Chapter 18 - Alanis
The following day, Alanis woke up in Rael’s arms, sunlight shining through the curtains. She laid still for a while, listening to his breathing and feeling the warmth of his body against hers.
The previous night had been…intense. Not only the sex—that was fantastic though.
But it was the way she confided in him, and he comforted her.
Alanis from eight years ago would have felt vulnerable and exposed.
But she felt safe with Rael, and she was more frightened of that discovery than anything.
Slowly and silently, Alanis slipped out of bed and collected her clothes.
She had to contact Deva and find out how those women were doing.
She couldn’t stay still. She needed to do something productive before her mind drifted to something else, like what it would be like to stay with Rael forever.
To choose to stay with the Weston Pack as opposed to the Lumen.
To establish her life here rather than going back to the organization that rescued her.
She was about to go to the door, fully dressed, when Rael’s voice suddenly filled the room.
“Running away?”
She turned to see him resting on his elbows, looking at her with those blue-green eyes that could look right through her defenses that she had so carefully built. The sun illuminated his light blonde hair, making him look unfairly handsome in the morning.
“I just want to get in touch with Deva and see how things are going.”
“I think they have it under control, Alanis. They’ve been doing this for years. I don’t believe they need supervision.”
He wasn’t wrong, but to acknowledge this was to have acknowledged that she was seeking a reason to escape the upcoming conversation.
“Sit. Please. There’s something I need to say to you.”
Her stomach knotted with fear. This was it. When he would tell her to choose him. To stay with him. She would be lying if she said she didn’t notice the look in his eyes when she avoided his indirect question yesterday of whether she would stay with the Weston’s pack or go back to the Lumen.
So, he was probably about to give her reasons why she should stay.
And the worst of it all was, she was already half-convinced. She was already dreaming of how it would be to wake up in the arms of Rael every morning, to be a member of his pack, to build something real here.
But duty was duty. The Lumen took her in when nobody wanted to help her. They provided her with purpose, family, and a reason to continue fighting. Why would she leave them to go off and be with someone she never even wanted to be bonded with in the first place?
She took a seat at the edge of the bed and pulled herself together.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she started. “And I know you would have me stay, but—”
“I will help you find your old pack “
Alanis blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Caldwell Pack. The people who hurt you and tried to sell you.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I know you said they’re nowhere to be found, but just like I said—I will find them, and it’s time we start taking action. I will make them pay for what they did to you and the other girls.”
“I don’t... why would you...”
“I told you, Alanis. You have a right to justice. What they did to you was unforgivable, and they should not be able to simply disappear and get away with it. Because every day they are out there, they might be doing the same thing to other girls.”
“But the mission,” Alanis managed. “The trafficking network we’re chasing—it needs our full attention. Looking for my former pack would be a distraction.”
“Not if they’re connected, which I think that they may be.”
“What do you mean?”
“The network that we have been monitoring—it functions in the same manner that you described your pack functioning: getting young women, keeping them in safe places, and selling them to buyers.”
“Most trafficking operations operate in similar ways,” Alanis said, her mind racing. “That doesn’t mean—”
“The time coincides as well,” Rael shook his head. “You ran eight years ago. The trafficking network we have been following first came under our radar five years ago. Just after your pack would have had enough time to move around and reorganize.”
Oh my god.
“You believe Caldwell Pack is a part of the network and not operating independently?”
Rael nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Yes. They had the infrastructure, the methodology, and the lack of moral qualms. If they relocated after you escaped, they might have decided to expand their operations. Go from selling their own pack’s shiftless girls to acquiring and selling women from outside their territory. ”
It was plausible. Horrifying, but plausible.
“Then, finding them is not just about my personal vendetta, Rael. It is about shutting down a big portion of the network.”
“Exactly.” Rael grabbed her hand. “I want you to use your experience from the Caldwell pack to try to find out where they are. So, we can make sure they will never be able to hurt another human being.”
