Chasing After Ashes

Chapter 9: All's fair in love & war

“Will you be my Louve?” teased Mark as he produced a rose from behind him and kneeled in front of Quentin.

Quentin gasped, raising both his hands to cover his mouth as he nodded too fast and enthusiastically said, “Yes, yes, I will be your Louve!” He took the rose out of Mark’s hands and turned around to grin at Tate and me.

I sat on the chair near the couch where Tate was, holding a glass of red wine one of the pack members brought over as soon as they arrived back at the house. There wasn’t anything to do upstairs besides read the books I have already read or moan about the confused mess I was in with the Reons, Rosewood, and other werewolf packs. Quite frankly, it was a shock that the only pack who didn’t seem to have any huge problems with me right now was the Alcatrozz pack.

Although the reason probably had more to do with their Louve liking me and their pack was not as affected as the others were in the destruction the Rosewood pack had caused.

Tate rolled his eyes at Quentin and Mark and said, “Cut it out. Stop acting like those dumbasses.”

“You mean, Justin and Rastor?” I asked, looking at him. He didn’t have to consciously make the effort to not mention their names because it was fine. Whatever annoyance and hurt I was feeling for them still lingered, but it was okay. Mentioning their names around me wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t make things better or worse, so it really was nothing if I heard their names.

Tate shrugged, raising the glass of wine he was drinking earlier, seeming like he couldn’t care less. I shook my head at him and grabbed a couple of grapes from the plates of sandwiches, drinks, and fruits on the coffee table. It was a mini-celebration of Tate becoming the Alpha of the Alcatrozz pack.

It would have been a much bigger celebration if everyone had more time to prepare and most of her pack members were here. However, since only a few of them could have attended because the others were busy with work, vacation, and the like, Tate sent those who came, back to their homes. There was going to be a celebration when the others came back to fully celebrate their new alpha.

Suprisingly, even Trisha went home without much ruckus, sayi.ng she had somewhere to go to early the next morning. Much like before, I thought she wouldn’t have left Tate’s side like gum so entangled in your hair you couldn’t remove it no matter how much you tried. However, it seemed like their parting months before were true, but I really couldn’t be sure because this was Trisha after all.

Elizabeth took Hans back to their bedroom the moment they got home. He still wasn’t all well because he still didn’t let me heal him, besides the quick surprise healing I did to him. It meant there were bruises and injuries covering his body I hadn’t been able to remove and that he would heal on his own.

Elizabeth had smiled remorsefully at me when she was helping him up, which I returned with a small smile and a shrug. It couldn’t be helped. Her mate will never like me. And I could only do so much with what I can do and the opportunities I was given to help.

“So, what were you hiding from me?” I asked, looking at Tate as I bit onto a grape. His shoulders tensed and he sat straighter, gulping down his wine like it was mere soda.

A couple of seconds passed before he finished it off and carefully placed down the wine glass onto the empty space on the coffee table. “Nothing much, I think,” he finally said, looking at me.

“I think it’s a lot of things, especially from what I heard with your conversation earlier with Trisha. And Caden called here earlier.”

The easygoing chatter Lowell, Mark, and Quentin were having were gone as they became silent. I glanced at them and saw that they were looking at everywhere in the room but us. Yeah, a lot of things are being hidden from me, I thought as I watched the three quietly move to the far end of the room, by the tall windows with uneasy looks on their faces.

“That i***t,” whispered Tate angrily under his breath, probably thinking I wouldn’t hear what he said with how quiet his voice was. But there was nothing loud in the background to have hindered my hearing of him. He raised his head to look at me, annoyance as clear as day on his face. “I told him not to tell you yet about your brother, but he just couldn’t wait, could he?”

I raised my eyebrow at him. Of all the thing I expected to hear from Tate, it wasn’t this. Caden’s call earlier was all about the Council and not one bit about my brother. Despite the swirling storm of emotions I felt towards my family, I couldn’t help but be worried that something had happened to Gabe or to anyone else who was guarding him.

What about Illia? Was everything alright with him? I hadn’t heard from him for a while. Last I did, he was recovering from the starvation and other sorts of t*****e he suffered at the hands of the Rosewood pack. Even if I had healed him from having his guts removed from his body, I heard what happened to him had taken a toll on him mentally, but he was trying his best to do better. And he was. Caden had last told me Illia was better already, but was he really?

“What is it about Gabe? Did something happen to him or to Illia?” I asked, leaning closer in my chair towards Tate.

“Wait,” he blinked at me a couple of times. “You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?”

When he didn’t answer, I narrowed my eyes at him and sat by his side, determined now and for all to get the answers I wanted. “Tell me,” I commanded, putting as much force as I could into my voice.

