Luna Catalina (ENG)

Chapter 20

-Kayden P.O.V.

I walked slowly, not in a hurry. I'd rather walk slowly than miss a clue. I hadn't heard from Catalina for a week. The uncertainty of not knowing where she was and if she was okay was slowly killing me. I had grown accustomed to her constant presence in my soul, through the mate-bond. However, I no longer felt anything on the other side of the bond. Just an absolute emptiness.

It was the disappearance of our bond that put me on alert on the day of Cat's disappearance. I had decided to leave with Ian, because I didn't know how to handle the situation with Catalina. How was it possible that Lily had been taken away while she was in the next room? On the one hand, I was fully aware that it wasn't Catalina's fault. But on the other hand, a little devilish voice was telling me that I had failed Lily for the first time, and that this had happened because of my excessive focus on Catalina. However, as Ian and I searched for Lily, I stopped feeling Cat on the other side of the link. 

I tried to contact her through our mental link, but she was unresponsive. Ian tried calling her on her cell phone, but she didn't answer either. Since Ian knew which warriors from our pack Cat had left with, I contacted them, to find out if everything was okay. It was Thomas, the tracker who answered me. "We have her sister, Alpha Kayden. However, our Luna has been taken hostage." I ordered them to stay where they were, transformed and ran out towards them, seized with rage. I was going to kill them all without any regard. 

Ian followed close behind me. We finally arrived at the place I had been told to go. Lily was there with five of my men. All five warriors were covered in mud and looked exhausted and worried. I lunged at the first of them with my jaws open. Lily screamed, frightened. However, mid-leap, Ian's wolf hit me from my right side, preventing my attack. Then, he stood in front of the warriors and bared his fangs at me menacingly. "Get away from there immediately," I ordered him through our mental link. "You can't kill them Kayden, we need to know what happened," Ian replied. 

I took several deep breaths, trying to get Zeus and I to calm down. A few minutes later, I was breathing normally again and had managed to subdue my killer instincts. I regained my human form and approached Lily, who was looking at me with terrified eyes. I bent down, picked her up in my arms and hugged her tightly against my body. 

-"I want you in my office in five minutes," I ordered the warriors, before turning around and leaving. 

I carried Lily inside the house, followed by Ian. I took her up to my room and finally set her down on the floor. I examined her carefully, checking that she had no injuries. She seemed perfectly fine. 

-“Are you okay?" I asked her. Lily nodded, but she was still looking at me with fear. “I’m sorry Lily, I really didn’t mean to scare you.”

- "You scared me so much."-She said, looking at me with teary eyes.” I hugged her. We spent a few minutes like that, until Lily broke away from me and looked at me. -"The bad man has taken Cat." she said, bursting into tears. “She ordered the men to go away and left with the bad man.

- "Eeeyy shh, it’s gonna be okay."-I said, trying to calm her down, as she was drowning in her crying.

I didn't understand anything she was saying. Just at that moment Bela appeared, accompanied by Miguel. Bela rushed to Lily and hugged her excitedly. 

-“Follow me." I ordered Miguel. 

He followed me without a word of complaint. On the way to my office, we passed Catalina's brothers, whom I also invited to come to my office. Ian and Mark were there, accompanied by the five warriors, who were still covered in mud. I had to control Zeus with all my strength not to pounce on them. I sat down in my desk chair and studied them carefully. I noticed how they trembled under my gaze. 

-“What are we doing here Alpha Kayden?" one of Catalina's brothers asked.

-“Catalina has been kidnapped," I replied after a few seconds of silence. As soon as they heard my words, the twins and Miguel turned to me, ready to drill me with questions. Before they could say anything, I raised my hand, ordering them to be quiet, and looked at my warriors. –“I still don't know the details of what happened. Thomas is going to explain to us what happened, and then we will decide if he and the rest deserve to stay alive or not."

Thomas looked at me, pale as wax, but nodded. With a gesture, I invited him to start talking. 

