Unscentable

CH 8

Bradley POV

Back in his pack, Bradley was sitting at his desk researching into wolves with white eyes, he had a stack of books from the pack's library archives on his desk about wolf types; Many to go though.

He’d sent Hadley, who was still upset, up to her room to unpack, told her he would try again with Piper Harper, that perhaps getting an appointment under her mother’s name or someone else’s here in the pack might resolve the issue. Hadley had just nodded, though she looked doubtful to him.

She had already asked him why a she-wolf would run away from her Mate? He’d not been able to answer that question for her. He didn’t want the girl to blame herself for making Piper think she was his Mate, but it kind of looked like that was what she felt.

Bradley had already gone through the pack's database, searched for the name Piper Harper, and had come up empty-handed. There was not even a family with the last name Harper in his pack. He was more confused than before. Maybe it simply wasn’t the same girl.

He had sent Eddie off to bring Renee to his office. She’d stocked Piper Harper gowns for three and half years, if he recalled correctly, had said she’d even met the woman. He wanted to know how and when. So, while he was waiting on Renee, he was doing research, as was his Beta, Cooper.

Though Cooper had told him, white wolf eyes, was itching inside his mind, like he’d seen it or read it somewhere, and just couldn’t quite latch onto it. Same as Bradley for that matter.

Renee walked into his office with Eddie next to her, she smiled right at him like always, and then sat herself down in the chair on the other side of his large oak desk. “No such luck with Piper Harper, Alpha?”

“Not in the making of a dress for Hadley, no. I did actually get to lay eyes on the woman,” he commented.

“How is Piper doing? It’s been a long time since I saw her.”

Bradley frowned at her words. “How well did you know her? Did she ever come here to the pack? She is a wolf, I found out.” he told her.

“Um, yes! I know that. Did you not?” she was now frowning at him, seemed confused by his words.

“No, I did not, even Cooper here, could not pick up what she was, her scent was masked the whole time.”

Renee raised an eyebrow at him, and then looked from him to Cooper and back again, did not look shocked by the news he’d just imparted, just appeared curious, that they'd brought it up or that maybe they should have known this already.

“Did she come to this pack? Or did you go to her pack to purchase her brand?”

Renee frowned deeply at him now. “Alpha, why would you not know the answer to that yourself? You approved yourself, her working for me, in my store. Piper Harper used to live here.”

That snapped his head up. “What?” he’d already checked on that. It was the very first thing he’d done when he got home, trying to verify if she could be his Mate. There was no record of her here in this pack.

“Born in to this pack, I believe,” Renee stated. “I thought she’d up and left, because you’d approved her owning a store in the human world, her label sold very well, could barely keep her dresses on the racks. Though I was disappointed she never told me, and left without so much as a goodbye.”

“Piper Harper sold out here in this pack?”

“Well, the label back then just stated Piper. I guess she changed it when she became big.”

“Wait...Start again. This, Piper Harper, is a pack member. I didn’t sense any connection to her. I certainly didn’t give her permission to open a human world store.” but that would make sense of her reaction to Cooper and himself, her old Alpha and his Beta turning up inside of her store. Could have freaked her out. “There is no record of a Piper Harper, none with that name has ever lived here in this pack. I checked already.” he told her.

“That would be because her last name is not actually Harper. It’s Whitlock. Her name is Piper Whitlock.”

“Whitlock?” it was Cooper, and he was on his feet now, clearly something he recalled.

“Piper Whitlock, anything you can tell me, Renee, about that she-wolf?”

“Looked sickly a lot of the time. Not when she started working for me, but by the end, she was thin and frail looking, looked...exhausted all the time I guess, dark circles under her eyes, pale. I did ask her if she was alright on many occasions. She told me that she just didn’t sleep well most nights.”

“Did you believe that?” he asked.

“Not particularly. But I couldn’t find out anything, like I told you. She was a quiet girl, just sat and worked in my back room, day in day out, rarely spoke at all.”

Bradley sighed “her family?”

“Would be on file, I presume. I did not run in the same social group.” she shrugged “Never saw them myself.”

“Alright, thank you, Renee, you can go.”

He watched as the woman stood, “Alpha, if I may ask a question?”

He nodded.

“If you didn’t agree to Piper leaving the pack, then how is it she did?”

“That is the question. Possibly went rogue Renee.”

