlight Pack records?”

His question catches me off guard.

The last time he gave me the Moonlight Pack records that involved Irene, Ethan and I had barely found anything that would lead us to her. Sure, we found out about her disease, but other than that, we’d been hitting dead end after dead end.

Yesterday, when I called him, he said he had nothing more on Irene.

The word “no” is on the tip of my tongue, but I made a promise.

As much as the thought of finding Irene while Lila is at home waiting for me to return makes my throat taste like paint, I owe it to the Alpha who entrusted me to find Irene, and I owe it to…

Irene, because I might have my suspicions about who she is.

“Yes,” I mutter.

“Then follow me, boy.”

Twenty minutes later, we are in the council building. It reeks of incense and old power, the kind that tells you this building houses everything that has to do with my pack and what was left of the Moonlight Pack.

Instead of feeling right at home, my wolf twitches in discomfort. Stacks of scrolls and books that have eaten more dust than the man walking in front of me greet me from the shelves. I swallow down the sneeze that’s tickling my nose.

Questions float through my mind—a lot of them.

Elder Tenno might be a stubborn old man like the rest of the council, but he’s the kind of man who keeps things to himself until he thinks it’s necessary to let them out to the world. The fact that he wants to share something boggles my mind altogether about what it could be.

He stops right in front of a small desk and taps his cane twice on the ground. A kid who is no more than twenty appears out of nowhere with a large file.

Taking the file, Elder Tenno drops it on the wooden desk, the sound echoing across the great shelves of this entire building.

“A few years ago, you asked me to collect all the archives from the Moonlight Pack. All the records I collected, I gave to you. You asked me to search for more”, he pauses, his wrinkly hand on the file, “and you were right to request access to more.”

Making eye contact briefly before opening the file, he continues, “I got these files a few days ago. I tried to contact you through your office about them, but someone else came instead of you. He claimed to be acting under your orders, that you sent him here, but he stole the records as soon as we left him with them. We are lucky to have had these backups, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to know what I know now.

When you called me yesterday, requesting these same files, I was skeptical about telling you over the phone.

I needed you to see these with your own eyes. ”

I didn’t send anyone here. And if Ethan had come by here, he would have said something.

Instead of diving into all that, I eye the files suspiciously. “What’s in the files, Elder Tenno?”

Elder Tenno smiles for a bit before he slides the file to me. “The answer to all your problems.”

I take the file with clammy hands.

“Something felt off, so I had the guy followed after he stole the files, and his trail led us straight to Julian. Your nephew was behind the theft, Alaric, and he must already know what’s in these files—”

My ears start ringing the minute I hear Julian’s name. Rage flares behind my eyes, gnawing at my skull for not getting to these files sooner. Of course, it was him. That manipulative bastard beat me to it.

And as my eyes skim through the records, my wolf howling at the revelation that’s contained in these decades-old files, I start to understand why Julian would be desperate enough to send someone to steal records from the council.

Because right there between the files and reports, are two pictures, and one of them is of Irene.

The photo, dated years ago, shows the spitting image of Lina. The eyes. The stubborn set of her jaw. The hint of defiance in her smile. My fingers tremble as I flip through the pages, each one tearing through my composure like claws in flesh.

And then the second photo.

Older.

Her hair is a little longer, her face more mature, but there’s no mistaking it.

The room tilts. My breath leaves my body like a fist punched through my gut. My wolf howls. His Mate. Our Mate.

She’s been with me all along.

Irene is Lila.

I suspected it when she told me about her disease, but that doesn’t mean I’m not surprised.

“Finding Irene’s childhood photo helped us narrow down her possible whereabouts,” Elder Tenno says, pausing before he continues speaking. “We ran facial recognition and AI modeling on her last known photo, and the adult prediction gave us a match.”

He points at the AI-generated image now.

“Lila Winter is Irene. Her records show that she lived in this city as a child, same as Irene, before she relocated to New York a few years later. She also has no memories of her past, which is why we found it hard to get to her. She does not remember she is Irene.”

Lila is Irene.

Goddess.

How could I have missed it all those years when we first met?

How could I have…

My Fated Mate is Lila, and Lila is Irene. Turns out the girl I was unknowingly drawn to—the one I was searching for—has been with me from the very beginning.