- "Near the river, we picked up a trail of Lily and her abductors."- Thomas began his narrative. "We followed it, across the river to a clearing. There was Lily, accompanied by a man. He said his name was Ozias. Luna Catalina tried to get to Lily, but it was impossible, because Ozias turned out to be a wizard."- We all looked at him in surprise, but no one intervened. –“Ozias proposed to Luna Catalina an exchange: her for Lily. Our Luna accepted, making a blood oath with the wizard. She promised that none of us would intervene, and that she would go with him. I tried to reason with her, but there was no way. She ordered us to leave with Lily. We could not renege on his orders, on the one hand, because she is our Luna, and, on the other hand, because her life, having taken a blood oath, depended on our actions."

As soon as he finished, Thomas looked down, terrified of my possible reaction. I ran the fingers of my hand through my hair, anxious. I was proud of Catalina, she had proven herself to be an excellent Luna, protecting her pack. But she had put herself in danger, and now we didn't know where she was or if she was okay. I could not stand this lack of knowledge. 

As soon as we finished talking to the warriors, we began to organize the search for Catalina. I ordered Thomas and the rest of the warriors not to cross my path until we found Catalina. I could not promise to spare their lives again if I crossed them again. Catalina's twin brothers had alerted their older brothers, who had shown up hours later on my territory in a fury. 

Catalina's older brothers tried to kill me as soon as they saw me. Ian and Mark wanted to stop them, but I wouldn't let them. I allowed Marcos and Lucas to beat me up, not resisting, until Miguel and the twins stopped them. I deserved that at the very least. Because the truth was, this whole situation had been my fault. I had lost control because of Lily's disappearance, and Catalina had had to take command of my pack and the search for Lily, a responsibility that should have been mine. On top of that I had been an i***t not going to her search group out of pride, I should have gone to make sure nothing bad happened to her, especially knowing how complicated the situation was at the time. 

We had been looking for her for a damn week, and there was no sign of her. Every day that passed I felt more depressed and angrier. A whirlwind of dark feelings had settled in my heart, making every second of everyday agonizing. I was aware that I'd let go of my Alpha duties, and that Ian was covering for me, but right now I found myself unable to think of anyone but Catalina. Of finding her, of knowing she was okay. 

I punched the nearest tree, furious and frustrated. I was beginning to lose hope of finding her, and I was aware that, without her, I could never go back to being the powerful, relentless Alpha I was before. I needed her. 

Marcos, Lucas, Ian and I, along with a large group of trackers and warriors were out on one of our daily tracking expeditions. We were about 45 minutes from Blood Moon. On the first day of searching, we had scoured my entire territory, inch by inch, without success. We had been expanding the search area day by day, moving out of Blood Moon's territory, with the same result. There was no trace of her or Ozias. It was as if they had vanished into thin air. 

Ian's phone rang at that moment, snapping me out of my thoughts. Thanks to the werewolves' excellent hearing, I could hear the conversation without any problem. It was Casandra. 

-“Hello Babr, is everything all right?" asked Ian. 

-“Ian, you need to come back right now," said Cssandra, clearly agitated. "Catalina has contacted Juan and Nico through the mental link. She has said she will be at the northern edge of the territory in 30 minutes. You are far away, so I have not been able to contact you through the mental link. I imagine she hasn't been able to contact you either."

I didn't wait for Ian to get off the phone or for Cat's brothers to find out what was going on. I let Zeus take over and we took off running, as if the devil himself was chasing me. I don't think I had ever run so fast. The way to the north edge would take me at least 45 minutes. I wanted to make it in less time. My four legs moved nimbly, quickly, leaving no time for fatigue. 

When I was about 10 minutes from the territory, I noticed how my bond with Catalina was reestablished. I couldn't hear what she was thinking or how she was feeling, but I could tell she was good and close. I picked up the pace even more, if possible, and traversed the northern edge. I began to pick up traces of Catalina's scent, though they were not very strong. She had moved from there. I ran, following her scent, until I heard different voices speaking in Spanish and the smell of freshly cut grass and lavender became more intense. I jumped, nimbly, cutting off the group of people the voices were coming from. 

I didn't notice which people were in the group, I only had eyes for her. She was staring at me, with her huge emerald, green eyes. Her hair was tousled, and she was wearing only a T-shirt, which was too big for her. From the smell, it must have belonged to one of her brothers. I studied every inch of his skin. She didn't seem to have any wounds, although she was thinner. 

