An Alpha's Duty

Chapter 45

Silence followed Lenah's words as everyone looked at her in shock.

"What do you mean? How can you know that?" Ryan's father looked at her in astonishment and a bit of mistrust.

Although Ryan could understand why his father would doubt Lenah's words, his wolf was still restless at the mistrust in his eyes. After everything Lenah had done for them, she at least deserved their trust.

"I looked in to their minds. I saw it all." Lenah gave an involuntary shiver at the images she'd seen in their minds.

Akari and Ajax gasped as they looked at her in shock and wonder.

"Minds? As in plural? Just how many minds did you enter?" Everyone turned back to Lenah who looked weary.

"All of them." Came her whispered reply.

Akari and Ajax sat back stunned. Sympathetic looks on their faces at the realisation of what she'd put herself through.

"You were connected to all of them? You must have felt and saw everything they had." Akari looked on as Lenah flinched under her words, her expression becoming guarded.

"Would one of you care to explain what you're talking about?" Ryan's father demanded starting to get aggravated at being kept in the dark.

Lenah's lips thinned as her hand gripped harder onto Ryan's. It was clear to Akari and Ryan that Lenah was deeply uncomfortable talking about her powers so Akari took it upon herself to explain.

"Magic of the mind is complicated and dangerous. Only the most powerful can even master it, let alone use it in the same way Lenah does against enemies. When she goes into their mind, she has access to anything she wants to see, but when you're connected like that, you feel everything they do. When she showed them their deepest nightmares, she would have felt all their fear, all their regret. And when they died...she would have felt every agonising moment. Magic is about balance, with the most powerful spells, comes the most pain, that's the trade for using them."

Lenah buried her head into Ryan's chest, not wanting to see their looks of sympathy or worse their fear of her. They'd all seen her use her mind power before, but this was the first time they'd understood what that meant.

Hearing Akari talk about what she'd done, brought back the things she'd seen. She'd been in the minds of true monsters before but only ever one at a time. To be in the minds of so many men who'd committed such horrific acts had almost destroyed her.

"So what did you see that makes you think they're working with the council?" Ryan's father asked, his distrust all but gone as he realised just what Lenah had endured to protect the pack.

Lenah pulled her head away from Ryan, although she still held on to his hand like a vice, whilst she thought about what she'd seen. Not all the wolves knew who they were working with, but the most senior ones present had known.

"I saw a meeting of Alphas and their Seconds joined by two strangers, other wolves if I had to guess. I didn't know their faces, but they wore the council's insignia. They didn't just help with the attack; they planned it. It was the council's idea for the packs to join forces, for them to attack at night, and to target me and Elaina. They knew the pack would fall if they could get to me." Everyone absorbed the truth in her words.

It was the sure way to destroy an Alpha by targeting the one thing he holds which is more precious than his pack, his mate. A normal wolf would be driven to rage if his mate was killed but for Ryan it would be far worse.

Losing a true mate was unthinkable. One could not survive without the other. Ryan's wolf would be driven insane without Lenah; death would not wait long before he reunited the two lovers in the next life.