Chapter 15: 15 Return

Max

Once my leg healed and after I abandoned the crutches, I left Sterling Manor with an awkward farewell from Will. Nash’s obvious relief to be out of there practically buzzed in the air around us, although I couldn’t spare my travelling companion much attention. I regretted the way I had pressured Will, and our strained friendship was new territory between us. I tried not to resent him for his refusal to help me, but the tint of it remained, mixed in with my guilt.

But I was willing to do anything to find her. In the end, it would all be worth it.

While I had been healing, there had been one small bit of good news, and that was that Glenshadow had beaten Bluegorge’s allegations against us, and our pack was now on its way to being formally recognized by the Alpha Assembly, although as a small pack we wouldn’t have voting rights or anything like that. Still, it was a good step in the right direction. Our victory should have made me ecstatic—even Nash looked happy at when he heard the news—but I couldn’t summon the feeling. With every failure to find her, the world looked more grey.

Without any real direction, I decided to try Fennel’s tip. She wasn’t there when I searched before, but maybe I missed something. I could have missed something. There was a chance, and that was better than anything else I had to go on.

“I’m heading towards Whiteforest,” I told Nash as we ran through the trees, dodging rocks and other obstacles, “and I understand if you don’t want to go back there.”

Nash kept running alongside me. “I’ll come along.”

“I’ll probably go into the Rustknoll territory. The alpha allowed me last time.”

“That’s fine.” He was being oddly cooperative, although I hadn’t missed the way his muscles tensed at the name of the pack he had been exiled from.

"But you were banished.”

“Won’t go in if it’s a problem,” he said with a wolfish shrug.

“If you want.” I wasn’t going to force him to go anywhere with me, although I could use his fresh eyes and his familiarity with the area. We ran through the forest on quick paws. My leg was a bit tender, more with the memory of pain than actual pain. We resumed our pattern of hunting, sleeping, and running, day in, day out. There was a soothing peace to the pattern, even if the wiry black wolf running beside me seemed more terse as each mile brought us closer to his birth pack.

We first visited the area surrounding Whiteforest, starting there mostly because I wanted to give Nash a chance to relax before we went to the place he was truly dreading. The alpha granted us permission to search for any signs of my mate and I accepted with gratitude. As with other packs, many exhibited a wariness when dealing with my fellow traveller, although he was also allowed in probably because he was with me. Nash seemed unconcerned with the standoffish behaviour, or maybe years of being treated like an outsider made him oblivious to the slights.

The bigoted attitudes were beginning to annoy me, although I said nothing. Had he and West been treated this way since they were discarded pups? Likely Nash had been shaped into what he now was by those experiences. Even if their original pack had expelled them, why didn’t another pack take them in, especially before they had become a problem?

I wasn’t one for conspiracy theories, but it was almost like packs wanted rogue troubles to deal with, like they needed them as a common external enemy to hate. My short time as a rogue before we’d formed Glenshadow had given me some insight into pack bigotry and journeying with Nash only confirmed it.

We arrived at the main road leading into Rustknoll in our human forms as was good safe protocol for unplanned visits, and Nash was even more jittery than his normal uneasy self. “You don’t have to come,” I reminded him.

“I know.”

I still didn’t understand Nash’s motives, or where his determination to accompany me stemmed from. Especially when I knew how difficult it was to go home. I’d journeyed back to Glenhaven one time after we’d heard that the Stonemason alpha was dead, and discovered that it had been cleaned up, leaving no evidence that werewolves had ever resided there. It had presumably been the work of the agents working for the Alpha Assembly covering up the massacre to obscure our existence.

I’d been too afraid to look in Lillian’s and my apartment, because it might have been empty, or worse, maybe it would be unchanged, except absent of all the life that had given it meaning.

I imagined the feeling was similar for Nash. On top of all the questions about what he was hiding, it made me uneasy, but not so much I was going to sent him away. He was pack.

We were met at the border by a freshly shifted female fighter. Nash and I both kept our gazes respectfully away from her nakedness. I ignored the slight temptation to look, and my wolf wasn’t tempted at all.

