Urquia

Chapter 17: Complications arose, ensued, were overcome. part 2

*Author POV*

On Monday after lunch, Urimare, the girls' mom, went to the warehouse where they held the prisoners. She let the girls do their thing, as she had a specific role to play in their interrogation.

The wolves would be drugged, and with the right combination of herbs and animal poison, she could get information without them remembering afterwards.

She was the last warrior chieftain princess of an almost extinct tribe in Venezuela. She was their last shaman. Her lineage was blessed to help her people. She came from a long line of warriors who were almost one with nature, but they were being hunted by other tribes for their magic.

Their Gods sent her to save Emmanuel. She found him almost drowned in the Orinoco river. She rescued him and tended his wounds. He and his team were being chased by the Colombian guerrilla but got separated, and they left him for dead.

Afterwards, he helped her and her small group, no more than a dozen, to form an alliance with another tribe. They welcomed them and became one in exchange for protection.

She fell in love with him, and the Gods blessed them with a purpose: to help people in need, to make balance between the supernatural and the human world.

They had been helping people around the world for almost 39 years now. Most of the time, they were in unique situations where a supernatural being was causing trouble among humans. Other times, it was to actually help supernaturals from being enslaved or hunted, or even to make peace so no lives would be put at risk.

They loved their lives, helping people and other beings. But now their daughters needed them. And both of them wanted to enjoy their grandkids. They had to make sure these wolves were harmless, and she had to get all the information.

-"What the f**k am I doing here?" Ramirez said weakly. His voice was rough, like sandpaper.

His head was throbbing, and he didn't remember a thing from before leaving the pack. He saw the cuffs on his wrists. He tried breaking them or shifting, but he couldn't. A wave of helplessness washed over him.

His dizziness didn't go away when he heard a door open. A woman who seemed familiar came through with a bottle of water and food. He sniffed the food and made sure the bottled water was sealed. He drank and ate while trying to gather his thoughts.

He didn't notice when she got close and blew some weird powder over his face. She then began chanting in a foreign language and his vision started to distort and get blurry, to move and twist. It was like he was dreaming.

-"Wha…what di…" he couldn't even think straight.

-"Who are you?" She said when he got into a trance.

-"I'm Delta Brian Ramirez of the Blackclaw pack." He said slowly, dreamily.

-"Why are you following that family?"

-"Alpha told us to follow them when we came back from Spain. He told us to protect them."

-"Why?"

-"He didn't say. I think he is interested in the older sister, but I don't know."

-"How many people are with you?"

-"Only Gamma and me. Sometimes Alpha comes too."

-"Are you cruel?"

-"No."

-"Do you love your mate?"

-"Yes, with all my heart and my soul."

-"Have you killed?"

-"Yes."

-"Why?"

-"To protect my pack."

After a few more questions, Urimare gave him more water to drink. He slept again.

Andy watched her mother put a hand on his forehead.

-"What do you think, Ma?"

-"He has a kind heart, baby, but he is a warrior too, so I guess he is as clean as he can be. Let's go to Tom." She said.

In her heart, she knew that it might be a mate thing and nothing to worry about, but she didn't want to interfere. She did try once when Andy was married, but her daughter didn't take it well. So now she asked the gods to guide her children in their decisions.

-"What did you do to the woman?! Where is she? Why am I here?" Tom started shouting when he got up, his throat raw.

He only saw a figure, but with the wolfbane, his sight wasn't that good, and he could only see shadows. Then, as he raised his head again, some powder was blown into his face. A few minutes later, he was in the same state of trance.

-"What are your orders regarding Andrea?"

-"Alpha ordered to follow her and protect her."

-"Have you ever contacted Jose Garcia?"

-"No."

-"Is your pack involved in drugs, slavery, human trafficking, or gambling?"

-"No."

-"Have you seen these men?" Urimare showed him a few pictures.

-"No."

-"Is your Alpha a good person?"

-"Yes. He is kind, overprotective with our pack, he always puts us first. He learned to control his temper, and even when he felt lonely and feral, he was there for us. He brought peace to our region."

-"Drink and eat." Urimare gave him a bottle of water and a sandwich.

*****************************************

The next day, both of them woke up on a bench in the same park at dawn. They were dizzy, and they barely felt their wolves. They smelled alcohol, but they didn't know what happened.

-"Are you okay?" Tom asked Rami. His hand was trying to make his head stop spinning, but it was useless. A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes.

-"Did we get drunk? How did we get here?" Rami said, almost fainting again. He looked for his phone, but the battery was dead.

-'What the heck happened?' Tom asked Kai, his wolf.

-'I-I have no idea. I just w-woke up,' Kai answered, whimpering from the hangover.

-"Let's get to the car," Rami said after his second attempt to get up. When they were finally a few streets near the car, a tracker spotted them.

-"Here you are!" He shouted and ran to them. He mind-linked Alpha Nathan that he found them and helped them get in the car.

Five warriors stayed surrounding Andy's house and the warehouses, and the rest went to the pack house.

-"Dr. Lee, Tom and Ramirez are going to the pack house. Prepare the infirmary."

