Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

ORION

M y hands shook as I paced the office, staring out the window at the sun that was low on the horizon. It had been three weeks since we'd lost Zane's trail, and none of our contacts on the outside had heard a single whisper of an Alpha being taken.

When Kor went missing, everyone had known. It was an open secret that the humans had started a new, quiet attack on our people, but no one was brave enough to acknowledge it. Now, with Zane gone, there wasn't a single mention of it, in any of the channels we were currently maintaining on the outside.

I glanced over my shoulder at Talia, who was sitting at the table staring at a tablet. Her mouth was drawn in a line, her eyes darting back and forth, occasionally flashing yellow as she deciphered the code there, but I knew she wasn't going to find anything.

No one was.

We had one option—the one Zane probably would have sacrificed himself to avoid. Danyal was on his way with the latest test results, and then Kor would be forced to make a decision about the Beta he would send out.

A small part of me still wanted to put up a fight, to remind them that playing with human weapons made us just as bad as they were, but I couldn't, because it was between this or acknowledging the fact that Zane wasn't coming back to us. And that wasn't something I was willing to accept.

We didn't have much to go on, though, which meant the mission would be more complicated than just hoping Danyal's serum worked. We had a single contact in DC who was willing to put herself at risk to help our Beta spy steal the information from ComTech, and assuming we could get over the border and get the Wolf in the doors, we'd have one shot. It would take two days to drive there—and then a handful of hours of masquerading with orange eyes to cross the border into human territory. And after that, we'd need to get to Zane before the humans realized what we'd taken and either moved him or killed him.

It was a long-shot. Hell, it was goddamn impossible. And it was our only option now.

"Anything?" I chanced.

Talia looked up at me, and I could see the fatigue and fear in her eyes. Her hands curled into fists, and I could hear the tremble in her breath as she shook her head. "Nothing. I didn't think," she started, but her voice broke. "He's still alive, I can feel him, but…"

But that meant very little. I could feel Kor when he was in that lab, but the bond had faded over the time and distance, and the same would happen with her brother. "Danyal seems confident we can do this," I offered, my voice more gruff than I wanted it to be. I hated giving anything away, but I had no choice.

I was tired of this—tired of constantly being at war. Constantly fighting to save the ones I cared about.

"Do you know who he wants to send?" she asked, pushing to her feet. She walked to my side, her gaze following mine to the line of trees. "I mean, who the hell can we even trust right now?"

I desperately wished I had an answer for her, but I didn't think we could trust anyone. At least, no one outside of our inner circle. Kor hadn't been able to reach Keith, and two Betas were reported missing not long after we got back. But there was no way to tell if the humans had taken them too, or if they were planted in Kor's inner circle to slowly strip us down to nothing.

I wanted to shut the whole thing down until I could be sure of everyone's loyalty, but I knew that was impossible. And Kor didn't hesitate to point out that if we treated everyone we hadn't bonded with like they were a spy, our mission was going to fail before it even began.

And our people would never come home.

Zane would never come home.

"I'm trusting Kor's judgment," I said after a beat.

Her eyes locked on mine, shining with fear, power, and anger. I felt an urge, deep in my gut, to tilt my head and submit to her, but she wasn't my Alpha. At least, not in this situation. She relaxed after a moment, then let out a breath and bowed her head.

"I know I should. And I do," she added. "But I worry he's not seeing things clearly."

I couldn't help my slight wince, though Kor had been adamant that we stop flinching around the word ‘see' every time it involved him. Talia caught it though, and her eyes narrowed.

"You know what I mean."

"I do," I told her, and she knew better than me, having been married to a blind man for years. "It's a bad habit I'm trying to kill."

"This has nothing to do with his sight anyway," she snapped, stepping away from the window.

"You mean Misha," I said very quietly.

She sucked in a breath, then her shoulders sagged, and she nodded, though she looked apologetic. "Cameron wants me to trust him, but my husband doesn't always think clearly when it comes to injured people. It's more than just his Omega nature—he's always had a soft spot for anything weak and helpless."

At that, I couldn't stop the smallest snort. "Misha's far from weak or helpless."

She stared at me a long moment, like she was trying to read me. "You trust him?"

"I trust him."

Silence fell, and then she took a step closer. "But?"

My throat ached with need to hold back the words, but it was damn-near impossible to resist her when her eyes flared bright. "But I don't trust what was done to him. I think Danyal is too desperate to find the solution to our problems in Misha's blood. I don't know that fighting fire with fire this way is going to do anything except destroy us."

"You think that's what the humans want?" she asked.

I almost laughed. "No. I don't think the humans are clever enough to set something like that in motion. I think that anyone trying to play a god with our nature is going to be culled by their own arrogance."

"Danyal isn't," she started, then she bit her lip and shook her head. "You know, I don't know anymore. Everything was so simple during the war. We fought—and we either lived or we died. And it was supposed to end with either a treaty or a surrender. But it just got worse. I don't want my daughter to grow up like this."

The pain in her voice made me want to reach for her, but I didn't think she'd appreciate it right then. Talia was more nurturing than most Alphas, but it was in her nature to avoid shows of weakness.

"Neither do I." I hesitated as I felt a wave of courage I didn't think I'd have, for words I wasn't sure I wanted to say. "Which is why I'm going to volunteer myself." I had quietly whispered those things to myself in in the dead of night—words I hadn't been brave enough to offer Kor or the other members of the Council. But I couldn't deny them now that I was facing Zane's sister. I met her startled gaze, and I spoke before she could argue with me. "I can't trust Zane's rescue to anyone else."

She swallowed thickly. "Are you in love with him."