When the shock wears off, I trace Lila’s cheek on the photo with my thumb, happiness and disbelief slamming into me like a freight train.

“Alaric? Are you with me, boy?” Elder Tenno questions.

I raise my head to look at him, a smile on my face as I shake my head at how mysteriously fate works.

“Thank you.”

Once the two words are out of my mouth, I turn around, switching my phone on as I push my hair back.

Soon as I step outside the building, thunder clouds roar from above, the winds howl with the same intensity my chest is roaring at.

The woman I’ve been looking for has been with me all this time.

My wild one. My woman. My fucking mate.

The minute my phone switches on, there are a lot of missed calls from Ethan but the only sound I want to hear is from Lila. I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her that fate brought us together. That…

My phone buzzes against my hand with Ethan’s name flashing on the screen.

I pick up his call with no fucking clue that whatever he’s about to say will decimate it.

“They are gone, boss,” Ethan says. Just that. Two words that cleave me open and leave me stunned by the pavement.

“What?” I grip my phone so hard I can almost hear it crack.

“Lila. Lina. I went to check the cameras. She turned them off. Slipped past me, took a cab. Her phone’s off. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours, boss.”

Ice floods my veins.

“Where? Where did they… go?” My voice is low, I barely recognize myself.

There’s a pause, one that ups my fury.

I don’t want to say it but the truth is in the pudding. Julian stole the records. Julian knows Irene is Lila. Julian is the same ex-boyfriend who’s been pining after Lila since he saw her with me.

“She’s with Julian, isn’t she?” I don’t need confirmation, but Ethan gives it anyway.

“I think so. I checked the footage. Before she switched off the cameras, she was speaking with someone on the phone then she went to wake Lina up and they left. Traffic cams show them inside a cab before it drops them off in one of the restaurants that Julian owns.”

The ground beneath my feet shakes. My wolf growls so loud, I can almost hear him tearing me from the inside so I can let him out.

“She took Lina to him?” My voice is jagged.

After everything that Julian did?

After everything we spoke about, she went to Julian?

“She thinks Julian is Lina’s father, boss”, Ethan says, his voice a low whisper, “Before we left the hospital yesterday, she uh, she requested a paternity test between you and Lina. I called the hospital and they said they sent her the results this morning. The results might have come back negative, boss and when Julian called her, I believe she thought she was doing the right thing.”

“What?”

Thunder quakes harder above me. The rain starts falling like tiny pricks piercing every inch of my skin. I don’t fucking move as Ethan explains what’s happened in the span of the last thirty-eight hours I have been away from Lila and Lina.

Lina has Moonborne syndrome, her condition is only getting worse.

Her chance of a cure is the bloodline bond from her biological parents.

And worse, the results… they named Julian as her father.

My heart constricts in my chest, my lung burning like someone’s just shoved a shrapnel through my chest. Everything tilts and I try to breathe through the cold, dull pain slowly creeping up on my senses.

“Where are they right now? Send me the address, I’ll go get them.”

Ethan pauses, my heart fucking stops.

“That’s the thing…boss. Lila and Lina are missing and so is Julian.”

I try to rein in the panic clawing at my chest. I’ve faced a lot of shitty things and handled them head on but I have never felt as helpless as I do standing here in the rain with the words ‘Lila and Lina are missing’ ringing in my ears like static.

“Ethan,” I say, breathing through clenched teeth. “Find the cab driver. Get traffic cams. Restaurant footage. Cell towers. I want you to try and track her phone.”

“I’m on it, boss. I’m sorry about this.”

I hang up, getting into my car and speeding home.

By the time I get home, Ethan already has footage from outside the restaurant.

I watch as Lila shouts and fights in Julian’s arms. I watch as Julian’s guards carry Lina into a black Range with more force than necessary and I watch as Lila looks around helplessly as if calling for someone to rescue her.

The footage ends.

I turn to Ethan and I bark out an order.

“Send word to the Delta unit. Blackwood territory goes on lockdown. Julian’s just declared war by taking what’s mine.”

She might have gone to him.

The fucking bastard might have kidnapped her.

But she has no idea she is mine.

No idea that she’s the future of this pack. My Luna.

And no idea that I would burn this world down to bring her and Lina back.

Because Lina is mine too, no matter what.

And no disease, no paternity test, no power-hungry bastard is going to take them away from me again.