I regained my human form. Without spending a second to meditate my actions, I took two big steps and hugged her. I think I can say without lying, that hug was the best hug I have ever given in my life. It generated in me a wave of feelings, among which relief and happiness stood out, that illuminated my somber soul.

She was alive and she was fine. 

My Catalina. 

-Catalina P.O.V.

It had taken me almost a week to learn how to cast the basic spells of protection, in order to protect myself from any magical attack. What had cost me the most was learning to write and understand the ancient runes in which any spell was written. Obviously, I could not read fluently or understand all the runes, wizards and witches studied them from a young age, and it took years to know them all. Ozias had only taught me the ones I would need for the day of the Blood Moon, to stop Gideon's plan. 

Ozias had let me leave so that I could warn everyone, gather as many allies as possible and get my personal life in order. He had promised to come back for me in less than a week, to continue training. Ozias had insisted that all of these points were a key part of the war against Gideon and my uncle. The part about warning others and getting allies is the one I saw as easier. My problem was how to get my personal life in order. I certainly had plenty of things to hold against Kayden. He had not made things easy for me at any time. According to him he had done it to protect me, but he had ended up hurting me a lot.

The first few days at Ozias' house, I had been furious with Kayden. I had wished him a thousand evils and had sworn that as soon as I saw him, I would cut off all relations with him and never see him again. But as the days went by, I realized that these ideas were only because of my anger towards him. The reality is that I felt that I could not live without him, and I had the feeling that together we would be invincible and that only together we would find the happiness that we both lacked. We were made to complement each other. I had missed him terribly all week, and I was anxious to see him. However, I had made up my mind about him. I was going to give him an ultimatum. Either he was going to give everything on our relationship, or it was over. I had had enough of half measures and games. 

This morning, after our daily class, Ozias had conveyed to me his decision that I should return to Blood Moon. I had asked him to bring me close to the territory, but to leave me at a reasonable distance, as I wanted to release Electra for a while and run. I was anxious after the whole week cooped up in a cave. At the moment of saying goodbye, Ozias had looked at me very hard, before speaking. The two things he had told me still echoed in my mind. The first was how to win the trial against Richard. As soon as he had revealed the information to me, I had started to devise different plans in my head. The second thing he told me was that there was a spy in my inner circle, a traitor. Ozias didn't know who it was, but he knew there was someone relaying information to Gideon and my uncle. 

Electra and I had been running for half an hour already, and all I could think about was who the insider was. The only people I had a relationship with and told intimate things to were my siblings, Casandra and Michael, and it was frankly impossible for any of them to betray me. But if it wasn't any of them, I had no other suspects left.  

As I was approaching Kayden's territory, I noticed how my telepathic link with Juan and Nico was reestablished. Since Cas and Miguel had joined the Blood Moon pack, I no longer had that link with them. What surprised me was that my bond with Kayden, which I had missed so much this week, was not reestablished. Had something happened to him? That simple thought made my heart race a mile a minute and made Electra howl, furious. 

-"Hola, Hola!", I mentally said to Juan and Nico. "Catalina," they both exclaimed in unison, "Where are you, are you okay?" asked Juan, clearly agitated and worried. I smiled. I had missed them so much. "I'm great," I told them, "I'll be at the northern edge of the territory in half an hour, I'll meet you there." I broke the connection with them and started running faster, enjoying the fresh air and the smell of nature. I didn't understand how Ozias could stand living in that cave. 

Finally, I reached the northern edge. There, waiting for me, were Cas, Miguel and my brothers. As soon as they saw me, Nico and Juan ran to hug me, almost choking Electra. Nico took off his shirt and handed it to me. I went behind a tree to change quickly. As soon as I came out, Nico and Juan choked me again in a hug. When they let me go, Cas jumped on me, hugging me and crying with emotion, causing me to lose my balance and both of us to fall to the ground. The drama queens. When she finally let me go, Miguel held out his hand, helping me up, and gave me a little hug. Not at all normal for Miguel to show affection. He must have been really worried. 

