28. Chapter 28
Jackson
I’m completely in awe of my girl. It’s incredible how she refused to see herself as a victim.
I’m so proud of her and how far she has come.
So fucking proud to get to call her mine.
I want nothing more than to be with her forever.
My wolf huffs in agreement and I know he’s blaming me for every single second that we spent without her before I admitted to myself how much I wanted her.
She is my mate. I’m sure of it. And tomorrow we will know for sure.
When she wakes on her twenty-first birthday, she will have the ability to recognize her fated mate and they her.
The tingles I feel when we touch will become more intense.
Her delicious scent will be stronger and clearer.
A bond will develop that pulls us together like magnets, which means I will always know where she is.
A bond that will only strengthen when we accept and mark each other.
She has to be my mate.
After washing up and grabbing a washcloth to clean Emily, I settle into her bed and pull her close to me.
She rests her head on my chest and hooks a leg over mine.
I rub my knuckles along the outside of her arm and bury my nose in her hair, anchoring myself in her scent.
Emily lets out a soft sigh and I wait for her breathing to even out before letting my eyes glaze over as I reach out to Ryan through the mindlink.
I allow myself to feel again. Because Emily needs me to be strong for her, but there’s nothing I want more than to tear apart the fucker that tried to break her—tried to take what’s mine.
Was going to fucking rape her. I scowl at the memory of how that fucker tried to touch what’s mine.
I would hate him if he did that to any female, but the fact he did it to mine?
Unbearable. My rage instantly returns to take over from the serenity I experienced only seconds ago. I want to tear him apart.
I mindlink Luca and Ryan, who inform me John Anderson is in holding, waiting for his pack elders to arrive tomorrow, when he will be subject to an Alpha challenge. “Let me in to him,” I plead through the link. “Let me hurt him. He needs to feel as scared as he made Emily feel.”
“You know I’d love to," Ryan responds, "but he’s an Alpha subject to an Alpha challenge. We need to do this the right way.”
Fuck. Is there a way to get to him before then? Knowing that he is still breathing has me and my wolf on edge and ready to do anything to get to him. It’s like I’m being torn apart between my need to be here with Emily and the need to eliminate any dangers to her.
“Just come down to my office. You need to hear this,” Ryan says through the mindlink.
“I can’t leave Emily. She can’t be alone after what happened to her. After what could have happened.”
“You need to hear this. Don’t make me come up there and alpha command you.”
For fuck's sake. I glance at Emily. Her body’s relaxed, her breathing even.
I stroke her back gently, easing her deeper into sleep before slipping out from under her.
Ryan is my best friend and Alpha, but I fucking hate him for making me leave her right now.
Slowly I extricate myself from her, hoping she stays asleep and I’m back before she even knows I’m gone.
I enter Ryan’s office, and the tension is like a physical wall. Luca’s got his arms crossed, glaring. Ryan’s seated, head in his hands. And the Beta who saved Emily is pacing like a caged wolf. The tension is so thick you could slice it with a claw.
“Nice of you to remember the pack needs its Delta in times like these,” Luca grunts.
“The fuck did you say?” I step towards him, forgetting rank and our longstanding friendship, until Ryan’s Alpha command to stop has me pulling up short.
“Enough!” Ryan roars, glaring between us, his Alpha command freezing us both in place. “This is not the time. Jackson, this is Caleb Cooper. Caleb, this is Jackson Clark, Lunar Eclipse Delta and Emily’s...”
“Mate,” I state when Ryan trails off. It’s not official until tomorrow, but she’s mine. Ryan nods once while Luca scoffs. What the hell is his problem ?
“Caleb, can you tell us again what you know?” Ryan asks, sinking into his chair. His shoulders hunch over and he massages his temples with his index fingers, looking more drained than I’ve ever seen him.
Caleb takes a deep breath and nods at me. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know how, but yeah, she seems to be okay. She’s so fucking strong,” I say with a sigh, rubbing my hands down my face. “Thank you for stepping in.”
“I did what any normal fucking person would have done,” he responds bitterly, shaking his head.
He takes a deep breath, as if to steady himself before he continues talking.
“I’m technically the Beta of Iron Fang, but that’s not where I’m from.