His eyes narrowed at me, annoyed at having been commanded like he was a weaker wolf—which he was. He was strong, an Alpha of his own pack already. He never would have been if he wasn’t stronger than the average wolf. But the difference in power between us was still there. It was a gap as wide as the seemingly never-ending power hiding beneath the shallow trickle of power I often showed. And far beneath it, were things I refused to uncover, fearing the power it could bring me, and the very real possibility it could change me.

“No.” He said, and the tone he made was final. No room for discussion.

It irked me to my bones, making me growl. “And why the hell not?”

“This isn’t fair, Eve,” he emphasized the nickname he had for me. One I had told him repeatedly before to stop because we weren’t that close. “You cannot force things out of me just because you wished it to. I would have told you freely until you did that.”

I grabbed his fresh white polo shirt and pulled him closer to me, my voice low and echoing like darkness made real. “You will not hold this information to yourself any more because I deserve to know the truth.” The ground trembled at the weight of my anger I felt at having been played around by a fool of a person.

“Not until you treat me like your equal.”

I shook my head, feeling disbelief that he was acting this way. I was starting to think he was okay after all these times. The moments of candor, the small bits of kindness he had shown me these past few days and weeks as he stood by my side when I was at my worst—I thought I was getting to know the real him. It didn’t mean I was going to accept him as my mate, but I thought he was at least becoming my friend. But boy, I was horribly wrong at that.

The betrayal was another fresh wound among my tattered and frayed heart and soul from knowing the truth of my family and how the Reons acted towards me. It brought to life the sea of anger I was constantly pushing away from the surface of my mind, until the sea overwhelmed me completely and I couldn’t breathe without tasting, feeling, becoming the fury.

“It is my right to—” There was a splash of sweetness against the bitter, scorching fury as Tate pressed his lips to mine. My eyes widened, unable to do anything as I felt the hatred and anger slipping away from me until it was almost like a faint memory I only thought of. And not something I felt consuming me just seconds ago.

“You will bring the house down if you keep it up, sweetie,” he muttered against my lips. He softly kissed me again as I blinked, confused as hell at this turn of events.

Finally getting my bearings and realizing what was happening, I hurriedly pushed him away from me. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Calming you down. The ground was trembling already with the force of your anger,” Tate said as he shrugged. “What did you expect me to do?”

Unbelievable! I thought as I wiped my lips with my hands, desperate to remove any taint of him and if possible, the memory of it ever happening. “Anyway, don’t you ever do that again and just tell me what the hell is happening with Gabe and the others.”

“Only if you treat me like you should.”

“Excuse me?”

“I am your mate, Evangeline,” he emphasized before continuing, “I know I had done stupid things in the past but I am trying my best to make it up to you. I am not even asking you to accept me right now even if I really want you to.”

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Then what are you asking?”

“Just treat me like your equal. Would that be so impossible?” There was a seriousness in his eyes that I couldn’t look away from. His honesty struck deep into my heart, and as surprising as it was to me, I felt guilty at seeing him act like this.

I had been acting like I was better than him. Pushing him around and ordering him just because I had been under a constant crap fest because of what I had been experiencing. It wasn’t just him though. I had been treating the people around me like they were nothing and simply dismissing their thoughts just because I couldn’t care less.

It was this apathy and insensitivity to others that I saw in my brother. And I couldn’t become like him, or them. We were related by blood but I refused to have any more similarities to them than I already had.

With this realization, I slowly nodded my head. “Right. I’m sorry for acting like the way I had been acting these past few weeks.”

“Oh.” Tate’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, as if he couldn’t believe I apologized. “Okay, thanks.”

“Tell me now?” I asked him, a small smile on my lips. Yes, self, you are as far from acting like your relatives now.

He nodded his head and proceeded to explain what had been happening since I was trapped in that decidedly psychotic break I was under. “Ever since your brother had been taken to Illia’s house at Bromsdale, he hadn’t spoken one word about where the rest of your family or their associates are. Different measures had already been implemented to make him talk…”

Tate stopped talking as I flinched at what he said, knowing what kind of measures were taken. I gestured with my hands for him to continue and he did. “He’s being subjected daily to different methods and some are being repeated in the hopes something would make him break. But nothing had worked. Until Illia mentioned you. He finally said something but since then, he remained as silent as he had previously done so.”

I gulped, unsure if I wanted to know. But I knew I needed to know this. “What did he say?”

“He said he wanted to see and talk to you.”

“Was there anything more?”

“No, nothing.”

I nodded my head, sighing that there wasn’t anything else. If he had said anything about our family, revealed something more they had done in the years they were searching for me, I wouldn’t know what I would have done. I still wasn’t ready to hear anything more about what happened, or other furtive details to it. But at least now I knew I would have more time to gather my courage before I learn anything more about it, directly from my brother.

“Because it was imperative that we find your brother’s associates and the rest of your family as soon as we could because the might be up to something, groups have been sent out from all the packs in the world to keep watch in every city and town near them. A few wolves who said they were part of the Rosewood pack had already been captured and taken to be interrogated at the Thyranos pack who led that hunt.

