Alpha Athena

chapter VIII - the search

-Athena's POV-

Reyna insisted that she should go instead of me, to escort Lyca and her mate to Adrian's pack, the Midnight Crescent Pack.

"Avoiding the Alpha of that pack, who is your mate doesn't make you weak, Athena." She told me as if she had already read my mind.She held both of my shoulders and looked intently into my eyes, her gaze strong enough that I, myself, was proud to call her my beta.

"It makes you wise enough to understand that protecting the pack is much more important than facing your mate. I can't risk losing my Alpha just because of some mate pull." She shook her head.

Every passing day, Reyna never fails to amaze me how she has grown to be a woman, without any parents or guardians but with just us, sisters in this pack, learning the ways of the werewolf world. Sometimes she can be an annoying sister, but right now she was acting like a matured adult.

Out of all the women in this pack, she knew how the mate pull was a double-edged sword. It can either destroy or build a person. And I trust her words, knowing for a fact that she has also experienced it when she met her mate.

When she turned eighteen years old, she wanted to have fun just for one day on her birthday. She didn't expect she would meet her mate in a club full of sweaty people, dancing and grinding with each other. Unfortunately, she found him in the club, not in the romantic kind of way on how Lyca would described it.

It was more of a demanding and hungry forceful act is what she had told me. But being a teenager with all those raging hormones and the curiosity, her mind was clouded. She was in love with the idea of having a mate, but was not in love with the person. So she asked for my permission to leave the pack, she was head over heels with her destructive mate. I told her that this pack would always be her home and she's always welcome to come home.

Six months later she came home with bloodshot eyes. She confessed to me how her mate was practicing polygamy and although she was the one true mate, she was told she was not enough for him. She becamed depressed and abused, being forced to make love with him, although there was no love or even affection in the process. It was all just for the satisfaction of the flesh, for the satisfaction of his wolf.

So one day, when her mate was away with some woman, she secretly melted a silver collar and formed it into a knife. When the time came that she was forced on bed, she pierced her mate's heart with it, instantly killing him, spilling the blood on the silky white sheets she used to cry on.

"It was like the whole world has been lifted off my shoulders, like a thorn being pulled out from my heart, and I felt relieved." She had said to me.

That night, her story even added up to my hatred with men. I trusted her with my whole life and I'm trusting her advise to me, that I should stay here instead.

But I was wrong.

It happened when I was in the middle of doing border patrol with the others, when a piercing scream erupted in my mind. No, it did not came from the packhouse nor from anywhere near our grounds. It was through our mindlink. She was screaming for help. Reyna was in danger.

I shouted an order to Arya, a red-headed slender woman, the replacement of Lyca, to be in charge of the pack for now while I find out what's going on with Reyna. I tried to mindlink Reyna but there was no reply, either she was unconscious or something was blocking her from communicating with me. And the only thing that could block me from her was a silver collar and nothing else.

Anger welled up in my chest. I feel my whole body shaking with rage, my hands balling into a fist. My head was pounding of the thought that she might have been hurt. I knew that Reyna was strong, not just physically but mentally, but the idea of losing a sister..