The Right Direction
Thane
The celebration of life for the four pack members we lost was more difficult emotionally than I anticipated. More difficult than any of my circle- thought it would be frankly.
We’ve lost our family.
We’ve lost our friends.
We’re all quite tired of losing.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it though, because there was constant surveillance and reporting looking for anything suspicious, anyone missing, anything at all.
There was nothing.
The curfew remains in place, and we still have our borders closed. That has started some grumblings and pushbacks.
Good.
That is exactly what I wanted. Whoever decides to complain the most about being able to leave will be on my radar.
“Thane, did you hear me?” Ayla’s sweet voice pulls me out of the game I have been playing in my head all day………connecting the dots. My thoughts are a spiderweb of theories that I have been trying to piece together this entire week.
“Hmmm?”
“I asked if you wanted some cake.” The kitchen staff sent an enormous amount of leftovers from the celebration home, including a cake and I don’t think I have seen Little Wolf eat anything else this afternoon.
“I think we should talk about you eating better. I don’t think a diet consisting of chocolate only is good for you two.” I won’t take it from her though. I’d prefer not to have a fork in my hand.
“Okay, now I know something is wrong. Do you hear yourself? You love chocolate as much as I do and you haven’t eaten any. What’s wrong?”
“I could start listing everything off that is bothering me, but we would be here for hours Ayla. Come here.” I let out a sigh as Little Wolf climbs into my lap carrying the cake on a plate. I bent down and nuzzled my nose in her hair, inhaling her lavender scent deep, immediately feeling calmer. It’s amazing how many little things like this we forget we can do to calm our emotional turmoil. I should’ve done this a long time ago.
“You know cake makes everything better.” She holds her forkful of cake in front of my mouth waiting for me to open.
“Are you practicing on me for when our little one is here?” I laugh and she seizes the opportunity to shove the fork into my mouth.
“He will be eating his meals before getting his cake. I want to instill healthy habits into him.”
I throw my head back laughing in shock at the sheer hypocrisy before me.
“Thanks. I needed that laugh.” I say before getting another bite of cake. “This should really be the other way around.”
“You’re too big for my lap.” She smirks and that earns her a nibble to the neck.
“I’m really proud of you Ayla. You did a great job addressing the pack today.” She did. Little wolf shared her feelings and memories of Monica and addresscu the pack as a whole. Her reassurances and kind words meant a lot, but her promise of retribution meant more. She seems more determined than ever to help with taking down the ring since her last panic attack and I am proud of her for it.
“Not going to lie, it sucked.” She lets out a long sigh and takes another bite. “It became more real today, but we have to keep moving forward. The pack is counting on us.”
“You sound like a Luna.” Little Wolf lets out a small, shaking her head.
“I was just thinking today about the journey to this point. From the day you brought me here….how scared I was to be here and then were mates
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The Right Direction
and I’m pregnant. Then, I don’t want to be the Luna and now here I am, the Luna and I just can’t wrap my brain around this being my life.”
“You said you wanted us to live the life we deserve and we’re doing just that. I brought you here and fell in love with you. We’re mates and we are having a pup. My entire family would be proud of us right now. “I rub her back in a circular motion with my hand as she finishes off the cake.
“You love me before we were mated?” she asks, confusion on her face. I should be offended she seems in denial about it.
“Yes before. I couldn’t stay away from you. I fell in love with you without a mating bond. You’ve always been mine.” I lift her hair and place a kiss behind her ear and then one on her mating mark.
“I’m close to finishing the cross–referencing Steven’s call logs in you want to meet in the war room.” Tyler mind–links and I sigh into Ayla’s hair. Pissed I need to leave, but thankful we are a step closer to getting some information. We need to see how far Stevens‘ reach is and if the other alphas in our alliance are dirty. That is a lot of surveillance and phone dumps. We need a lead soon.
“I need to go to the war room and go over something with Tyler. We are going over call records that are coming in. I don’t know how long I will be.”
“That’s okay. I can call it an early night.” Ayla stood but I quickly pulled her back down.
“You’re coming with me. I don’t want to be away from you right now. Plus, I can have the kitchen send up some real food for you to eat.” Ronan is on edge right now with there being so many potential threats to our mate.
The more I can keep her close to me, the safer she is. And, if I can’t be with her, I have to trust between her and Raven, that they can keep themselves safe. I really should give her more credit though, she does have her gifting and that gifting far surpasses anything any of us would be able to do. In reality, we’re all quite safer if she keeps us around her.
“I’ll go get changed.” The bond flutters with joy and appeasement. If I hadn’t told her she was coming with me, she’d be disappointed.
A few minutes later we’re in the war room with Damon and Tyler. Cyrus is with his newly bonded mate at their place, anticipating her heat soon. This is a bad time to have a breakthrough if my number one fighter has to be out of commission with his mate in heat.
The kitchen has a tray of food waiting on a table for Ayla and she just shakes her head, laughing at me. She may not think it’s funny when she finds out i’m not leaving this room until she eats. I think I’m feeling extra protective for a number of reasons and it will take me a little bit to get used to these stronger instincts. Like the one riding me hard right now,
fattening up my mate apparently.
Probably shouldn’t call it that.
Providing nutrition.
Yes, better.
“We’ve got the phone logs finished. Stevens doesn’t make any calls back and forth between any other pack in the alliance that we can find through his phone logs.” Tyler pulls out a report he had generated after the analysis was completed.
“So, we assume the other Alpha’s aren’t dirty then.” Damon speaks up while looking at the report himself.
“Are we positive this is the only phone we’ve seen him use on our surveillance?” I follow up.
“Yes.” Damon answers.
“Alright, we pull one in at a time. Then we watch the calls of all the Alpha’s in the alliance and cross reference them again. If we pull an Alpha into our fold and let them know of the connection and they turned out to be dirty and we missed it, they will make some calls, and those calls will lead us to closer to Mikhail.” Just saying his name makes me flare with anger.
“We got the analysis back on our end. Stevens is making calls to someone within the pack. Another burner phone number. Now we need to track the phone and find out who is in possession of it here.” Tyler hands us another report and any restraint I had on my anger broke free. The urge to completely rage and tear this room apart is only contained by the feelings of Ayla and what she’s pushing through the bond. Trying to counter act my rage and for that I’m grateful. It would solve nothing.
“I didn’t want to be right about a pack connection but at least we kn
