His Mute Luna

Chapter 3 - The Mines

Morgan

Being bare, our feet made virtually no sound as the eleven of us advanced in a single file with me leading the way.

The height of the tunnel was decreasing slightly, making me have to stoop a little. At 6'10, I was one of the tallest wolves in the pack and right now it was being a hindrance.

The darkness was growing and any light from the entrance was rapidly disappearing, even with our wolf sight it was becoming tricky to see. Turning a corner, a faint glow became apparent, as did the fork in the tunnel, splitting into two directions. As I approached, the closer we came to the split off, the more Mars became agitated, making our heart rate and breathing increase.

As I was about to ask what the hell was wrong with him, he became rigid in my mind.

'Mate...our mate is down there! Find her immediately!' He demanded.

My mate...was down here?

She was one of the kidnapped women?

That had Mars vibrating with a violent edge I didn't think was possible. The ground practically trembled as our aura pulsated with raw power that our mate may have been hurt...touched...by these animals…

'We will end them in ways that they'll beg for death, if they have,' Mars bristled, pushing for control, something he never did. Although I would admit, we could lose our temper on occasion when it was something we were passionate about, this level of anger was entirely new.

The two of us had wanted our mate for years...and we find her in the middle of a rescue attempt with many lives on the line should it go wrong. If we saw her, this very minute, initiating the mate bond, she would eclipse everything. We wouldn't focus on anyone but her...which would put everyone in danger, including herself...this was the worst timing of worst timings.

'Mars...we can't, not now. I want her too, but this will put everyone behind us in danger and those other 3 women. When we get back to the pack, we'll find her afterwards. I promise,' I tried to soothe my wolf and also myself. I didn't want to wait for either but we had to.

'...Fine...damn Alpha responsibilities…' he grumbled, though I was in complete agreement.

'Alpha...is everything ok?' One of my warriors tried to mind-link and I could feel him wincing. His voice felt distant and echoing with the interference from the silver and I could already feel there was no way I was mind-linking the outside.

Dammit. I had lost control of myself. As a white wolf, my aura wasn't just an authority I exuded, it was physical, causing the very earth beneath us to quake and if I wasn't careful it could cause physical pain to those around me.

And I may have just alerted the enemy to our presence... hopefully they'd think it's just tremors from the mine. This was exactly why I couldn't meet my mate right now.

'I'm fine, don't worry. I didn't mean to lose control like that. I can sense the women are ahead, to the right of that fork. Half of you head that way, get the girls and leave. Go with the trackers and get them out of here. Don't wait...be safe,' I ordered.

The remaining five warriors followed me to the left, even though everything in me wanted to head right, to hold my mate, to tell her not to be scared, that I had her now and nothing would ever hurt her again…

'Yeah...like you'd be that smooth, you awkward i***t,' my wolf snidely quipped, making me internally snarl at him...even though he was completely accurate. I may have been confident in my abilities as an Alpha...not so much with women.

Shaking my head clear of distractions, I pressed my team on, becoming aware of chatter up ahead. It sounded like three men speaking in hushed tones, their words impossible to make out clearly with the cavernous surroundings. If we got any closer, silver or not, they'd sense my presence.

'We move quickly. Like I said before; incapacitate, don't kill if you can help it.'

A dead body didn't speak and we needed answers.

Moving around the corner, I hurtled in at speed, feeling my warriors behind me. As I aimed for the nearest male, I narrowly avoided a knife thrown my way. With my quick reflexes I dodged it, hearing it clatter against the rock behind me. I backhanded the man in front of me, sending him sailing against the craggy wall. My five warriors had quickly subdued the other two and also had hold of the one I had sent across the small hallowed out cavern.

'Alpha...have the women...had to kill...guard though...leaving...'

The mind-link came through staggered and disjointed, but it sounded like they were successful. And we had three prisoners now to interrogate and find who the hell they were.

'When you get to the backup, send a vehicle here for us and the prisoners,' I said, putting all my strength into the link to have it send clearly. It must have worked as I received a, 'will do,' response.

I removed the men's masks and my own so the four of us could speak clearly.