“Hmm.” she nodded, but then just turned and headed for the door.

“What is it, Renee?” it was Eddie who asked the question.

“She looked sickly, it got gradually worse over the years. Now that I think about it... Could be indicative of a rejected Mate. One that did not cope with the rejection well."

All in the room were staring at her now.

“I’ve heard Alpha, a rejection can kill one. Also, if she couldn’t cope...it could likely be why she up and left without warning. Just had enough maybe, I guess, seeing her Mate who reject her, with another... That could turn a she-wolf rogue, I guess.”

Bradley was frowning at her now, she was right on that front. He watched the woman walk out of his office and found both Cooper and Eddie’s eyes on him questioningly.

“I did not reject the girl. Never even knew, if that is the case,” he muttered. They both knew this, he didn’t appreciate their looks at all.

He turned his attention away from them, somewhat annoyed with both of them, turned to his computer and put the name Whitlock into the pack's database. The computer linked it to three names: Talon Taylor, a warrior ranked man, and his Mate Jewel Whitlock, who it stated came from another pack. She was also warrior ranked, and quite highly ranked at that. They were also both deceased. They did have a child, one Piper Whitlock, it was unusual that the girl had her mother's last name still, also unusual that Jewel never took her Mate Talon’s name.

He opened both their files, nothing unusual about Talon, though he had been ranking up every year, and had been well on his way to Elite status by the look of it. A good fighter, with a large grey and black wolf, named Harvey.

Jewel Whitlock, also highly ranked, very well-trained even before she came to his pack, came from a pack up north on the other side of the Canadian border, the Ice Moon Pack. She came here at 20 after a mating ball. Her wolf, Pepper, was a smallish silver wolf and the photo showed she had white eyes, just like Piper’s wolf.

Piper Whitlock, there was not much information on the girl, after her parents died, both in a large rogue attack. She had been 10 at the time, not that her file stated that, he simply recalled their death dates from both her parents' files.

There was no record of who she was sent to live with after they died. That was odd in itself. Would likely have to speak with his father on that one, it had been his reign at the time. He would have only been barely 18 himself when that happened.

There was an entry about her wolf's emergence. Harper, it read the wolf's name was. The standard paperwork had been filled in, though not by the girl's guardians, he noted, had her own name attached to the report, a description of her wolf had been handwritten, but there was no photo attached, unusual, normally a photo would have been taken and uploaded for reference.

Piper and Harper, her company, now Piper Harper Designs, was an amalgamation of her and her wolf's name, an interesting idea.

Bradley could not find anything about who her guardians had been, or where she lived. She did not have anything attached to her name. He checked the pack's school records for Piper Whitlock and there it was. She had completed her schooling, and the records stated her original home address, where she had lived with her parents before they had died. That made him frown.

She couldn’t have lived on her own there all that time; surely his father and stepmother, the Luna, by then, would have placed the girl with another family. It was the protocol of all orphaned children. And his stepmother was a lovely woman. There was no way he saw her abandoning a child to the pack.

Piper had even been here, when he took over, would have been 17 at the time, would have even pledged her loyalty to him. Anyone with a wolf would have had to do it. He could see in her file, the paperwork submitted for Piper Whitlock to work at Renee’s store, in the pack's town center. Renee had submitted it herself, Piper had been 17 and a half at the time, and worked full-time right away.

Her age bothered him greatly. If Piper Harper was indeed Piper Whitlock, and it did now appear she was one and the same, if she was also his Mate? She would have been 21, when she left this pack.

Bradley was not at all happy with the information he was reading, the timeline, her condition reported by Renee, surely it could not be right. Three years after she turned 18. You could scent your Mate out once you turned 18, if this was the case? How did he not know who she was for three whole years? If she herself had known for those three years, why didn’t she come to him? Surely the girl wasn’t silly enough to hide her scent from him for three years...if she had known all that time?…

His eyes widened as he realised the complexity of the situation, of it all. Every time he was with another, she would have felt it, painfully so. Regardless of the fact that he did not know. As long as she knew; had scented him out. Anything he did with another she-wolf, inside this pack or out of it, she would have felt it, all of it, been hit with the pains of betrayal each and every single time.

Bradley couldn’t understand her! Why had she hidden herself from him? Put herself through all that pain, years of it? No wonder she’d looked sickly, as Renee put it. No wonder she was quiet all the time.

