Freeing the Warrior's Deceived Mate

Chapter Seven: Fury

Tiberius POV

“She was right there!” I roared. I knew I shouldn’t be mad at Mordecai, not really anyways. “How could you let her get away?!”

“I said I’m sorry,” Cai said for what had to be the fiftieth time. “We got the one we came for, anyways. Alpha will be pleased.”

Kyle was in the back seat, beaten bloody and unconscious. I wanted to ask him about Amelia- who was she to him? Why wasn’t she allowed to leave the pack? Why didn’t she know which pack she was traveling with? But that would come in due time. I forced myself to take some deep breaths- we had one of theirs, which meant we would get that information from them soon enough.

“How did it go with your mate?” he asked, quietly. “You got to talk to her a bit, yeah? In the store?”

“Yeah,” I replied, running my hand through my hair. “Her name is Amelia. Amelia Gold. She… thinks she’s with the Harvest Moon Pack.”

“What?” Cai asked, sharply. “How can she not know…?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “She could be lying, but… if you ask me… I don’t think she is. I mean, you saw her. I don’t think she’s capable of it. She thought we could talk it out, for goddess’ sake.”

Cai didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, when we were getting into pack borders, he declared, “It’s a good thing, then. Maybe she really isn’t one of them. Maybe you two can get on with it and be happy.”

“Yeah, well, sure,” I replied. “But I have to find her first.”

“Of course,” Cai replied. “And before that…” Alpha Servando, he called over the link, linking me in as well. We’ve apprehended Kyle Tubresco. Where would you like us to bring him?

Around back, Alpha responded, quickly. Into the basement interrogation chamber. I’ll be there shortly.

Yes, Alpha, we linked in unison.

We pulled around the back of the pack house, and I threw Kyle over my shoulder as two other gammas opened the doors to the cellar. I carried our unconscious hostage down to the interrogation chamber and sat him up in a chair. I turned ever so slightly as Cai went to grab some cuffs to latch him into place.

Kyle rose and launched himself at me. I wasn’t as unprepared as I might’ve looked. I turned, punching him in the face again. I grabbed his hair and slammed his face into the table. I was being rougher than I needed to, but the way he’d handled Amelia inspired such a raw, visceral hate in me that I didn’t care anymore. “You’ll regret that, pup.”

“Prove it, then,” he said, spitting.

I growled, and Cai put a hand on my shoulder, shaking his head. We left the room, locking the door behind us while we waited for Alpha to join us. When he did, interrogations would begin in earnest.

I couldn’t help but hope Amelia would be brought up. If not, I had to hope she would use my phone number- though, somehow, I already doubted she would.

Amelia POV

Alpha Rhyner struck me across the face, hard. Never in my nineteen years living with him had he ever laid a hand on me so harshly. It knocked me into the side of my trailer, and my whimper went ignored. “Get up, girl,” he growled. “If you think that’s pain, you don’t know nothin.”

I tried to stand, and he kicked my legs out from under me, landing me on my hands and knees. He kicked me again, this time in the ribs, hard enough to send me rolling. When I coughed blood, Luna Freilla stepped in. “Honey, enough,” she said.

“No!” he yelled. “No, dammit, it ain’t enough!” He kicked the sand. “We lost Kyle today because of you and your stupid trip to the town.”

“He’s not…” I coughed more, then wiped my mouth with my arm. “He’s not lost. I could… track him. I could pinpoint his location.” I cleared my throat, sitting up and putting a hand over my ribs. The pain was sharp and unrelenting. “He was wearing-” another cough- “his watch. I could track it.”

“It doesn’t matter, you fuckin i***t,” he snarled. “We don’t have the manpower to go in and get him out. And they’re sure as hell not going to fuckin let him go willingly.”

“I could talk to Tiberius,” I whined, “They’ve got no reason to hold him. They’ll let him go.”

Alpha Rhyner closed the distance between us in several smooth strides, then grabbed my throat and pinned me against the wall of my trailer. “Who the f**k is Tiberius?” he growled.

That word came to mind again. Mate.

“Met… at party…” I gasped, barely able to breathe enough to get the words out.

Birdie had been avoiding my gaze, arms crossed over her chest. “Tiberius is her mate,” she said, quietly. “They met at the party.”

Alpha dropped me, and I sucked in air greedily. “You didn’t think to f*****g tell me that?!” he roared.

“I only told her today!” I called out. “I… he called me mate… I… I didn’t know what it meant… so I asked Birdie.” I met her eye only a minute before she turned her back to me.

Alpha Rhyner approached me again, and I flinched, unsure of what he’d do next. Luna Freilla placed herself in between us. “Honey, stop. You’ll kill her.”

“I’m not going to f*****g kill her,” he spat, shoving Freilla aside. He grabbed me by my arm and jerked me up, into the trailer. “Rot in here until I think of what to do with you, you insipid little b***h,” he snarled, slamming the trailer and locking the door.

I collapsed in the entrance. Never before had he handled me or spoken to me like that. Tears- hot, heavy, and fat- rolled down my cheeks, and I sucked in air as much as I could in between hard sobs that wracked my body. I hugged myself, digging my fingernails into my arms as I did and howled in agony, both physical and emotional.

What had I done?

Tiberius POV

Alpha Servando arrived in little under an hour. “I contacted the rest of the Alpha Council,” he said. “Since his pack is currently closest to my territory, they’re leaving the investigation to us. If they move before we can wrap this up, it will be a different story.”

“So, we need to work quickly, then,” Cai said. “Understood.”

