The Heart Of The Alpha

2 - A sight I will never forget

Drew

I notice my warriors bringing the poor girls who were kept in this awful place out of the house. Each one is a mess of cuts and bruises, and not all of them are she-wolves. I’ll speak to the girls back home because that’s where they’ll all be taken, Crimson Moon, until we figure out where they came from.

People are milling around the place, checking for anyone unsavory who could be lurking. You can never be too careful. The snipers may have taken out those guarding the building, but there could be others hiding somewhere. I will not have anything go wrong. It cannot happen when so many lives depend on us. Different Alphas go to various locations. I was sent here, so I am responsible for ensuring we get the victims home.

“Wait, I thought you said there were six? Unless I’ve forgotten how to count, there’s only five here.” Damian says. “Shi.t, is one of them dead?”

Rico shakes his head. “She’s not dead, but she’s barely alive either. Drew, I really think you should come inside.”

I sigh because I’m not looking forward to seeing what state that woman is in if she’s even a woman. Believe me, we’ve found some as young as fifteen before now. It makes me sick to think of what these females have been subjected to in the time they’ve been gone.

Sadly, we will never find all of them. Some have been sold at auction to Goddess only knows who. However, the Lycan King informed us that once we have the big boss, there will be documentation of each woman. People who do this kind of thing always keep a log of sales. Thane will also go through the bank accounts, even hidden ones, and trace who paid what, meaning he should be able to find every woman sold.

No one believes we’ll find every woman alive. Some women taken will have been killed for acting out too much. Most she-wolves are strong-willed and won’t give up easily. If there are Lionesses, those women are even more so. All we can do is pray we didn’t lose too many.

I’m the Alpha in charge here, so I nod my head and follow Rico into the cesspit that was once a working building. But for what, I don’t know. I can see unused sawing equipment, so maybe something with wood.

It reeks in this place, and I have to put the back of my hand over my nose to stop myself from gagging. With my Wolf sense of smell, it’s one hundred times worse than what a human would smell. I imagine a human would be throwing the fuc.k up right now, so you can imagine how hard it is for me not to do the same.

“This was the room the girls were kept in,” Rico points to a room on the left.

There’s nothing inside but two twin mattresses on the floor. It’s dull and filthy, and a bucket in the corner was obviously used as a toilet. I wonder how the hell those girls have survived what they’ve been through.

“One of the other girls said something about another woman. She was apparently the boss’s favorite plaything until about a week ago, just before Chloe arrived, and they were moved to this place to be broken in, ready for auction.”

Goddess above, what the fuc.k?

“Talk among the men was that this particular woman had been with the boss a long time. She was never sold to anyone else because their boss wanted her for his own. She was deficient, and no one would have brought her. The women don’t know why he suddenly turned on her, and she wasn’t replaced with anyone else.”

“Why wasn’t she sold after the boss was done with her? I know you said she was deficient, but why keep her here? Why not kill her instead?”

Rico shrugs at Damian. “I’m not sure.”

I shake my head in disgust. I can’t imagine what could have happened to that girl, and I don’t even want to. My stomach is turning already just being here.

“Chloe mentioned the other girl and where we could find her. Chloe knew because she heard the girl’s screams of terror and pain and remembered the direction in which they came from. The other women were too traumatized to remember much of anything.

“Donny and I came to this room,” Rico points to the door we have now stopped outside of. “What we saw was so shocking I couldn’t close my mouth for five minutes. I will warn you: this is going to destroy you, Drew.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Alpha,” Rico blows out a long breath.

“Rico, what the hell are you talking about?” Damian snaps. His eyes are beginning to flash, meaning his Wolf is agitated.

I lay my hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, Damian.” My brother huffs but nods his head. “Rico, if you would?” I tip my head towards the door.

I don’t know what the man wants me to see so badly, but he seems upset. That can only mean the woman is in a worse state than I can imagine.

Rico opens the door, leading us into the dark room. There are no windows or lights, so Rico turns on the torch on his phone and shines it towards a cage.

The cage is around six feet tall and about four feet wide. I’m trying not to throw up from the stench in the room, but it’s not as bad as the rest of the building.

I use my Wolf eyes to search the cage. At the bottom of the cage is a girl, skin and bone, filthy, shaking, and staring right at me.

All the air leaves my lungs, and I fall to my knees. This cannot be happening!

“Drew,” I hear Damian say my name, but I can’t answer him. “Rico, why didn’t you just say who you'd found before you brought him in here?!”