On the other side of the community, a few warlocks and witches who helped your family had already been killed, under Kalista, Phink, and Medea’s hands. However, Damar, Medea and Kalista’s brother, and your brother’s friend, still hadn’t been found.”

It was too much information. For just a few short months I had been inactive, trapped inside my own mind, a lot of terrible things had happened. And it wasn’t over. Nothing definitive to end this horrid affair my family had started, had been found. I needed to step up and figure the s**t out of this, otherwise who knew what other plans my family had set, were in motion.

“What about the Werwulf Council? Exactly how long had you been putting off my meeting them?”

A sheepish grin took over Tate’s face as he rubbed the side of his cheeks in discomfort. “A day after your brother was captured.”

I could only blink stupidly at him. But I still hadn’t fully succumbed to the nightmare of a truth I was just dealt with then. I was still functioning—not well, I might add—a day after everything had occurred, still talking to people, and just coasting by as the truth hadn’t fully sank in.

“What the hell?”

He shrugged, grinning at me before he turned to the three who looked so uncomfortable as they stood by the windows. With a gesture signaling he had told me everything needed to and it was okay for them to join the party as it were, the three sat back down with us.

Quentin took a sit beside me, grabbing the bottle of beer he was drinking earlier. Lowell sat on the chair I had been sitting on earlier and started munching on the egg sandwiches made to commemorate their new alpha; while Mark went to sit on the opposite couch, near Quentin and popped open another beer.

Tate, the fancy bastard, poured himself another helping of red wine and started discussing something about the Evermoore town. I couldn’t care less as the others lapsed back into a comfortable chatter. I was in my own world as I thought about what was going to happen when I finally talked to my brother after all these months.

Fright gripped my body so swiftly and quickly I couldn’t breathe, as if I was suddenly back there in the dark room. Held hostage by the shackles my own brother, my own pack had placed me in. Held hostage by the reality of who and what they were, and in extension, who I was.

A scream broke through my thoughts and the comfortable quiet chatter of the guys. My head immediately snapped towards the ceiling, knowing the sound came from upstairs. Nobody was there except Hans and Elizabeth. My body quickly moved upstairs as if whatever scenario which was waiting for us was pulling my body like a doll. Tate and the others were following me quickly up the stairs.

As I arrived in front of Elizabeth and Hans’ room, I turned the lock but it was to no avail. Before I could have forced the door opened, Tate barreled into it, breaking down the door with one swift kick. He rushed in and suddenly stopped. Before I knew it, he roared a sound filled with anguish and the kind of anger I had never heard him make before. It raised the hairs on my body and filled me with anxiety as to what he could have seen.

Moving to his side, I understood then what made Tate stop and forced him to make such a sound that echoed with anguish deep into my soul.

A woman with flaming red hair tied neatly to her back held Elizabeth up in the air with her claws elbow deep into Elizabeth’s stomach. Elizabeth’s eyes were fluttering close as blood gushed out of her mouth. A quick glance at the room and I saw Hans’ body had been ripped to pieces like an animal had ravaged into it.

And an animal had.

A flaming red beast who stood taller than Elizabeth’s six-foot frame and misty gray eyes that showed absolutely nothing. As she saw us, she threw Elizabeth to the side of the bed, where a few pieces of Hans’ body were.

Tate roared again, the sound so loud it could have burst our ear drums. Then he dashed forward, moving like the beast of strength and vengeance he was as he ripped into the woman. She fought him off, blocking and returning his punches as easily as he gave them. They were moving too fast and within a second, they had situated themselves at the other end of the room.

I rushed to Elizabeth’s side, hoping like hell she was still okay. That it wasn’t too late like it was for Hans. As I reached her side and saw her barely breathing, her throat torn open and her stomach was nothing but a ribboned mess, I immediately felt the warmth of my power roaring to the surface. I quickly placed my hands on her body, rapidly healing, knitting, and fixing the ruined mess the woman had made out of Elizabeth’s body.

I was breathing heavily as a few long moments passed as I healed Elizabeth’s body. By the time she was healed and sleeping heavily from exhaustion, the fight across the room had taken a different turn. Lowell, Quentin, and Mark had joined in and helped their Alpha in fighting off the woman.

As I watched the fight and stared at the woman who was handling herself well as she fought off four wolves at the same time, my breath hitched in my throat as I noticed how familiar she looked. That hair which seemed to burn brightly against her skin. It was her, wasn’t it?

Unable to breathe at the sudden realization that it couldn’t be anyone else but her, I couldn’t stop myself from yelling out, “No! Stop it!”

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To reiterate for those who don't know:

Book 1 of the Rosewood Trilogy - Alpha, Do I Know You

https://www.dreame.com/novel/1964802.html

Book 2 of the Rosewood Trilogy - Chasing After Ashes

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