Moon Bound

(43) Wolf In Sheep's Clothing |Regan's POV|

I wanted to go after her and tell her to take it back—take me back, but all I could do was stare at her as her frame disappeared from sight.

The pack held breath. The words were still there—spoken in an instant but lingering minutes after the sound of them faded.

'It's never going to work.'

It felt like the most brutal slap on the face I'd ever received. Father had used his hands on me while I was growing up, yet those words hurt more than any blow I'd received from him. I had to shake myself to come back to the here and now. The pack was watching, waiting for my command. They needed me—she didn't. She left me alone with my angry wolves. It was how much I meant to her.

I swallowed the bitterness and turned on the alpha mode. Soon after, a dozen men left to escort the women and children to their homes while the rest of them stayed. They kept their snarls quiet as they worked by my side to extinguish the fire.

They were no doubt going to talk about it later. Whisper. It was always the whispers that changed the final outcome—the whispers that turned into shouting and transformed a simple grievance into rebellion.

Hours later, all that was left of my suit was a dirty fabric covered in a layer of gray ash and pieces of debris. With the work finished, the men were starting to disperse. Groups of them left the accident scene to go home to their families and have a few hours of rest. They needed it. I needed it too after this hell of a night, but I couldn't leave yet.

I gave Hayden a sign and a moment later the man came to stand in front of me. "Did the men find anything we can use to track the attackers?"

"Nothing but a dozen broken bottles. They used the classic method," he informed me, holding up his hand to show me the piece of broken glass in his palm.

"Aside from this, there are no other clues. However, with the way the attack was executed, I can only conclude they had someone helping them from inside or it was an internal work on its own."

I shook my head. Both options he was presenting to me were equally disturbing. One implied there was a traitor inside the pack, the other suggested it was the pack that was behind this.

"It's very suspicious, Alpha," Hayden added, mistaking my gesture for doubt. "They must have known the exact layout of the place if not our arrangements for the party, besides, they had a very accurate timing in launching this attack."

It was all true. The timing. The accuracy. The fact that whoever did it barely left any imprint behind. "So what about the patrols? Didn't they detect any unusual activities?" I went on asking.

"Nothing," he said simply.

I exhaled a frustrated sigh. There was nothing I could do without leads to follow, nothing but wait. "I want you to double the security. No blind spots. And I want you to assign men to screen every delivery coming in and going out of the city and I expect daily updates on the situation. The moment something odd or suspicious is detected, you let me know. Understood?"

He nodded. "I'm on it."

Several minutes later, I was back into the packhouse. I stood in front of the room she was in and couldn't bring my hand to touch the door handle. We needed to talk. We needed to have a good, long conversation about where we stood and what we were going to do—to be, yet I couldn't even stomach the thought.

What if I faced her only to be rejected again? What if the next time I spoke to her was the last time?

I spun around and started toward one of the empty rooms on the floor. I needed a shower so badly my skin was starting to itch.