*Book 1* Once In A Blue Moon *Completed*

Chapter 30

I woke up the next morning to a light feeling tracing down my face. I knew from the tingles that it was Alcide. It felt so soothing to have him touch my skin so delicately. I couldn't help the smile that slowly made its way onto my face.

"Good morning beautiful." He whispered, bending down to peck my lips before tracing my skin again. He started at my eyebrows and went down my cheeks, then lightly across my lips making them tingle even more. We just stared into each other eyes for a few minutes, communicating without any words. "Do you have any idea how much I love you?" Alcide asked me softly. There was a warm light in his eyes, it looked so inviting and calm I just wanted to surround myself in his warmth forever.

"Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea." I breathed back, reaching up for his face to kiss him. Sometime later we left our bedroom and made our way downstairs to have breakfast. Towards the end of our cereal bowls I felt the council move towards the pack house.

"Let's hope they're coming over with some good news." Alcide muttered, standing up taking our bowls over to the dishwasher.

"Gents." I casually said, sitting on the sofa in the lounge. I noticed some of their jaws twitch at my lack of formality with them.

"We have some news." Wallis said, all them taking seats around us. "From what our scouts could find there's only ever been one Alpha that lost his pack. This was just over a decade ago, so the timing could be right. Apparently, he ruled his pack with an iron fist, rejected his mate and was a really bad leader. There was an uprising and the Beta fought for dominance and lost so his Alpha killed him. His pack was terrified of him, his rejected mate was still a member of the pack and one by one she helped them all leave. One night he caught some of them leaving and killed them on the spot. He also killed his mate." I sucked in a deep breath. How could someone be so cruel? Alcide tensed next to me and reached for my hand, giving it a squeeze.

"Then what happened?" Alcide asked.

"The pack members that were left, which wasn't many, he forced them to obey him and the ones that didn't he also killed. His pack was too small so he lost his territory. By the time we found out about it we couldn't find him or his pack."

"What was his name?" I asked, squinting my eyes. If Boone really was as bad as they say he is, it could very well be him.

"Bruce." My eyebrows shot up. Bruce, Boone. They both begin with B?

"Do you think it could be him?" Alcide asked, letting out a deep breath.

"Possibly. We can't really find any other information, so really, he could have known about Milly and got his pack to work for him finding out information. There's no other high-ranking wolf that has stood out that it could possibly be." We were all silent for a few minutes.

"You're scouts? Can they go out and look for this Bruce guy?" I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans. This is a start at least.

"They can. We don't have many leads as this was ten years ago." Wallis said, looking down his nose at me. I rolled my eyes.

"Wallis, dear. We have the majority of the packs here. We can ask the Alpha's if anyone joined them from another pack ten years ago and go from there." I replied, looking down my nose at him. His eyes widened slightly in realization.

"Yes. Good. We can do that." He said, coughing awkwardly.

"Right. I'll get on it." Alcide ended the conversation, standing up and pulling me with him. We left the room and went out the back of the pack house. I could feel the humour rolling off of Alcide at Wallis' moment making me giggle.

"You're so clever Milly. That was a beautiful thing to watch." Alcide smirked at me.

"Anytime. Seriously." He chuckled before kissing me on my head.