"Why did you kidnap our pack?!" The barely contained venom and snarl of my words left little to be argued with and coupled with the waning control I had on my aura, things would get ugly fast if they didn't answer.

The three of them laughed, coldly, before working their jaws. In a flash, their bodies were convulsing, foam building in their mouths as they suddenly went limp in the arms of my warriors.

"What the actual f**k?" One of my men exclaimed, but I was as confused as they were.

I grabbed the jaw of one of the assailants, squeezing it open. A back tooth was missing, the same for the other two also.

Had they swallowed some kind of suicide pill to escape interrogation? What kinda espionage s**t was this?!

"Well, that was definitely a new one for me," a warrior said, still looking stunned.

"Yeah...I think we can safely conclude they ain't rogues," I replied. "Since we can't question anyone now, we'll have to search for information. We'll have plenty of time while we wait for backup."

This was a huge blow. But not a total loss. The biggest win was that the women were safe... my mate was safe. Hopefully, these dead assailants had some clues on them.

"Check their wrists, see if they have that tattoo," I instructed, wanting to see if the one we had already seen was a one off.

It wasn't.

Each of the three had the exact same tattoo of an ellipse with a circle and line through it. They had to be part of some gang, some organisation and this was some sort of identification for it.

We set to work getting the bodies, including the one that was guarding the women, out of the mines and placed them at the tunnel's mouth where the other three lay. I smelt around the area where the girls were kept, a hollowed out dead end similar to where we had faced those last three men. There was no sign of my mate's scent anywhere...that damned scent cover.

'Hurry up, human, so we can go claim our mate already!' Mars urged, impatiently.

'Do you want to find out who almost took her or what?! f*****g chill. We waited over seven years, we can wait a few more hours.'

He just growled in frustration at me, but silenced himself nonetheless. I was as impatient as him, but we still had a job to do here.

With the bodies all in one place, I instructed two of the warriors to stay and go through everything on them. We'd be taking the dead back to our pack for a full autopsy. I wanted to know what the hell they took to poison themselves and whatever else the examination could uncover about them.

I and the three remaining warriors returned to the mines to where we had fought, as there was nothing around the site where the women were kept. This spot seemed to be some makeshift living space for them, there were eight thin futons and blankets lying around, some emptied and unopened cans of food and some papers. We spread them out, the largest piece being a map of our territory with four areas marked. These were obviously where they were aiming for, to kidnap their victims. There was a detailed list of our patrols monitored for the last six days, their target's movements between home and work with various times written and crossed out before a finalised time was agreed on. At least this confirmed that they were monitoring, nothing here showed that this was an inside job.

Gathering all the papers up, the four of us headed up to rejoin the others and wait for the backup to arrive.

The dead had nothing much on them, nothing different from the guy in the field. What was strange is they had no means of contact on them, no phone, nothing. How were they going to contact whoever it was they were working for? Did they just have some extraction point to head to if successful and if they never showed, they were presumed to have failed? This was exactly what I hated not knowing. There could be more of them out there and they could try again.

My thoughts were abruptly halted by the sound of a vehicle pulling up at speed. As it pulled up, my brother Cal was hanging out of the window.

"You ordered the cavalry, my liege?" He said in a playfully mocking tone.

I rolled my eyes at his antics, "yeah, now we've done all the hard part of the job. Come on, get out and give us a hand, will you?"

"Why are we taking these fuckers back with us, pray tell?" Cam asked as we were loading the bodies into the back of the large truck.

I told the two of them why we needed to investigate the bodies more and what had happened in the fight down in the mines, as they looked at me with an increasingly bewildered expression.

"That sounds awesome...and we missed it?! Next time you're backup and we get to play with the weirdo kidnappers," Cal gushed, much to my dismay.

"You two realise, people could have been hurt tonight? That these women might not have seen their families ever again? This isn't a game and that's exactly why you won't be leading an operation anytime soon," I lectured, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Jeez, fine dad" Cam groaned as he threw a pair of sweats at each of us. "Now, can we get the f**k outta dodge before any more of their friends come looking?"

I certainly had no arguments with that. And after squeezing the eight of inside the cab, we set off for the Ashen Star pack lands.

Finally, I was heading home.

And soon, I'd be able to find my mate!