Absence

Aidan

I paced in front of my desk.

“Don’t panic, Alpha, we’ll get ’em out.”

“I don’t fucking panic!” I growled out, but he wasn’t entirely wrong.

The longer we waited to get Kiarra and Angela out of there, the worse it was going to be.

“Fuck!” I screamed before kicking my chair clear across the room, “I never should’ve allowed this!”

Jack remained silent, but I was sure he was thinking the same thing.

“Alright, so how do we get ’em outta there? Storm them?”

“If we do that, we need more bodies than we have here. The Apex Pack are strong as they are cunning.”

I tried to sit, tried to center my thoughts.

“How many hard-trained fighters do we have on the roster as we speak?”

I didn’t like the idea of an unprepared assault, but there was only one way to do this, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Jack sighed heavily, “What are you thinking, Alpha?”

“How many!” I demanded again.

Explaining myself had become tedious.

“150 maximum, and at least fifty of those aren’t as hard as we’d need them to be.”

The news wasn’t what I wanted, “That’s not nearly enough to breach them.”

“We could call out for allies.”

His words hit me like a wave, “It will mean war then.”

Jack said nothing for a time, “It’s the only option we have, Alpha. We need to get them the hell out of there!”

Usually, Jack was the level-headed one, but I could see it in his eyes.

No matter what, he wanted blood as much as I did.

***

After I’d put the call out to the surrounding packs we were allied with, it wasn’t more than an hour before all five of the most powerful alphas in the territories were at a sitdown.

“Thank you, gentlemen, for answering the call,” I began, “my pack has encountered a set of problems in the form of The Kendricks.”

I saw Alpha Maverick scoff. The Kendricks were known to cause trouble.

My pack wasn’t the only one who’d had a run-in with the Apex Pack.

Maverick’s icy blue eyes peered out from under his brown curls, “What fresh hell have they brought down now?”

“I have found my mate, or she found me,” I started, feeling the pang of her absence growing by the minute.

“Out of nowhere, the Kendricks showed up.”

“And your mate is their daughter?” Alpha Rand laughed outwardly, “What the fuck, brother?”

“Well, she was an orphaned human, until she wasn’t,” Jack intervened, looking over at me with what seemed like misplaced sympathy or resentment.

I couldn’t fully tell which, but if it was the latter, I didn’t blame him.

I was pissed at myself, too.

“They laid claim to their daughter, and as you know, alpha’s daughters come with certain rules,” Jack finished, eyes focused on mine.

“So where is she?” Maverick asked with skepticism in his eyes.

“She’s in the Apex territory,” I sighed, “they’ve, they’ve done something to her. She’s not the same.”

“What do you mean?” Rand pushed.

“I met her in the woods, their side of the woods, and she didn’t know me. They’ve done something, I know it.”

“Whoa, shit, you trespassed their borders, Aidan? You know that’s against the rules,” Rand spat.

“I know, I know! I just needed to see her, get her out of there.”

From where I stood, the meeting wasn’t going well, and Jack could see it too.

Alpha Blue and Alpha Moon hadn’t said much, but I could tell they were on Rand’s side of things.

“Look, they have our mates. They have Angela, too,” Jack pushed, “we need enough bodies to breach the borders and get them out.”

“What then?” Blue suddenly asked, his arms crossed now behind his blonde shaved head, “After we stormtroop into the Apex territory, what makes you think that will be the end of things?”

He raised his eyebrows. This wasn’t a rhetorical question.

“Yeah,” Moon added with a shake of doubt, “we can’t break protocol like that, and the Kendricks technically aren’t doing anything wrong if your mate is their daughter.”

“And Angela?” Jack persisted, “Them holding her is totally fucking ok?”

“Jack,” I cautioned.

I knew how upset he was, and I shared the sentiment, but he wasn’t an alpha.

He needed to remember his place at the table.

“Fuck, Alpha, we’re sitting here wasting time!”

I could feel the eyes of my counterparts on me. “Jack, enough!” I growled. The last thing I needed was for him to make this meeting any more complicated.

“Aidan, seems like there’s a general loss of insight here,” Moon observed. I could tell that Jack’s outburst had rubbed him the wrong way.

“Gentlemen, I know this is a huge risk and a huge ask on my part, but I wouldn’t have called for this meeting unless it was absolutely critical.”

They remained silent, so I kept going.

“They’re holding our mates, yeah, but also they have a whole slew of prisoners in some sort of dungeon.”

“Dungeon?” Maverick said in disbelief. “Like a medieval castle?” he scoffed.

For just a second, I felt like I was getting somewhere, but now I realized they all thought this was ridiculous or a lie.

I couldn’t tell which.

“They’re keeping wolves there who refuse to conform,” I replied, looking at Alpha Blue, hoping he would see my way.

“You got proof, man?” Alpha Moon inquired, fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose.

I looked at Jack, who was busy staring in restrained fury at his feet.

“No, I don’t. Angela mind-linked before she was discovered.”

“Wait, discovered?” Rand asked. “What do you mean, Aidan? Did you have her snooping in their territory?”

I didn’t have time to give them the whole rundown. They knew as much as they needed to, but still, it wasn’t much help.

I was running out of patience. “Let’s cut to the chase. What’s it going to be, gentlemen?”

I knew I was walking a tightrope, but I couldn’t afford to dick around anymore. I needed an answer.

“Listen, Aidan,” Alpha Blue started, “I think I speak for all of us when I say this is ill-advised.”

Moon, Rand, and Maverick nodded in silence.

Jack didn’t move a muscle, but I was sure he felt like ripping the room to shreds.

Fuck, so did I.

“We have no proof of these allegations, and to be honest, risking all-out war could mean generations of fighting none of our packs can afford.”

Blue folded his hands, seemingly satisfied with his dissent.

“So, not one of you is willing to help us?” Jack piped up, the disappointment and confusion in his voice mixed in equal parts.

“Come on, Moon,” I pushed, “you know any time you’ve needed me, us,” I nodded toward Jack, “we’ve always come through.”

Moon looked up at me, “I know, Aidan, and I’m sorry. I really am.”

“We can’t condone war and loss of life for our packs, Aidan,” Rand added, “including yours.”

“You need to reevaluate the risk factor here,” Maverick said before he released himself from his chair, a cue the rest of the Alphas followed.

As they filed out of the door to my office, my mind scrambled for something, anything that would turn them around and make them listen to me.

“Wait!” I yelled, unable to hold back, panic in my stomach burning now that my hopes were being dashed away.

“If we don’t do something, I could lose her forever! I will lose my mate forever!” I screamed.

I needed them to see things from my side.

For just a second, I thought I’d done it, but as the Alphas’ eyes collectively met mine, the reality became clear.

“Sorry, Aidan,” Moon said.

They walked out, along with any hopes I might’ve had for a swift recovery.