Chapter 30.

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I inhaled deeply as I pressed my face into the pillow but a scent made me stop. Why did my pillow smell like Karabo? I didn't mind... but...

Oh. This isn't my room.

I rolled over so I was staring at the guest room's roof. The house was quiet apart from my soft breathing. He must have left while I was asleep. I should have stayed up with him instead of wasting the last few moments I had with him (who knows when I would get a chance to see him again) on... well crying and sleep. I pushed myself to sit up and raised my brows as my eyes fell on his suitcase which was on the floor, exactly how I had left it. Turning to look at the dresser behind me I saw his phone and passport beside the alarm clock that told me it was just passed two in the afternoon. Why was the house so quiet? I thought Paps was just driving Dad to work. Danté would be back from school in an hour. I grabbed Karabo's passport and pulled the flight documentation stuck between the pages out. His flight was scheduled to leave two hours ago.

I frowned staring at his phone before focusing on his pull and sharp panic fill my chest at the feeling and realisation that he was quite far away. I shook my head trying to calm the immediate reaction.

Wherever he is, he can take care of himself.

What if he ran into Craig's army? He wouldn't just decide to take a stroll and skip his flight home. Could... could he have gone after them?

I got off the bed running my hands over my face before attempting to straighten my shirt by rubbing the creases out with my palms while I made my way downstairs and outside.

'Ashton.' I linked to him once we were in range as I made my way toward his house.

'What's wrong?' I chuckled at his immediately worried response.

'Nothing.' It was true, I didn't feel like Karabo was in any distress, but after everything in the past while, I wasn't going to go after him without any backup, even if I knew I could put up quite a fight on my own, 'Karabo's gone and I want to find him, it's nothing big.'

'I'll round up some Deltas.' he said.

'Get Kara to help you follow me.' Kara was a witch that was mated to one of the pack Deltas, I'd learnt the tracking spell from her.

'You're going ahead?'

I didn't respond as I got distracted when I spotted Ben a while away, speaking to someone on his phone as he paced the sidewalk in front of the recreation hall. He hadn't noticed me and seemed worried. I stopped walking so he would not notice me and couldn't help focusing my hearing on his conversation.

"No, I haven't spoken to them but I will, soon... Just... so much is happening right now." He mumbled.

"Babe, you don't have to come here. I understand, I've been around wolves long enough to know what your pack means to you. I'll –" I recognised Paige's voice instantly.

"I don't have to, I want to. You're happy there, I'll be happy anywhere as long as you're near me." I felt something between amused, heavy disgust and admiration. They were... cute. "Besides... new scenery would be nice and I like being near the ocean."

"Are you sure?" she asked sounding uncertain.

"Of course, Sweetheart." He said, the confidence in his voice undoubtedly there to reassure her.

"Okay... I miss you so much... I love you."

I smiled seeing Ben grin. He was generally a pretty happy person and still I had never seen him that level of happy. I frowned at myself wondering if I was anything like that with Karabo.

"Alpha?" I looked at Ben and realised his call had ended and he seemed worried about how much I had heard as he sprinted up to me. Did he think I was going to protest him leaving the pack? I would have, before I realised I had no choice because I actually liked knowing he was happy. So soppy...

"I need your help. Come." He seemed to relax and I would have laughed if it wouldn't have pointed out that I had been eavesdropping.

I was sprinting before he could ask where we were headed and he quickly followed my lead.

"Eli, explain!" he called as we made our way through the forest.

"Looking for my mate." He laughed and I shot him a narrow-eyed glance.

"What did you do this time?" I stopped running to trip him and smirked as he crashed onto the ground with a painful shout. I then walked up to him.

"Keep up, Ben," I instructed earning a growl from behind me as I continued to follow my mate's pull. When he felt somewhat, I stopped running as I heard speaking a little far away from me.

Speaking?

Who was he speaking to?

I was jealous. He left me and his pack to talk to who? Who could be that important?! It didn't matter, I was going to kill them.

I narrowed my eyes and grabbed Ben covering his mouth as soon as he caught up with me. He gave a nod and was quiet as I dropped my hand and we walked further through the trees keeping our steps silent, the voices becoming clearer until we were staring at scattered small huts. Someone appeared to be building a pack. I narrowed my eyes. These were Craig's wolves, it was undoubtable with the amount of power radiating from gamma wolves. My eyes fell on my mate who was surrounded by a few of the wolves. They looked ready to fight, but he didn't.

"Look, I'm not here to fight. Just looking to speak to your..." I bit my lip smiling as Karabo's eyes ran over one of the wolves in front of him glistening with amusement and causing the wolf who was clearly their leader to clench his jaw in anger, "... helper." he finished with a polite smile.

The polite, smug snarkiness suited him so much, it made my breath catch and I tilted my head getting the sudden urge to make out with him.

"We're not looking for any new wolves. Leave while I'm nice." The wolf said. What was he talking about? You didn't have to be an Alpha to sense that the man he was looking at could kill him before he even had a chance to think about throwing a punch.

Karabo sighed. "I'm not going to fight you, and I'm not going to leave."

'Alpha?' Ben linked to me as we saw the wolves around Karabo shift on their feet slightly.

'Let him be.' I responded. He didn't look like he was in much danger, and it was actually quite fun to watch him. This was a side of him I had barely seen since we met and he looked incredibly attractive.

"Why?" Karabo asked, "Why would you risk your own kind –"

"My kind?" The 'Alpha' chuckled humourlessly.