“Who are you, rogues?” she asked, her voice hostile. I corrected her on our status and introduced myself, and then introduced Nash Tyndale of Glenshadow. There seemed to be no recognition of his name. Was the banishment of two children on the grounds of their father’s treachery not even worthy of remembrance here? Just two nameless pups, thrown out into the wilderness and probably presumed dead? It was disgusting behaviour.

“Not going to say anything else about who I am?” Nash asked.

“I’ll speak to the alpha. We were clear about your identity. It’s not our fault if he and the border guards failed to put it together if it is an issue for them.”

Nash didn’t say anything else. We lapsed back into our usual silence.

We were led to a waiting room near the alpha’s office. We sat on a high quality dark leather couch with several burly pack warriors looming around us. Nash became increasingly fidgety as the minutes stretched into more than an hour and I had to keep reminding him to keep calm.

Finally, we were ushered inside. The guards were dismissed back to the lobby, although no doubt they would be recalled at the first sign of trouble.

The alpha looked us both over. I kept my gaze down while I introduced us formally in an effort not to challenge him, as I always did. It was easiest to pacify an alpha before he got his back up, because they got irrational if they felt challenged. “Why did you rogues come onto my territory?”

“Not rogues, Alpha. We’re pack members of Glenshadow, and I was here before, a couple of years ago, on a tip from moon goddess adherents. I was looking for my mate, Lillian Robert.”

There was a pause. “Ah, yes, I remember. You didn’t find her?”

“Afraid not. I’ve been searching other leads all this time, and I recently received another one that several people had disappeared in this area, so I returned, hoping to ask around again, if you would grant me and my pack mate permission. If not, I’ll simply continue my search outside your territory and bother you no longer.”

“There have been a few disappearances, not on my pack lands, but in the nearby human town in the last few years. And there was one particularly high profile one that got some media attention. It’s a long shot that it’s related to your mate, though, since the missing people were all human.” He looked between me and Nash. “But you caused no trouble last time, so I’ll allow you entry. Your pack mate though—Nash was it?—there’s something familiar about him.”

If he had an inkling that he knew Nash, it was most strategic to get ahead of the knowledge. “I’m sorry, I assumed you were aware when you granted us this meeting, Alpha. Since it seems you don’t remember, in the interest of full disclosure, Nash was originally from Rustknoll. But he’s a Glenshadow wolf now. We didn’t know we’d be coming here when Alpha Bronson assigned him to accompany me, or we would have asked our alpha to change his orders.” It was better to highlight just how very much Nash was a good obedient member of our pack under the circumstances, even if it might be bending the truth a little. Or a lot.

“Alpha Bronson, hmm? I spoke to him and his luna briefly at the most recent assembly before they left.”

That was promising.

The alpha spent another minute staring Nash down while he jerked under the heavy scrutiny. “Why did you leave Rustknoll?”

“I was sent away after my father failed a challenge for pack leadership.” Since the alpha wasn’t much older than me, the original challenge had likely been against his father.

“Nash was a child at the time and uninvolved,” I added, hoping I hadn’t just led Nash to his death by bringing him here. Most alpha’s weren’t crazy enough to kill pack affiliated wolves without justifiable cause, but Stonemason had demonstrated just how bad it could be when an alpha abused their power. “He’s only here because of my search, and he’ll cause no trouble.”

The alpha spent another long moment studying us, and I began to sweat under the pressure. It was a good sign the alpha hadn’t instantly reacted, but it was still tense.

Finally he spoke, and his voice was decisive, with no room for argument. “I’ll let you ask around for information, but I expect you both gone by nightfall, and any trouble will be harshly punished.”

That only gave me a few hours to ask around, but it could have been much worse. “Thank you, Alpha. I should hurry then.”

He nodded and with that we were dismissed.

“Since he didn’t say you had to stay with me, I believe you’re free to move around as long as you cause no problems, and I trust that you won’t, because I’m not sure we’d escape ‘harshly punished’ with our lives.”

He nodded with his usual slight nervous tick. His face was serious though so it was obvious Nash got the point.

“Is there anything you want to do, anyone you want to see while we’re here?” It was possible that he had left some relative or friend behind when he’d been banished.

He shook his head, his expression unreadable. I didn’t have time to waste figuring him out. “If we do get separated, we’ll meet outside of where we came in before sunset. No need to test the alpha’s definition of nightfall.”

Nash nodded, and my search began anew.