Chapter 17 - Noah
The bed was cold and empty when I woke up, and I was immediately annoyed. Where was my mate?
When I felt the chilled, rumpled blankets on her side of the bed, it was obvious she'd been gone for hours. I'd hoped to wake up to find her there, where I could pull her close and show her again just how much she meant to me, and just how well our bodies fit together.
Determined to find her, I pushed myself up, but my head started to pound at the movement. I pushed my palms into my temples and groaned, pain flooding me like a dam had broken somewhere in my skull.
But it wasn't just pain that poured over me. It was also memories. The pieces I had been missing—why I was in Brokenclaw territory, and who I had been hunting. The rogue wolves, the brutal attack...and Dominic.
Swallowing hard, I pushed myself up against the headboard and tried to ride it all out. It was like the memories were forcing their way into my gray matter, and it was agony, but I needed to have them back if I was ever going to make sense of what happened.
The return of those lost hours and the identity of the man that I had been trying to find were connected to Sage.
There was no other explanation. I remembered the flash of magic as she came that last time as I knotted her, and the way it had engulfed both of us, making my skin tingle.
I hadn't remembered everything then, but apparently I needed the sleep to complete the healing, which was why it was all hitting me at once.
God, I'd lost so fucking much. If it wasn't for Sage, would these parts of my memory ever have been recovered?
Dominic's name rose out of the fog of the past few weeks, and remembering him felt like ripping open an old wound.
I could see him easily, with dark hair and a sharp smile, a shadow of insecurity in the back of his eyes that never really left.
Dominic had joined the pack not long after Sage had run away, and the wild new wolf, close to my age and looking for connection, had been the distraction I needed after rejecting my mate.
The two of us had become fast friends, Dominic's recklessness balancing out how serious I had to be as the future Alpha.
We'd hunted together, fought side by side, laughed and drank late into the night, and formed a friendship strong enough that I'd considered him the closest thing to a brother.
It had been an easy choice to make him one of my personal guard when the time came, and for a long time, we'd been almost inseparable.
Until everything fell apart.
When my father had been gravely injured fighting another Alpha, it had been up in the air whether he would even survive or not, and I had been rushed into the Alpha position so our pack wouldn't be vulnerable and leaderless for too long.
I'd thought over what I would want my Council and my personal guards to look like, but I'd never expected to have to take the helm on such short notice.
As chaotic as everything was, I'd made one decision years in advance—my Beta. I knew everyone had expected me to choose Dominic, who had been my right hand for years, but I was determined to run the pack differently than my father did.
My father would have preferred hot-headed, always ready to fight Dominic, but I knew it would be a step in the wrong direction, no matter how close a friend he was. So instead, I chose another one of my peers, the calmer, more introspective Cal, as my Beta.
I had expected Dominic to feel a little betrayed, but I hadn't expected him to be furious.
His anger had shocked me, and at first, I'd dismissed his rage, certain that it would pass.
We were still friends, and it didn't change how much we relied on each other, and that was what was important, right?
Only Dominic had never gotten over my choosing someone else over him, and it became more and more apparent as the days wore on.
At first, the changes had been small, barely noticeable, and I'd brushed them off.
But after a few weeks, it had become more and more apparent.
Finally, everything came to a head when Dominic challenged Cal for the Beta position.
I wanted to forbid the challenge, but I was stuck.
I had no choice but to allow it, or it would look like I was putting my friendship above the well-being of the pack.
A good portion of the pack had expected Dominic to win, but they had been the ones who hadn't paid attention to Cal. Just because he was quiet didn't mean he was weak, and when the time came for the challenge, my Beta proved exactly why he was second in command.
The memory of the fight made me feel ill, but I had to face it.
I could recall the smell of the challenge circle's dirt, and the sound of the pack as they gathered around to watch raptly.
Cal had stood still, his hands clasped behind his back as Dominic stalked around him, his energy angry and restless.