No . The word rose quickly to the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't force it out. I wasn't in love with him, but I couldn't deny that I felt something every time he was around me. It had been easier to ignore when we were fighting, when we were trying to survive, and when we were trying to rebuild this city so we could gain a foothold against our enemies. But the thin distance between us had been harder to maintain when we were working together to find Kor, and it had only gotten worse since we'd settled in Corland. I knew better than anyone an Alpha like Zane would never want me. If he did settle down, it would be with an Omega who could balance him far better than I ever could.

But with this vulnerable moment hanging here between me and his sister—I couldn't lie and tell her I felt nothing.

"I don't know what I feel, and it won't do him any good for me to think about it right now," I admitted to her. "But I do know that it needs to be me. That with my experience and training, I'm the best option."

She squared her shoulders and gave me a sharp nod. "I've got your back. I know if anyone can bring him home, Orion, it's you."

It took three full days and a run with the moon to convince Kor to let me take on the mission of retrieving Zane. Everyone but my Alpha was behind me, but Kor held out through the Council meetings, through dinners, through Misha shouting at him to get his head out of his ass.

Eventually, I told him I'd be waiting for him just outside the city, and I was unsurprised that he showed up early with determination on his face. He said nothing as he stripped out of his clothes, and he turned his face up toward the sky, taking a deep breath before his body began to ripple with the change.

I followed just after, my paws hitting the ground seconds after his own did, and he turned to face me. He was just as blind in his wolf form—the yellow flash in his eyes still mostly swallowed by the endless black of his pupils. His nostrils flared, and I could feel the pulse of his uncertainty in the bond.

We didn't do this often. He normally shifted with Misha there to guide him, but I'd felt the absence of this pack bonding because he was my Alpha. I needed this connection. I took a step back as he hesitantly explored the area around him—his dark head down, his almost-black fur ruffled in the breeze. He was as massive as he'd ever been, even crouched low to the ground.

He scented me almost immediately, and it only took a moment for him to make his way over. As his nose touched the side of my neck, I let out a whine and bared it to him. There was no fear, no hesitation—nothing but absolute loyalty coursing through my veins as he opened his jaw and clamped down on me.

It was a message, a promise. He would never hurt me, and he was only trying to protect me.

It was easier in this form to understand why he was fighting me. Emotions were far simpler to process, and it became clear: he understood what these humans were capable of, and he was not willing to risk it when it came to the people he loved.

But we had so little choice, and that was what I needed him to understand.

I sent a pulse through the bond, and he let out a small huff before turning away. He moved slowly, with precision. He'd never race, reckless and uninhibited, through the trees again—not the way we once had—and it caused a spike of grief inside me. But it was easy to push aside as I caught up with him, and the faster I moved, the more he kept up.

Soon enough, we were making our way across the wide expanse of the meadow—the moon fat and full overhead. There were other Wolves nearby, none of them brave enough to approach their Alpha and his Second, and I was grateful for it. I was also grateful to feel them nearby. Our numbers were small, but they were growing, and I could feel the power stretching across the divide.

It was in moments like this I could convince myself we were invincible. I felt like the battle we were fighting was not destined to end in pain or death.

Kor and I made our way to the ridge overlooking the forest below. Miles and miles off was the nearest human city—a small, uncomplicated little town that had no idea what we were building. I turned my head to look at Kor, who sat perched with his head up and his eyes closed. I wanted to know how he felt now, about our mission, about what we might have to sacrifice in order to taste victory, but the moment was too fragile to disturb.

We sat there until the moon began to fade against the growing dawn, and I felt him start to shift before I was ready to take my other form. A hand fell on my neck not long after, the fingers warm as they trailed over my coat and over my muzzle, stopping around the front of my throat.

He held me there for a long while, and then I heard him take a breath. He started to speak, but I could really only process his tone. I could tell he needed this, though, so I sat still, a pair of ears to hear him without a tongue to argue back. It was the least I could do.

I shifted so my weight pressed against his thigh, and he began to gently stroke my fur. I wondered if Misha did this for him—if other mates and other spouses did this. I'd had plenty of sex, but I'd never been intimate with another person, and I was starting to feel the absence of it now, almost like a gaping wound.

With a huff, I waited until Kor's words died off and his hand fell away, and then I allowed my body to reform. I was a little stiff and a little sore, but I stretched out on my back, naked, with my arms behind my head, my face pointed up at the rising dawn.

"I'm going to let you go," he said, his voice gruff.

My heart did something complicated at the thought of being able to bring Zane home, and I knew Kor could feel it in the pack bond. "I won't fail."

"You might," he said. He turned his face toward mine. "You might fail. You might be captured and tortured. You might be killed. Or worse. I'm not going to let you walk into this mission thinking nothing can go wrong."

I swallowed thickly and sat up, pulling one leg toward my chest. "I have never entered any battle thinking there would be anything after it. But it's Zane, and I can't go in believing I'm not coming out alive, either."

"I know," he said. His head bowed toward the ground, and I saw his chest rising and falling. "I'm shit-scared, Orion. If I lose you," he stopped abruptly and when I heard his heart start to thrash, I reached up with claws and sank them into the back of his neck. It only took him a moment to calm, and his gratitude pulsed between us. "I can't lose you."

"I will do everything in my power to come back. Even if I'm missing a few pieces," I added to show him I wasn't afraid of the consequences, so long as I was still breathing. "I'm not ready to give up yet. Not before we see the end of this."

He reached around and curled his fingers around my wrist, squeezing gently. "Danyal will be waiting for you later this afternoon. Get some sleep, because from what he's told me so far, the change is going to hurt."