Gamma's Energy Attracts

Part 3

Caly’s POV

“Morning, All-Mother,” Conner arrived promptly after I mind-linked, my kids eagerly waiting with their small backpacks, coats and shoes on. Stav said the autumn chill was back in the air when he was out training this morning.

“Morning, Conner. I have a lot going on today, I don’t know how long I’ll be, I’ll have to let you know.” I kiss the top of each pup’s head, even though they are actively ignoring me and clambering to be picked up by Conner.

“No problem.” He scoops a pup up in each arm, I hear them laughing as he zooms with werewolf speed down the steps.

“Alright, we doing this at the kitchen table or on the couch?” I ask, since everyone is still drinking coffee, and Colin is eating anything leftover. That wolf has a huge appetite. Terri is mindlessly staring into her coffee cup, either because I mentioned Mating Balls, or indirectly Nadeen, who left for her Mate's Pack leaving Tucker one less office employee and Terri’s heart shattered.

"Little Miss professional does video calls from the couch?" Colin says mockingly.

I give him a dirty look before responding, "I usually make my calls from wherever I can see my pups. Perhaps I should set up a home office. Since you don’t need it, I'll just take the leather furniture from Stav’s office." I give him my verbal punch to the gut. All I need is a stiff right hook and I can end this, "Oh, I’ll be moving the liquor cabinet as well because that's not very professional, is it?" It took nearly a year for those boys to convince Terri to stop enforcing her own brand of prohibition, they won't want to lose their drinking privileges again. Colin stares at me speechless, VKO, Verbal knockout.

"Shut up, Colin. My couch is perfectly aged and broken in, I won't lose it just cause you decided to piss off the Luna," Stav half-heartedly growls at his Beta.

Darius hadn’t asked for my help with Council business in quite a while. Initially, I had to give lots of testimony regarding treatment by Elder Giles. He was supposed to be protecting me and my ‘Gift’ but he was using me, along with many other young females. I had ended his threat, let’s just say I shocked the sh*t out of him. Literally, I was building a surge of energy to defend myself and it unleashed killing him. He was a miserable prick and the world is better off without him. My Father and Elder Kane’s schemes also ended in each of their deaths.

Changes were made to the Elder Council. The days of reporting in on a constant basis were over. Corrupt wolves were uncovered and were removed, punished or banished. Then they moved on to people outside the Council, their sources, informants and even the people who performed services like the witches or warlocks. Unfortunately, the wicked witch of the wolves, Olivia, couldn’t be proven guilty, there was no evidence she did anything besides follow the orders of the Elders. I implored Darius to be careful with her, she lacked an important human trait, empathy. She is a bit of a sociopath if you ask me. She walked with a slap on the wrist and was busted down to job preparing potions, and I have to admit she is very good at it. There is always a need for scent neutralizers, enchantment scrolls and portals in a bottle.

Nowadays, Darius only seeks help in dealing with the 6 known ‘gifted females’ and person-centred planning to get their lives back on track. They are all young with a whole future ahead of them, but some seem lost without direction now that the Council and their individual Alphas aren’t ruling their lives.

I set up my laptop on the kitchen table, and invite Darrius to join the conversation.

“Good morning again, Calypso. I see Theressa is joined by the Alpha and Beta.” Alpha Darius’s rich voice comes through the speakers with a friendly smile on his face. He is sitting in his Pack office behind that huge oak desk of his, a place I am very familiar with, I worked there all my teen years. The only difference now is the olive green walls have more framed photos, mostly me and my pups, and a family pic of Jase with his Mate Joy and their new baby girl, Emma.

“You didn’t think they would leave us alone when they heard it was about Council business, did you?” I tease.

“I should hope not. Protecting their Luna should be first and foremost, a King is weak without his Queen.” He still thinks Stavros isn’t the smartest wolf in this Pack for denying me for so long, but tensions between them have ceased since the wedding and Stav made him a Grampy. “Please invite Elder Darryl so we can get started,” he adds and I watch his face for a clue of how worried I should be. Am I in some kind of danger? Why is Elder Darryl involved? Darryl is my friend Tucker’s Father and the former Alpha of Blue Moon’s Bite, he also happens to be Darius’s best friend. Darryl must have been expecting my invite, he joins us right away.

“Good morning, Caly! How are the Little Ones? Will they be coming with you to the Mating Ball this year?” Darryl asks light-hearted questions, but he has a stoic look firmly on his face. He’s at his office in the Elder Council’s chambers. Behind him, I see another familiar wolf with shaggy dirty blonde hair hanging over brilliant emerald green eyes, Micah. He works as security for the Council now, under the watchful eyes of Darryl, since his original Pack was absorbed by the Blackheart’s to create Blue Moon’s Bite that’s where he should have ended up anyway. Athena and I had vouched for him, especially since when we met he was guarding the prison I was in, but he had helped me many times and was only working for Elder Kane under duress.