I looked at my hand focusing on Craig while I recited the tracking spell in my head and watched as it began to glow and showed the huts we were looking towards, there were much more than I thought there would be, which meant there were much more wolves. Smart. I wasn't expecting him to be there. I figured he would be somewhere safer, he must have thought the same. I closed my hand having located him, effectively making the glow disappear.

'Help him if he needs it.' I linked to Ben.

'Where are you –?' Ben's voice cut from my head as I had already made my way through the trees, going around their pack. I could feel his frustration with me but ignored it as I listened for any sound of other wolves. I heard a few. Pups or kids playing, people in their huts, some walking around, some building.

I hid most of my power as I snuck closer to Craig's hut and wasn't surprised to see some wolves surrounding it. I counted five; I wouldn't be able to compel them all at the same time. I lifted my hand to kill them – after all, they were on his side – but frowned as I stopped myself and let my hand fall back to my side. Damn it, Karabo. His mercifulness better not be rubbing off on me.

I raised my brows as all five men suddenly froze where they stood. Glancing behind me, I smiled spotting Kara not far away. Hopefully, Ashton had found Ben.

"Thank you," I walked out of hiding and headed into the hut passing by the paralysed guards. There were two more on the inside, also paralysed.

I found Craig seated on a couch in the same frozen state as his guards, a book sprawled across his lap as if it had slipped from his hands when they stopped moving. His eyes followed me as I moved around the room taking it in.

"Nice work," I said, "with the pack and stuff." I studied some wolfsbane on a table and began considering prolonging his death as I tried to convince myself the sinking feeling in my chest wasn't there. I could shove thorns down his throat... or boiling water. That was classic, right? Craig's croaking had my gaze shifting back to him as I snapped out of my thoughts.

His eyes shifted between me and the door as though he was expecting someone to help him. I looked behind me at the door suddenly tensing as if I heard something – teasing him – before I gave a light chuckle as I looked back at him and saw the hope disappear from his eyes. He stared at me, his gaze burning into me with hatred and fear at the realisation that there was no way out got him, I was sure I would have looked at him the same way back in the cell... I hid how the thought unsettled me and smiled at him again.

I walked up to him, his eyes completely filled with terror now, his throat letting out helpless croaks as he tried to speak to me. I lifted my hand to his throat deciding I didn't want to hear it, I wasn't going to waste time trying to speak to him, and began tightening my grip as I looked out of the window to see Kara texting as she smiled. I returned my eyes to Craig's bulging, panic and fear-stricken eyes, his croaking became rapid before it died down until it stopped completely, his glassy eyes losing their life until it looked as though he was staring right through me. He should have found a way to strengthen himself instead of focusing on wolves so much...

'Drop the spell.' I linked to Kara.

She looked up to nowhere as her lips began moving and soon I felt Craig sink into the couch beneath him lifelessly as I heard the two guards behind me move.

I looked down at him as I let his neck go. His videos... We were going to have to compel whoever autopsied him into believing he killed himself or was just strangled by another human. The latter might not work considering the single handprint on his neck and no signs of drugging or struggling.

The other guards came rushing in before they stopped stunned at the door and I looked back at them wondering what Karabo was up to. They backed up slightly as I turned to face them.

I walked by them relieved that they were too scared and shocked to fight because I was new to this restraint thing and there was only so much of it I could do at once.

I was beyond surprised to find my mate beside Ben and Ashton, the 'Alpha' he had been speaking to earlier grinning at them as they spoke like they were friends.

"Uh..." I frowned when his hand landed on Karabo's shoulder as he said something.

"Eli –" I smiled as Karabo patted the guy's arm to move it off his shoulder.

"Eli? Galaxy?" The guy stared at me surprised. Save of the way I acted, it wasn't very easy to tell who I was because of how much I hid my power. We were a very popular pack and lots of wolves knew my name but not my face. "You're Beta Ashton from Galaxy?" His eyes shifted to Ashton.

"Who did you think I was?" Ashton asked curiously.

"What is this?" I asked before anyone could answer either of their questions.

"Where's Craig?" I almost rolled my eyes as Karabo asked that instead of answering me but I didn't want anyone to see me roll my eyes at him because I figured they would think they could disrespect him.

"Dead," I replied.

"But... but the guards –" the 'Alpha' grabbed Karabo's arm looking distressed and I clenched my fist.

"They aren't hurt. Someone explain what is going on here? And back off." I growled shoving the guy back.

My anger died down as soon as Karabo's arms hugged my shoulders from behind me. I was relieved he wasn't gone. "I'll explain, Eli. Calm down. No one needs to fight."

"Wait. He's your mate? You said your mate was in their pack... but-but he's an Alpha."

"He is." Karabo grinned. I was still annoyed that he was even grinning at the guy.

"And you're an Alpha." the guy said still confused.

"He knows." I frowned. The 'Alpha' in front of me looked a little defeated as his eyes averted to the ground and I really couldn't care less why he looked that way.

"Uh... I don't think... Yeah, we should just get going." he mumbled to my mate when he eventually looked back up.

"No, no. We'll speak to him." Karabo quickly spoke reassuringly.

"Are you talking about me?" These two were going to make me kill someone... It would probably be the 'Alpha'.

Ashton gave my shoulder a pat before he grabbed my arm and began pulling me from Karabo's embrace. I looked behind me as Karabo and Ben continued to speak to the guy while Ashton began leading me towards our pack and the other wolves began to follow.

Why were they following?

Why did I have to wait so long for an explanation of what the hell was going on?

Well, at least Karabo and 'Alpha' were separated by Ben waking between them so he couldn't keep touching my mate.

*****