He closed his eyes, no wonder she had been so tiny. It was likely she had wasted away to nothing over the years. It would literally have been killing her, a very slow, very painful, agonisingly painful death, for her and her wolf, and he’d known nothing about it. She had kept it all from him, he didn’t understand, couldn’t wrap his brain around it.

If this was the situation, it was the reason why she’d rejected him. He’d not even meant to be home that night, the night he’d found the scent masked girl in his bed. She’d run from his room just minutes before Cooper and Harry had come to his aid.

The packhouse cameras showed it. She’d had a backpack already to go, she’d already made the decision to leave. When he wasn’t supposed to be in the pack's territory at that, she had likely gone into his room, just to smell his scent, to likely spend one night in his bed, where she belonged.

But that night, he and his unit had been attacked on the road by a rogue pack, which had destroyed his car, and they’d been forced to come back to the pack instead. If not for that incident, he’d never have touched her at all. Never in all likelihood been able to understand what had happened to him at all.

He wondered now if he would have felt the connection to her sever, at all? He likely only felt it, now he realised because he’d had his hands on her, she’d been in his bed and, though he’d not known what she was at the time, he’d not been able to control himself with her, and Benson had wanted him to mate her as well.

His wolf right this moment was more than annoyed, he was prowling around inside of Bradley’s mind. It was very clear to both of them; now that they had the information, Piper had hidden herself from him for a full three years. Had not once come forward, not even so much as presented herself to him initially, on the day she had scented him out.

Why not? The need to claim your Mate was strong, even for those who wanted nothing but to reject the other, they were still drawn to each other, until that rejection was made, even sometimes after the rejection was made and accepted.

Hell, Bradley had two wolves right here in his pack who hated each other, had outright rejected each other on the day they found out, from his understanding, the actual moment they had realised they were Mates. Those two had wolf on wolf fights on many occasions over the last two years, but then were reported to have been seen out in the woods going at it like crazy, having s*x uncontrollably, all raw animalistic and needy for each other, then they were back to hurling insults at each other as they walked away.

Bradley had actually seen it himself once, coming across the two of them yelling and screaming at each other about how they hated the other. All manner of foul words had been thrown about, and he’d thought he was going to have to intervene and separate them once they’d started shoving at each other.

Then, before he knew it, pants were coming down and underwear had been ripped off, and he’d seen them furiously f**k each other, screaming and crying out in pleasure. Only to go back to calling each other foul names the minute it was over, and they’d caught their breath. They had stalked away from each other, gone back to hating each other, it seemed.

They had rejected each other right away, when the girl had turned 18, but could not, it seem keep their hands off of each other. It was a crazy stupid relationship, he thought. Brad was tempted to lock the pair of them up in a cell together, til they sorted it out. But he was actually worried they might kill each other at the same time. Over the past two years, the pair of them had actually put each other in to the pack hospital at least twice with their wolf on wolf fighting.

It was completely insane, he’d never seen anything like it, had gone to his father for advice about them, his father had sighed and told him to 'leave it alone,' had stated “They’ll likely mate like crazy one day, and end up marking each other, and that will solve the issue.” is what he’d told Bradley.

Bradley was leaving it alone as per his father’s advice, but he was also monitoring the situation at the same time. They were both still young, just 20 and 21. From his understanding of their situation, the guy had bullied his Mate all her life, throughout primary and high school, and had also accepted her rejection without hesitation, when the girl had hurled it at him. She had screamed it right in the man's face in front of a crowd of her and his friends, and he’d yelled his acceptance right back at her.

Bradley sighed, he’d seen Piper and her reaction to just his presence in her studio, at her store. She still felt their bond, had to, looked up to both Cooper and Eddie. Who he knew were waiting for his response.

“It’s her,” he muttered “Piper Harper is Piper Whitlock, her wolf's name is Harper. I’m guessing she likely changed her name when she left the pack, would have been…” he sighed, “21, when she left.”

That snapped Cooper's eyes wide “Are you sure?” he sounded almost horrified and Bradley knew why.

“Yes,” he nodded “I’m guessing, she likely knew all that time as well. Had scent masked herself from me the whole time.”

“That’s insane, Brad. It would have killed her...especially seeing you and Bianca here in the pack.”

“Not to mention, when I wasn’t in the pack.” Bradley sighed heavily, he hated that thought too, he was Alpha-blooded and had not had a Mate, as far as he knew, so he had sated his needs when and wherever he pleased, with those that were willing, many times over those three years.