“The pups are growing like weeds. Of course, I will be bringing them with me. Lunas Anne and Kat have already made plans to steal them from me for ‘Gramma time’ during the dance.”

“Good, good. Anne can’t wait for Tucker to find his Mate and give her some grandpups,” Darryl says speaking of his Mate. “Let’s just get down to the unpleasant business, shall we? We have finished restructuring the Council. We have thoroughly scoured the Council’s files and we have found something disturbing. There are too many open cases of werewolves who have been watched by the Council for whatever reason, and they just stop at some point. They are no longer registering anywhere as a Pack member, at least here in North America. These cold cases stretch back four decades. We need to find out what happened to these wolves. Did they die or become Rogues? Did their unique gifts just stop working or perhaps they weren’t judged to be significant enough so they stopped being tracked?” Those were all very good possibilities.

“Surely, if they had outgrown their gifts for whatever reason, they should have some notation on their files, but they do not. If they were Mated wolves, the old Council would have had a keen interest in any pup they had. They would have followed up to see if any of those children had inherited their Mother’s gifts.” Darrius says thoughtfully. I know he’s probably wondering to himself if my pups had inherited any of my abilities. I haven’t told him about Atlas being able to ignore commands or my suspicions about Carrissa.

He does however know that my abilities have drastically changed. I can still gather my energy and use it fleetingly, but it takes nearly ten times more of my own energy to do it. It’s so taxing now, if people who know me feel my hands warm-up or they feel a staticky sensation when I touch them, they pull away from me. Even spending a little energy this way can cause me to collapse. Since I became pregnant with my twins, I have only been given a divine energy three times, energy that I was given from a source other than myself. Once was the day of my wedding and Luna ceremony, I needed it to help Colin from becoming feral when he felt the Mate Bond sever. The second was for an invasion of Rogues looking for Goddess only knows what on our territory. The third was an older Mother who went into labour, but there was no live birth. She was desperately grieving but I needed to help her carry forward, she had a Mate and other pups at home, she had to live for them.

“How many files are we talking about?” Theressa asked, curiously leaning forward into the camera’s range, already in her interrogation mode.

“More than 200,” Darrius replies solemnly. 200? 200 females across this country who had worried families and Packs, Alphas who should be out looking for them and they just disappeared off the face of the planet and nobody noticed? I can’t help feel my anger rising. Did the Elders give their loved ones some made-up bullsh*t story so that they wouldn’t go looking for them? “We have already solved one of the cases. Julia’s file was in there. I guess that’s not surprising since she ran away.” He narrows his eyes at Terri specifically. Yes, technically Julia ran away but she had professional help, in the form of Terri.

Terri shrugs it off in a no-big-deal kind of way, Terri always feels justified in her actions. “Do you have an idea how you want to tackle this?” she asks.

“I thought perhaps we would send you a brief list of names and particulars, to see if anything rings a bell or if you could try to track them down. You are the expert in this field Gamma Theressa. Wherever you chose to start, I will make the files available to you as you need them, along with any necessary resources. You also have Calypso and Beta Colin to help you formulate a strategic plan.” Darius doesn’t even mention Stav, I told you Darius still can’t get over his early actions.

“Gottcha Boss Man. I’ll get on it right away. Peace out,” Terri says informally. Darius just nods, he’s used to Terri by now.

“I know this is serious business, but Caly, please do me a great favour and don’t forget to call my Mate. Anne has been waiting to speak with you all week. In her mind the Mating Ball is just as important, ‘We must help the young couples come together, they are the future of our kind!” Darryl’s falsetto voice doesn’t do Anne’s voice any justice, but he chuckles at his own mockery all the same.

“I’ll be doing that next, I’ll work twice as hard on keeping her focused. Goodbye, Everyone!” I cut the link.

“I’m going somewhere quiet to peruse these files, we’ll meet up for lunch in the office?” Terri directs her question towards me.

“I’ll tell Anne and Tucker I can only chat until noon, which means I will finally finish up around 12:30.” I give an eye-roll, and Terri looks at me with sympathy, she knows how much certain Lunas like to gab.

*****

I arrive at the office around noon-ish, successfully cutting off Anne on time. Stav and Colin aren’t back from their trip to the offices in the human’s section of town. Terri is sitting with Misty, that’s Julia’s Aunt, on Stav’s leather couch, huddled over her laptop. I greet Misty and Terri motions me to sit beside her by tapping the couch, without looking up. “I brought Mist over because there are two files from Silvermoon, I was hoping she would know of this other girl. I’m trying to piece this together, but it looks like that f*cker Alpha Alwic had traded away a lesser healer to the Council in a desperate bid to keep Julia’s seeking ability. Julia was way more talented and financially lucrative, pimping the Seeker out to keep his Pack afloat.”

“That’s not surprising.” I huff out.