Alanis stared at him for a beat and noticed something she had been too stubborn to acknowledge.
This wasn’t the man who’d bought her at an auction.
This wasn’t the Alpha who had forced a bond on her.
This was a person who was concerned with justice, who felt her pain and wanted to make her feel better.
This was someone who wanted to save other women.
This was someone she could fall in love with.
Although she had a feeling that she was already halfway there.
“You would do this for me?” Her voice cracked. “You would find those who hurt me years ago, even though it may make your mission more difficult?”
“It does not make the mission more difficult when they are included in what we are already hunting.” He smiled ruefully. “And yes, I would do it. I would do a lot of things for you, Alanis. More than you know.”
Alanis thought about Deva. About Lumen, waiting for her to finally come back. Deva said the door would always be open to her.
She imagined what kind of life she could live there—it would be good work, people who knew about her trauma and her skills. People who gave her the opportunity to save other women.
And then she thought about what Rael was offering—the possibility of sharing her demons with a person standing by her side, rather than having to fight alone.
The conflict she felt about these two different warred within her.
“Tell me everything you know about Caldwell Pack,” Rael said, grabbing his phone from the nightstand. “All the details you can recall. Places, names of some pack members, anything that would help us trace them.”
Alanis took in a deep breath and started talking.
She told him about the pack’s original territory in northern Montana, the dense forest where they’d hidden their operations.
She described the Alpha—Gavin Caldwell as cruel and pragmatic, who’d built the selling operation from a desperate measure into a profitable business.
She also told him about the pack’s beta—a woman by the name Dominique, who was in control of training the shiftless girls. Then about the hunters who’d served as guards and enforcers, and the purchasers who would visit the auctions, down in the woods where nobody would ever discover them.
Rael was an active listener. He asked lots of clarifying questions, jotting stuff down on his phone. And, as she spoke, she watched his face grow darker, his jaw hardening with each word.
“Every quarter, auctions were conducted,” Alanis continued. “Spring, summer, fall, winter—always on the full moon, because Gavin thought he needed the ‘blessing’ of the moon goddess.”
“These timelines are similar to the smaller networks we’ve traced.”
Alanis felt her stomach sink. “You’re sure?”
“All the auctions we have found have been on or around a full moon. We figured it was only superstition or custom, though, if the Caldwell Pack began it, and they are carrying it on…”
“Then the full moon time was Gavin’s idea,” Alanis concluded. Meaning Caldwell Pack wasn’t just a part of the network. They started it. They were behind it all.
All this time, she thought they had broken up and disappeared ever since she ran away.
But they’d grown and expanded. They transformed their small, pack-based operation into one that spanned across several states, destroying the lives of myriads.
If only she’d connected the dots earlier. All these years, she could have…
“This is not your fault,” Rael grabbed her hand. “I know what you must be thinking, but you had no idea they were going to grow this way. You were trying to survive. Make a new life. You did nothing wrong.”
“But if I had looked more and urged the Lumen to continue searching rather than believing that the trail went cold and—”
“You were sixteen years old and traumatized. And even then, it is not you who committed the crimes your old pack committed. It was them, and we will see they are made to pay.”
He showed her a map on his phone, zooming in on the north of Montana. “Show me where the territory was, precisely.”
Alanis traced the map with her finger, recognizing features she knew—a certain mountain summit, a turn of a river, a ghost mining town that had been at the eastern edge.
Rael pulled up property records, saying, “This is one that has been bought by a private corporation in the past five years or so. The company is incorporated in Delaware. It is known to provide privacy to shell companies.”
“Can you trace who owns it?”
“August can. He is better at this than I am.” Rael shot him a quick text and glanced at Alanis. “If this is them, and Caldwell Pack now works under corporate cover, then that is why they have managed to remain so secret. They are not registered as a pack anymore, but a business.”
“A business dealing in human beings,” Alanis said bitterly.