“So what now Brad?” his Beta Cooper asked as he frowned deeply.

“I don’t know Coop. She did reject me. I don’t know anything about her at all. What’s weird, I don’t even recall her, but her file states I would have at least trained with her warrior class once a month. She was also 17 when I took over, so would have been right in front of me, to accept her loyalty pledge, hell Coop. I would have had to call out her name, I don’t…” he tried to recall that day, but there were so many, a lot of wolves, a whole pack. “I don’t even remember her then.”

“What else have you got?”

He knew that his Beta was trying to jog his memory of her.

“Nothing really. Piper Whitlock registered her own wolf, worked for Renee for three and half years. There are no registered guardians. Her parents would of died when she was like 10. She attended school all the way through, but I don’t know, it's all just on paper, almost like, she just didn’t exist to me ever, no photos, not her, not her wolf, nothing after the age of 10.”

“Weird.” Cooped nodded.

“Very weird, do you recall her? You would have trained her warrior group when I couldn’t.”

He watched his Beta think about it, then shake his head. “No! All I do know is that she did not like Hadley or I.”

“Well, that’s easy to understand now. She likely thought that Hadley was my Mate. Reacted as a previous Mate would.”

“But she did reject you. So really,” Cooper shrugged.

“I never accepted the rejection.” Bradley shook his head. “How could I? I didn’t even know she was out there. I have never actually accepted it and Coop, I’m not likely to either. I want to know why my Goddess-Gifted Mate hid from me all those years, why she rejected me also?”

“Too much pain, Bradley.” Coop offered. It was a logical explanation.

“I don’t believe that...well, maybe in the end. But she stayed here, with that knowledge, for three years. Why? Wouldn’t you just confront and reject your Mate, when you found out, if you didn’t want your Mate? Why wait and put up with all that pain, for three full years?”

“I don’t know, only she knows Brad.” Cooper sighed with a shake of his head.

Harry walked into his office. “No such luck Brad.” he’d been on a mission to get an appointment with Piper Harper, “Her assistant said no, to all the girls I had call. The minute they stated what company they work for, were refused an appointment.”

“They had to state what company they work for to get an appointment?” he asked, confused.

“Apparently it’s policy, I did have some of them ask about that, even tried to get around Izzy, by ringing the other stores, same response, so it could well be the actual policy.”

“Or a new one,” Coop piped in “to keep you away, Brad.”

It was possible, “Actively boycotting the pack then,” Brad sighed.

“Seems that way.” Harry nodded.

Brad’s eyes moved to Eddie’s, he’d been awfully quiet this whole time, he realised he’d not said one word since Renee had left “What’s wrong Eddie?” he asked the man. Was watching him now.

“I kind of recognised her, Piper. At the store, well not her...just kind of.” he shook his head “I don’t know, it's a bit hard to explain…” he thought about a little more “I got this feeling from her, almost like I’d felt her before, familiar I guess you could say.”

“What? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I couldn’t put my finger on it, Brad. I did tell you once before, after she left, I’d had bad trouble with my gift for years, sensed what I thought was pain. But...you had no Mate and I did try, I’m telling you, I couldn’t find the one in pain, when I hunted, though mostly it was when we were away...would you have believed me at the time, if I told you I thought your sleeping around was causing another pain?”

Bradley stared at him, it was unlikely he would have believed him, not having scented her out and all. “Probably not,” he admitted.

“So what now?” Cooper asked.

“We try and get to her, I guess. This Piper, she has three human world businesses, got to be at one of them right.” Bradley commented.

“That is likely, but she’ll smell wolves a mile away, and if she keeps her scent masked all the time, and we can't get a decent picture of her, it’s likely she’ll walk right passed our guys. She’s only like about five-six, wearing heels when I saw her, and passes for human easily, doesn’t look like a ripped she-wolf, or not that I could tell with her suit on anyway.”

“So are we going with Piper Harper, is your missing Mate? Brad.” Harry asked, he’d been out of the room for all the details.

Bradley looked at him. “Yes, she was a pack member, changed her name, here she would have been known as Piper Whitlock.”

“Whitlock, like, as in Jewel Whitlock’s daughter?” Harry asked right away.

All eyes were on the man now.

Where was this man half an hour ago?