“We need to get him to tell us where they are. Even a direction would help at this point,” Servando said. He hesitated at the door, then looked to me. “Tiberius, respectfully, I think you should sit this out.”

“What? No,” I said, without thinking. “My mate-”

“That’s precisely why,” he said, cutting me off. “You’re too close to this. It’s my understanding you’ve already done a little more brutalizing than was absolutely necessary.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I growled. I agreed that I did some brutalizing, but I would argue that it was necessary. He’d been rough with my mate.

My Amelia.

“Alpha is right, Ty,” Cai said. “Go home. Talk to Kairo. You got your mate’s name, right? He can help you look her up now.”

I hesitated at that. “Fine,” I growled. “Let me know if he says anything about her.”

Cai rolled his eyes. “You’ll be the first to know.”

I left the cellar and was happier for it- as much as I would have loved to beat Kyle further, the cellar was hot and dank, and the aspect of researching my mate was more appealing. Maybe I could learn more about her. I returned home and beelined for my dad’s office to find, disappointingly, my dad.

“Ty,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “You smell like blood. Go shower.”

“Where’s Kairo?” I asked.

“I'm not sure,” he replied with a frown, “You look agitated, son. What’s the matter? Is this about… her?”

My family had been tip-toing the subject of my mate around me, and I couldn’t say I blamed them much. To know that my mate was involved in a rogue outfit was… a lot. “I met her today. Again,” I said. “I got her name. I need Kairo to help me look her up.”

Dad hummed and nodded. Whatever he thought, he deemed fit to keep it to himself. “Well, link him and find out where he is.”

Oh. Right.

Kairo, I linked, cursing my stupidity. I need your help.

Cai linked me already. On my way. Ten minutes, tops.

I was both annoyed and thankful to Cai. He likely knew I was too agitated to think straight, but at the same time, anything my older brother did was annoying.

And that ten minutes could be spent beating Kyle into the dust for touching my mate.

I sat down at the television and started flipping channels irritably. Mom stopped by and peered into the den, looked at me thoughtfully, then thought better of it and left. She returned moments later with a drink and a sandwich. “Eat something. It will help.”

“I doubt that,” I growled.

She went around behind the couch and hugged me. “Oh, Ty-Ty. This girl will be lucky to have a man like you in her life. Just make sure she’s worth fretting over, won’t you?”

“Of course, she is,” I growled again, waving her off. “I… can’t explain it right now… but I don’t think she is what we think she is.”

“Not a wolf?” mom said, taken aback. There were all kinds of crazy rumors about hybrids and wolves with powers, goddess-blessed wolves and more going around, but no. “No,” I said, hiding the groan in my voice, “Not a rogue. At least, not a rogue in the sense we were thinking.”

Mom relaxed a bit. “Then that’s a good thing. Eat your sandwich- Kairo just pulled up.”

Kairo took his sweet time coming in the house, so I did eat a bit of sandwich and met him at the door. He eyed me warily, then nodded to the dining room table. “We’ll set up here.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded wordlessly and unpacked and turned on his laptop. “Give me a few minutes… and… okay. I’m in the database. What’s her name?”

“Amelia Gold.”

He typed it in and paused. “Zero hits.”

I frowned. “She said she’s part of the Harvest Moon Pack… is there a registry or something we could check?”

“Yes,” he said. “Just let me…” he hummed while he worked, then huffed triumphantly when he was able to find it. “Okay. Harvest Moon Pack files are sealed, but if I…” he did some more rapid-fire typing, then nodded. “Okay. I’ve got them opened. I’ve got the most recent registry of that pack before it… well. You know.”

“Is she on there?” I asked, anxiously.

“No,” he said. “But there is a Chris Gold.” He pulled up the rogue database and searched Chris Gold. There was a hit immediately, with a rap sheet far longer and more deadly than Kyle’s.

“There’s no flag next to his name,” I noticed. “What does that mean?”

“He’s deceased,” Kairo replied. “There are notes in his file- killed while attempting to flee with an unidentified child.”

“Maybe that’s her,” I suggested.

“Maybe,” Kairo switched back to the pack file. “Interestingly enough, do you know who else was in the Harvest Moon Pack?”

I frowned. I wasn’t in the mood for question-and-answer ploys. “Who?”

“Rhyner Stolwort,” Kairo said. “He was their beta. There are notes here, under his exile- let me just read these…” he paused for a moment, his eyes moving back and forth while he read the too-small text. “Hm. Interesting.”

I groaned. “What?”

“He was exiled for adultery. He was caught with the Luna, and exiled immediately,” Kairo said. “He came back and challenged his alpha for the title and the Luna. He lost spectacularly. That was when he started forming the Blood Fangs.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything about Amelia,” I sighed, slumping into a chair.

“Maybe it does,” Kairo replied. “You said she’s, what, eighteen or so? That means she was only a baby when the pack was destroyed. There were several missing kids, bodies that were never recovered. The timeline matches up. Maybe she is one of the missing kids, and she just… believes she’s still part of the Harvest Moon Pack.”

“Why would he keep her in the dark, though?” I asked. “She believes they make jewelry and pawn off lost items for a living. Which means he is actively preventing her from joining in on their crime spree. Actively holding back an able-bodied wolf. She looked thin... like she’s not eating properly. It’s like he’s trying to keep her weak. Why would he do that?”

“The best way to find out would be to find Rhyner and ask him yourself,” Kairo replied.

I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes. I would love to. But we still had no idea how to find them. We’d tried following Amelia when she drove off, but at some point, we just lost the scent entirely. It was like she vanished into thin air.

If they packed up and moved before we learned of their whereabouts through Kyle, I may never see her again.