When Dominic exploded, attacking with a flurry of hits, Cal had avoided and absorbed them effortlessly.
Then, when Dominic was already breathing hard, Cal attacked with calculated precision, breaking Dominic down blow by blow. Cal won in the end, leaving Dominic furious in the dirt.
As soon as the dust settled, Dominic fled the pack, not even speaking a word to any of us. I'd thought he'd just needed space, but that conclusion wavered as the weeks passed.
Only that was the last time anyone saw Dominic. He'd vanished.
I hadn't believed he would just leave, but there was no trace of him.
Not even his scent, as if he had just disappeared.
No one in the pack had seen him, but a few weeks later, word came in that Dominic had taken up with a small group of rogue wolves that had been causing trouble up north.
It had made me cold inside, thinking about the man I'd called brother abandoning everything, and joining with those who had no allegiance to any pack.
Stories of the rogue's violence had filtered back to our pack, and I'd vowed to track Dominic down and bring him home before it was too late.
Before he did something so heinous that it made it impossible for him to be forgiven.
I'd gone on the hunt for the rogues, and it had led me to Brokenclaw territory.
Now, with my entire memory restored, I could see that they must have been lying in wait for me, and that was why the attack had been so brutal.
Dominic and the rogues had known I was coming. They'd known I was looking for him.
Knowing that he was willing to beat me nearly to death was a pain so powerful that I didn't know it was possible to feel like this. The betrayal had ripped a hole in me, and I wanted so badly to deny it. How could he have done that to me? To our pack?
And why in the fuck had my pack kept this from me? My father, Cal, Summer...any of them could have reminded me of Dominic, and that might have helped me recover my memories. Instead, they kept silent, slapping a hand over my mouth as stomach acid clawed up my throat.
If it hadn't been for Sage, I would have never known. Hell, I might have died never remembering Dominic.
There were no words to describe the rage I felt towards the people I trusted most, and the only reason I was able to swallow it down was because Sage was waiting for me. She was my priority now, not my rage.
Pushing myself up, I swung my legs out of bed and forced myself up. I needed a shower, some food, and then to find my mate. After that, I would confront those who lied to me.
And then I needed to find out where Dominic and the rogues were, because after the violence of the attack on me, I wasn't sure bringing him home was even an option anymore. There was a possibility I'd have to kill my best friend, and there was no way I could put the responsibility on anyone else.
After all, I was the Alpha.
***
As it happened, I didn't have time for the confrontation I had in mind.
Halfway through breakfast, I received an alert that some of the border traps had been tripped out near the farmland, right near where I'd found Sage the previous night.
Even though my head was still pounding, there was no way for me to stay behind, so I dressed and made my way out to meet my border guards.
I wasn't surprised to find some of the pack already there, milling around to see what all the fuss was about.
What surprised me was that Sage was there, and she appeared to be in an argument with an older pack member, Ernie.
He was one of the farmers, so it was expected that his emotions would be running high, but that didn't keep the anger I felt away seeing him so close to Sage, yelling in her face.
"What's going on here?" I barked, making the other wolves jump. The blood drained from Ernie's face.
"Someone messed with the crops." Safe was flushed, and her voice was shaky, but she was trying to appear confident.
"That's what tripped the border alarms. There are obvious spaces where the plants have been tampered with, but of course, no one is worried about finding the actual culprit and is more concerned with finding a way to blame me! "
Ernie scowled and started to argue, but Sage shook her head.
"Look," she held up her hands, and a shimmer of green covered them, "I have nothing to gain by causing harm. Every minute you spend blaming me is another minute the person who actually did this has to cover their tracks."
Her eyes flashed with determination, and I watched the crowd shift and whisper.
It was a smart move on her part, standing her ground.
It would be easy for me to step in and demand they leave her alone, but the pack needed to see that she could handle herself.
They would respect her more if she fought her own battles.
"We've seen you messing with the crops," someone else in the crowd protested.