Chapter 287
FAYE
No one really went back to sleep after the bell.
+26 Point
The pack house stayed awake in that strange, restless way that comes after a disturbance–too quiet to be normal, too alert for rest. Even when people returned to their rooms, the tension lingered in the halls, in the way doors didn’t quite close softly, in the muted footsteps that kept moving long after they should have stopped.
I changed quickly and made my way downstairs, wrapping a cardigan around myself as I went. The sitting room lights were on. Alexander and Cole were there, seated across from each other, low
voices filling the space between them. Neither of them looked tired. Concern had a way of cutting
through exhaustion, especially in men like them.
I headed straight for the small kitchenette off the sitting room and started making coffee.
It was automatic–muscle memory more than thought. When things felt uncertain, I needed my hands busy. The machine hummed softly, the smell of brewed coffee slowly cutting through the heaviness in the air. I poured two mugs, added nothing to Alexander’s, just a little cream to Cole’s, the way he preferred, even though he pretended he didn’t care.
When I carried them over, both of them looked up at the same time.
“Here,” I said quietly, handing one to Alexander first, then Cole.
They both thanked me, almost in unison.
Alexander wrapped his hands around the mug immediately, taking a small sip as if he hadn’t realized how cold he was until then. Cole did the same, leaning back slightly, exhaling as the
warmth settled.
I stayed standing for a moment, watching them talk–really talk. Not strategizing, not commanding. Just exchanging thoughts, concerns, possibilities in that shorthand they’d developed over years of working together.
The quiet hum of conversation was oddly comforting.
Then footsteps approached.
Kyle entered the sitting room, his posture straight, his expression calm–the look of someone who had done their job thoroughly but knew the results might still be unsatisfying.
Alexander set his mug down immediately. “Report.”
Kyle nodded once. “We combed the border thoroughly again. No signs of a breach. No foreign patrol marks. We found traces of blood leading up to where the man was discovered–likely his.
Chapter 287
But there were no clear footprints. Whatever happened didn’t happen there.”
“No tracks at all?” Cole asked.
+25 Poms
Kyle shook his head. “Nothing consistent. The ground was disturbed, but not in a way that tells a clear story. It’s like he was… placed there.”
The word settled heavily in the room.
Alexander’s jaw tightened. “So he didn’t walk there on his own.”
“I can’t say for sure, Alpha, Kyle said. “At least, not yet.”
Silence followed.
I watched Alexander’s face closely. I’d learned to read him over time, to notice the subtle shifts that came before decisions. His eyes had gone distant, focused inward.
“Run another sweep,” Alexander said finally. “Wider this time. I want everything documented. Stay alert, and double the guards in that area.”
Kyle inclined his head. “Understood.”
He turned to leave.
“Wait, Alexander added.
Kyle paused.
Alexander stood. “I’m coming with you.”
I glanced at him.
“I need to see it for myself,” Alexander said, his tone calm but firm. “I can’t sit here waiting on secondhand impressions.”
I didn’t hesitate.
“I’m coming too.”
All three of them turned to look at me.
Alexander opened his mouth–clearly to object–but I was already moving. I picked up my cardigan and walked past him toward the door.
Behind me, I heard a soft huff of breath that might have been irritation or resignation. Probably
both.
“Cole,” Alexander said after a beat, “stay here. Keep an eye on things. If you hear anything from the clinic–anything at all–you call me immediately.”
Cole hesitated, then nodded. “I will.”
25 Pauntz
Outside, the night air was cold and sharp, the kind that woke you fully whether you wanted it to or not. The moon hung low, pale against the dark sky, casting silver shadows over the grounds. Kyle waited near the patrol vehicle, already alert again, as if the report had reset his focus instead of draining it.
Alexander joined me moments later, pulling on his jacket as he walked.
“You didn’t even wait for an argument,” he said quietly.
I glanced at him. “You were going to lose it anyway
That earned me the faintest curve of a smile. It didn’t last.
As we drove toward the border, the forest closed in around us, dark and watchful. The silence inside the vehicle was thick, but not uncomfortable,
We arrived at the border not long after. The patrol lights illuminated the ground in harsh white beams, revealing disturbed soil, faint dark stains where blood had soaked into the earth.
I stepped out and immediately felt it–the quiet wrongness of the place. The forest here felt… muted, as if it had absorbed something unpleasant and hadn’t quite settled yet.
Alexander crouched near one of the darker patches.
“This blood trail,” he murmured. “It starts here. But there’s nothing before it.”
Kyle scanned the treeline. “No scent markers either. At least none we could pick up.”
I closed my eyes briefly, reaching outward–not with power, not deliberately. Just listening. Feeling.
There was nothing clear. No echo. No pull.
Which, in itself, felt strange.
“Maybe he was brought here,” I said softly. “Carried, maybe. Or dragged.”
“By someone who didn’t want to be followed,” Alexander added.
We stood there for a long moment under the moonlight, surrounded by questions that refused to
take shape.
Finally, Alexander straightened. “We go back. There’s nothing more to find tonight.”
Back at the pack house, the lights were still on. Cole met us at the door, his expression
immediately searching.
“Nothing from the clinic yet,” he said before we could ask. “Dr. Adams says he’s stable. Still
unconscious.”
I exhaled slowly, not realizing how tightly I’d been holding my breath.
3/5
Good to know he’s stable,” Alexander said.
+25 Ponte
I didn’t know when sleep claimed me.
One moment I was sitting upright on the couch, spine stiff, fingers wrapped around a mug that had long since gone cold, and the next I was floating–no, being lifted.
The sudden shift jolted me halfway back to consciousness, my lashes fluttering as my body instinctively tensed.
“Alexander?” My voice came out rough, heavy with sleep I hadn’t meant to take.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured.
His arms were solid beneath me, one under my knees, the other firm around my back.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” I insisted, even as my head lolled slightly against his shoulder. “I was just… resting my eyes.”
He huffed softly, the sound brushing warm against my ear. “You were out.”
“I was not.”
“You were,” he said calmly, adjusting his grip when my arm slipped. “And you would’ve stayed there until your neck hated you in the morning.”
“I want to stay,” I argued weakly. “What if something happens? What if someone comes in with news and I miss it?”
He didn’t stop walking. Each step was steady, unhurried, as though the world could wait just a little longer. “Sitting there staring at the walls won’t make time move faster, Faye.”
“I know, but-”
“The man is stable,” he cut in gently. “Still unconscious. Dr. Adams has it handled. If anything changes, Cole will call. You heard me tell him.”
I did. I remembered that much clearly–Cole’s nod, Alexander’s voice, firm and unmistakably final.
Still, anxiety coiled stubbornly in my chest, refusing to be soothed by logic.
“I just feel… weird,” I admitted quietly, my forehead pressing into the line of his collarbone. “Like I should be doing something.”
He opened the bedroom door with a careful nudge of his foot and carried me inside. The room was dim, curtains drawn tight against the night, the low glow from the hallway spilling in just enough to outline familiar shapes. He crossed to the bed and lowered me gently, as though I might
break if he wasn’t careful.
Chapter
“You’ve been doing something,” he said. “All night.”
I sat up slightly as soon as he released me. “That doesn’t feel like enough.”
238.25 Paints
He straightened, watching me for a long moment, his expression softening in that way that always got to me. Then he reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from my face.
“You don’t have to overthink everything,” he said quietly.
I laughed under my breath, tired and a little bitter. “Someone should remind my brain of that.”
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