“Tabi is on her way over after her appointment with Doc M.” Tabitha is near her due date, it’s her and Ryan’s first child.

“Oh, was her file in there too?”

“No, but there was someone with the same last name, Green from that same Pack. I’m worried this other chick is a relative. It’s one of the cases that ended in the last two decades, so one of the fairly recent ones. ”

“Should we really be opening this can of worms right now? Stress isn’t good for Mama or pup,” I know this is important, but these are cold cases and frankly we have 200 other cases we can work on while we wait for Tabi to deliver.

“That’s why I thought you should be here, in case she needs the ol’ magic touch,” Terri pinches her lips together in a line, clearly worried. “I haven’t told her what it’s about yet.

Just then the outer office door swings open, Ryan is carrying his frantic Mate, most likely so that she wouldn’t exhaust herself climbing a few flights of stairs. I never did get my elevator, the men just took the initiative to carry us around more often. I’m not sure if that is progress or not. An elevator would mean more for independence, but even Athena likes the fact her big bad Alpha carries her close to his heart.

“I told you I saw it!” Tabi whispers to Ryan, already welled up with tears.

Tabitha has a gift as well, she is a Foreseer. She doesn’t like to bring it up, for some reason she doesn’t feel it’s useful because she only gets snippets of images, and without much warning before the event takes place. I blame the Elders who made her feel diminished this way. Giles always made me feel like I was no more than my gift, and without it, I would be nothing. I loathed that pig.

“Sit down and take a deep breath for me, please. What did you see exactly?” Ryan sits in Colin’s usual chair and rubs his Mate’s back trying to soothe away her worries. Misty asked if she could bow out, and Terri nods at her.

“I saw you guys in the office looking at that computer, and I know it has something to do with me.”

“We are looking through some of the Council’s old files. We don’t know for sure if it had anything to do with you, but the file originates from your old Pack, and with the same last name.” I warm my hands by drawing energy from my heart, I can hear her heartbeat pounding from a few feet away. I walk over to her and grasp her hand. “This can wait though. You and the baby are more important than anything in those files.” The last thing I want to do is stress her into an early labour. She visibly relaxes and sinks further into Ryan, breaking our connection.

“But it’s not my name? Was it Paulina’s?” She says with wide-eyed concern.

I hadn’t actually looked at the file, but Terri answers her, “Yes. Can you tell me who she is and your relationship to her?”

“Paulina was my older sister. She was a real Foreseer. She could actually direct her images and force herself to see months in advance. When she was seventeen she was invited to work for the Council.”

“You said was,” Terri asks quietly, “What happened to her?”

“She called us just after she turned 18 and said she found her Mate while working, he was going to introduce her to his Pack. She took some time away from the Council to start her life with him. The Pack was attacked two nights later and the Alpha called to tell my Parents that my Sister and her Mate had both been killed, their ashes already scattered on the wind. Mom and Dad were never the same after that.”

“Do you remember any details? The guy’s name, the Pack or maybe the Alpha’s name?”

“I didn’t actually talk with her that last time she called. I remember it was a school day, Mom talked about it when I got home that day, I was 5 or 6 at the time. His first name was Rocco. The Pack was Black-something. Blackwoods or Blackwater, along those lines. I was asleep when the Alpha called, when I woke for school the next morning, there was no breakfast, only Mom at the kitchen table crying.”

“I’ll just update her files then, thanks Tabi. Go have your afternoon nap, keep the baby pup happy.” Terri gives her a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

I wait to say anything until after Ryan carries Tabi out, even though they just live two doors down the hall. “Are you putting that file to rest?” I ask curiously.

Terri snorts, “Oh, Hell nah. That sh*t sounds sketchy as all f*ck, Paulina disappears just as she becomes of Mating age? I’m going to find if she really went to a Black-whatever Pack. I want some kinda confirmation. I just wasn’t going to make a big deal in front of the little Mama after you got her all calmed and whatnot.”

I knew where Terri’s mind was going with this. Crooked Elders like Giles would offer us jobs working for the Council right around 17 years of age, in hopes to secure us before we could find our Mates and get pregnant, just in case we ‘lose’ our gift or pass it to the next generation. When some arseholes on the Council secretly kidnapped a bunch of gifted wolves a few years ago, we would have been likely sold off. It’s very possible Darius and Stavros would be told I ‘perished’ just to stop them from looking to the ends of the Earth to find me. We couldn’t afford to give the Council the benefit of the doubt, we had to be realistic and assume the worst.

“I’ve only been working on this for a few hours and I already wanna beat the sh*t out of something. Let’s go do your defence training early.” Terri pouts and lets out a deep breath.

“Sure, that way I can pick up my pups early. I haven’t seen them all day.” They were at a very active age and I welcomed the time they spend at the Den Mother’s so I could get other things done, but I still missed them. I have no idea how I will manage a few days away from them if we decide to go to Italy.