-"On it, Alpha."

When they all got to the pack house, Liza and Monique were waiting at the entrance. Both of them ran to the car, looking for their mates.

-"Baby, are you okay?" Liza said, inspecting his whole body for any injury.

She was so worried she thought she wouldn't see him again. Now she could sense his wolf, and she felt like a rock fell off her chest.

-"Yes, love. I-I don't know what happened." He said, still feeling dizzy.

Liza let the warriors help him walk to the medical wing.

-"What happened?" Monique said while helping her mate get out of the car and checking his face, worried but relieved as well.

-"I don't… I don't remember."

Two men took him to the infirmary as well.

Dr. Lee was already checking Tom's vitals. He was moving a finger for him to follow when Alpha Nathan burst into the room.

-"Are you okay??" He asked, worried but trying to sound calm.

-"They seem to be under some kind of drug aftermath. Tina, let's take some blood samples. Tell me, how are you feeling?" He asked them after examining Ramirez.

-"I'm a bit dizzy, and I feel weak. My wolf too. It's like I have a massive hangover," says Ramirez.

-"My head keeps spinning, and I hear you like far away. I'm...I'm abou…" Tom says just before Nurse Tina gives him a bucket for him to throw up.

-"Yeah, whatever they gave you, it seems you have a bigger dose."

-"You smell like rum, but I don't smell it on your skin, only on your clothes. They definitely did that to cover the smell."

-"I smelled wolfbane where their scent went missing," Alpha Nathan said.

-"That would explain how they were able to drug them. That way their wolves wouldn't be able to do anything," Dr. Lee said with a hand on his chin.

-"What is the last thing you remember?"

-"After dinner, I remember getting in the car. I don't remember a thing after that," said Ramirez. Monique was caressing his back, trying to make him feel better. He put his head on the crook of her neck to try and relax.

-"I remember eating breakfast, and that's it," Tom said. He was lying on his bed with Liza's one hand on his forehead and the other on his hand. He looked the worst when they got there, but his face was looking less pale, and his shivering was lessening with the minutes passing.

-"What about your wolves? Can they remember anything?" Liza asked.

-"We tried that, but they remember the same as we do," Tom grumbled in a low voice.

Tina extracted the blood. Dr. Lee said,

-"Take a sample from the vomit as well; maybe they ingested something."

-"As for you, I want you to rest and drink lots of fluids. I'll check on you in a few hours. If the symptoms continue like this after an hour, call me." He said as he and Nurse Tina went out. Alpha Nathan went after them.

-"Alpha, they haven't been injured, or we would have seen it. They didn't have their wolves, so if they harmed them, we would have noticed. I'll go to the city's hospital; their lab is quicker and more equipped than ours," He said to his Alpha. Nathan nodded.

Leo, who was silent all that time thinking about all the possibilities, paced slowly back and forth.

-"Why kidnap them without any harm? What did they want? Does this have anything to do with Andy, or maybe it's a pack thing?" He was throwing questions into the air while they were heading to the Alpha's office.

-"Information," is all Alpha Nathan said, his jaw tight.

-"It could've been worse," Leo said, sighing.

-"Something tells me it's not her husband."

-"What do you mean?" Leo said, confused.

-"From the little Andy told me, he is a cruel abuser. He would have hurt them if he was the one who did this. But maybe he sent someone," Nathan said.

He was thinking about the conversation he heard Andy and Cris have. Cris called her a soft torturer. He didn't want to believe it, but if she knew she was being followed, would she be able to do something like this?

-'She is full of surprises,' Shadow said, now amused.

-'I'm actually impressed she did it right under our noses, but I don't like that she lied to me so quickly. I'll punish her for that.' He was thinking about ways to punish his little naughty mate with a possessive smirk. When Leo suddenly said,

-"You know something... that goofy grin of yours says it all," narrowing his eyes.

-"(cough) I don't know what you're talking about.(cough, cough)" he said, trying to put on a serious face.

-"Riiight," Leo said skeptically. He narrowed his eyes again and sighed, more relaxed now.

A few hours later, Tom and Ramirez were back to themselves without any physical damage, only hungry as hell. Dr. Lee checked their vitals, and they were discharged. They went to Alpha Nathan's office, but after hours of brainstorming, none of them could get an answer to any question they raised. Dr. Lee called to tell them the results.

-"It's quite interesting actually. We found wolfbane in the blood but also a mix of herbs like Ayahuasca, or Matatabi plant that can make you hallucinate. Also, we found some animal venom, the Bufus Alvarius, it's a frog. We have to identify a few more substances we found in the blood, but we don't know what they are...Oh, and from the vomit, we know they gave you a Turkey sandwich. I'll keep you updated as soon as I figure the rest out," He said.

-'If it was Andy, did she know she had to use wolfbane because she knows they are werewolves, or she used it as part of the drug she gave them?' He asked himself.

-'It could be, both reasons are possible.' Shadow said.

-"Well, what do we do?" Tom asked nobody in particular.

-"We let the trackers look for clues. I can't believe this happened without any trace."

They spent the rest of Wednesday looking for clues.