I was the second son of the Alpha of Mystic Ridge, down south. ”
He stares at me intently before sighing and dropping into a seat. “Three years ago, our pack was attacked and my twin sister, Camille, was killed along with two other omegas. Except she didn’t really die.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, squinting at him in confusion. She was either killed or she wasn’t. Nothing he is saying makes sense. Caleb flops into a chair and buries his head in his hands. He takes a deep breath before glancing up at me, his dark brown eyes filled with pain.
“I mean, there was a lot of blood and she wasn’t gone long before we felt her familial bonds snap, like she had died.
Same as the others. Their bonds to family members and the Alpha all snapped.
Except not all the bonds broke. Camille and I had a special connection.
I’m not sure if it’s because we are twins, but we have always been able to sense each other’s feelings.
Telepathy, some kind of twin magic. I don’t know.
I just know that our connection didn’t snap the same way. ”
His voice is low, tight with pain. I glance at Ryan, but he’s silent, his face carved from stone. What is going on here?
“Are you sure… you aren’t just holding onto hope?” I ask tentatively. I can understand that. The need to pretend he hasn't lost her.
“I could still feel her, even when no one else could. I felt her fear, her pain. I knew she wasn’t really dead. I know she’s still alive now.”
I shoot a glance towards Ryan. He sits behind his desk, his fingers steepled in front of him as if he is lost in thought. Taking in everything and making the big picture connections that I can’t quite understand.
“Once I realized Camille wasn’t dead, my brothers and I started investigating,” Caleb continues.
“We found reports of similar attacks showing up across the country over the past eight years. Some were rogue attacks, some were freak accidents, and some were supposed suicides. No bodies, but in all of them, the bonds snapped, and deaths were assumed. Then there were also reports of omegas who disappeared going back over twenty years. Always young. Always unmated.”
“Wait,” I say, trying to process. “You’re saying these omegas weren’t killed?
Just taken?” The sudden dryness in my mouth makes it difficult to swallow, and my voice comes out in a hoarse whisper.
The muscles in my chest tighten, making it harder to breathe, each gasping breath shallow and strained.
I can’t bear to think this could be connected to Katie.
I’ve only just started to move forward from the loss of her.
“I’m saying that this isn’t a coincidence. I think someone is taking these omegas and using magic or something to block their bonds. We ask questions and look too hard when someone goes missing, but who looks for someone who is already dead?”
“Fuck,” I say as I exhale. My head pounds as I try to process the implications of what I’m hearing. This can’t be real.
“My brothers and I have traced the packs where no omegas went missing and infiltrated them. All on the west coast. We ruled out Silver Moon, Crimson Claw, and The Wild Hunt. That left Iron Fang, Blood Moon, Twilight Wolves, and Night Howlers. I challenged the Iron Fang Beta for his position in order to get closer to Anderson. I’ve been there for six months, but he has never trusted me enough to let me in on whatever is happening.
And now I’ve fucked it all up,” he says through gritted teeth.
He stands up and kicks over his chair before going back to pacing back and forth.
“I was so close, but I couldn’t… Fuck! He wanted me to stand by while he fucking raped her.” He drops to his haunches and drops his head into his hands.
It’s as if I’ve been shattered, my chest carved open and my heart ripped out with all the possibilities of this revelation. I look to Ryan, my Alpha, afraid to ask the question that threatens to explode out of me and tear me apart with it.
“Is he saying… is he saying what I think he is?” I ask.
“This might be unrelated to Katie. We don’t know what this means. We don’t know anything yet,” Ryan says softly. This is insane. My head is spinning out right now. I have no idea what is going to happen next, but all I can think of is that Katie might not be dead.
I’ve spent seven years thinking she was gone, but she might be out there somewhere.
She might be alive. She might have spent those years being tortured or raped or Goddess knows what else.
It’s a jarring moment when I realize that death might be the preferable option.
Because the thought that Katie has been out there while I’ve been living my life is unbearable.
What if this isn’t real? What if every moment I’ve not spent searching was a betrayal? But all we have is one guy telling us a pretty far-fetched story based on some sort of twin telepathy.
“We need to question Anderson,” I growl. “Right now. Tear the truth out of him.”