“I couldn’t be sure if she was who I thought she was. I didn’t want to give the Alpha false hope. I needed Drew to take a look!” Rico snaps back.

I ignore the two of them arguing because every emotion crashes into me all at once, and I can barely breathe.

I quickly crawl on my hands and knees to the cage. “Emery? Baby, can you hear me?” I can’t tell if she has her hearing aid in or not.

My mate is deaf because she was born that way. She was left in an orphanage by her birth parents because she was deaf. They were told Emery would have limited hearing, but they didn't want a child who was not perfect in their eyes. Emery was adopted and raised to be just like everyone else, though life hasn’t always been kind to her.

When we met, Emery thought I wouldn’t want her because of her deafness, but I soon showed her how wrong she was. Oh, how I loved her instantly.

My grandmother, Anja, has the power to heal anyone, but she couldn’t heal Emery. She couldn’t because Emery was as the Moon Goddess intended, though with some tests, Toby, Scarlet Nightwalkers Pack doctor, was able to fit Emery with a hearing aid. He said that Emery wasn’t profoundly deaf, and the hearing aid would help her just as it does with humans. The aid didn’t mean Emery could hear like the rest of us, but as a Werewolf, our hearing is acute, meaning Emery would hear as a human would hear someone speaking low.

I can’t take my eyes off my mate. My whole world has suddenly become so small. My baby is battered almost beyond recognition. All these months, I knew she was being hurt. I could feel her pain every damn time. But I never expected to see something like this.

“It’s really Emery? What the fuc.k?”

Again, I don’t answer Damian; I can’t. I keep my eyes on my mate and curse every time I believed she’d run from me after that stupid argument. Even when Melissa tried to convince me Emery wouldn’t have done that, I suppose I never fully believed she hadn’t. Of course, I doubted every little thing, even if deep down, I knew the truth. But Emery didn’t run; she was taken, kept in a cage, and subjected to Goddess only knows what.

What kind of man does that make me?

What kind of mate?

I should have known right from the beginning that something wasn’t right. Emery is my mate, and mates don’t just leave each other! It doesn’t matter that, for months, I knew Emery had been taken, I still doubted her. Fuc.k, I am a bastard!

One mate can’t survive without the other, so what the fuc.k kept me alive?

If Chloe hadn’t realized Emery was here, would I have ever found her?

I can’t bear to think that we would have walked away from this place, and Emery would have died here alone. I heard her voice in my head so clearly because she was right here, just waiting for me to save her.

Did she sense me nearby?

Is that why she called when she did?

Is that why I heard her now when I did not before?

If I had walked away from here, I would never have come to search the place again. Fuc.k, I could really have lost her!

My heart is broken. I can barely breathe through the sobs that want to escape me, and my stomach is turning over.

‘Drew,’ Roman, my Wolf, whimpers inside my head. ‘It’s really our tiny Wolf. She’s alive, Drew!’ I can hear the relief in Roman’s voice. All these months, Roman has struggled even more than I have not to become feral.

‘I know, buddy.’ I cut him off because I need all my attention on Emery right now.

“I'm so sorry,” I whisper as tears fall from my eyes. “I am so sorry, baby.”

“Oh, my Goddess! What the fuc.k?” I hear Jai hiss. I didn’t hear him enter the room, and I don’t turn to look at him.

I yank on the cage bars to find them locked by a huge padlock; they’re also sizzling with silver. The sizzling is probably tearing the skin on my hands, but I don’t give a fuc.k right now.

“Drew, you’ll tear your hands apart!”

I don’t listen to Jai, I don’t because all I can think about is getting Emery out of her prison. I growl, get to my feet and rip the cage door open with my bare hands. The metal flies off the hinges and clangs against the back wall.

‘No,’ Emery mumbles into our mind link. After all this time apart, my baby didn’t give up hope that I would find her.

Emery once told me she could speak to her Wolf in her mind, but not out loud. I taught her how to speak, yet she didn’t do it often. Emery was too self-conscious that she wouldn’t sound like everyone else.

“Please, no more.” This time, she speaks out loud.

“Shh,” I reach down and lift her bridal style. Emery doesn’t fight me, but she sobs in fear, not able to pull herself away from me for lack of energy.

Everything within me is right in this moment. Holding Emery in my arms again, our bent bond snaps back into place.

‘It’s okay, baby, it’s me, Drew.' I mind-link just in case she can’t hear me. ‘I found you, and I will never let you go again.’

Emery’s eyes roll, and she passes out in my arms.