-“Where have you been?" Nico asked, looking me up and down, "I don't see any injuries, did they do anything to you? Are you all right? Who did it? I'm going to rip the bastard's head off."

-“Okay, okay, let's all calm down," I said, smiling at him. –“Where's Kayden?”

It had been over half an hour since I had given notice of my arrival. If Kayden wanted to see me, he would have been here, but he wasn't. Did he care so little about me that he didn't come to see me after a week of being missing? Or did something happened to him?

-“We've already let him know you were coming. He was quite far from here, but I'm sure he won't be long."- Cas replied. I looked at her blankly, where was he? –“Marcos, Lucas, Kayden and Ian have been looking all over for you all week!”

-"Marcos and Lucas are here?" I asked. It was obvious that they had decided to come as soon as they heard about my disappearance, but I didn't want them to find out from someone else what had happened these past few weeks. 

-“Yes..." Cas replied, "And they know everything..." I nodded, aware of what that everything implied. - "They tried to kill Kayden as soon as he arrived."

I looked at her in surprise. We started walking towards the packhouse, as they told me everything that had happened that week. I shouldn't, but I was glad Kayden had had such a hard time this week. It gave me hope for a future together. Halfway across the road, a huge gray wolf, with white paws and blue eyes, nimbly jumped in front of us, interrupting our passage. 

His cold blue eyes bore into me, causing my heart to start pounding. I smiled inwardly as I noticed how our bond was reestablished. When he finished studying me, satisfied to see that I was unharmed, Zeus gave way to Kayden. Without giving me time to react, Kayden took two big steps and hugged me, pressing me against his huge muscles. I rested my head on his chest, happy to have him close again, and I noticed how his heart was also beating fast. We stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying being together again, until someone behind Kayden cleared his throat, demanding our attention. I broke away from Kayden, looked at the person the noise was coming from and smiled. 

- "It's good to see you again, I've missed you guys."-I said smiling broadly at Marcos and Lucas. 

I started walking towards them, to greet them, but Lucas caught me halfway, giving me a huge hug that left me breathless. Lucas was replaced by Marcos, although at least the latter hugged me less tightly. When the hugs were over, everyone started asking a thousand questions at once. They all wanted to know where I had been, with whom, if I had been tortured and how I had escaped.

-“ In order please!" I told them, noticing how I was starting to have a headache because of the large number of questions. –“I'm going to tell you everything that happened, in detail. But first, I would like to take a shower and put on some decent clothes. I'll see you in half an hour in Kayden's office."

Everyone nodded in agreement. I started walking toward the house, dreaming of a hot shower and my clean clothes. I was soon overtaken by Kayden, who had followed me. 

-“Is there something wrong?" I said, looking at him in surprise. 

-“Nothing." He replied, staring at me. - "I just want to make sure nothing happens to you.”

-"Are you going to watch me even while I take a shower?" I asked amused. 

Kayden didn't seem to be amused by my comment at all, however, as he looked at me very seriously and nodded. I shrugged my shoulders, resigned, and went up to my room, escorted by Kayden. He waited for me outside while I showered and dressed, in shorts and a simple t-shirt. Can't help but notice that my room smelled like Kayden, especially my bed, would he have been sleeping here?

When I was finally reasonably decent, I went out into the hallway, where Kayden was still waiting for me. Together we went down to his office, where everyone else was already there. Kayden placed a chair next to his and invited me to sit down. As soon as I sat down, all eyes were on me. 

-“Well, now that we're all here, I'm going to explain where I've been this week," I said, "It's a pretty surreal story and a little long, but I promise it's real." They all nodded, looking at me expectantly. -"Before we get started on that story, I need to tell Kayden, Ian and Mark why we had to flee Spain."

-"Why do you have to tell that?" asked Mark quizzically. 

- "Because Uncle Alejandro is involved in everything that's going on."-I answered. 

Immediately, the countenance of my brothers, Cas and Miguel became serious and pale, unable to believe what they were hearing.

-“All right," I said, turning to Kayden, Ian and Mark. –“I'm going to explain who we are and what happened in Spain. Then, I'll explain to you all where and with whom I've been this week, and what's going to happen in a month's time."