~ Chapter Nineteen ~

**Dimitri Stone**
I punched harder and harder and harder, and then so hard that the chain broke, and my punching bag flew across the room, making the walls shake as it collided with them. It fell to the floor in a racket, the chains clinking together and against the metal piece of gym equipment that lay there. A light layer of dust fell from the ceiling above me, where the chains had been ripped out of their metal hooks. I sighed heavily, sitting down, pulling at the wrap around my knuckles.

The door opened in a rush. "What's going on?"

I looked across at Dylan, worried, standing in the doorway. He glanced at the punching bag across the room, at me, and then slowly straightened himself up. The expression faded, though I had already seen it. I'd been seeing it a lot lately from everyone in the pack. For at least the last fifteen days, that was. It didn't help that my reaction was always to look down at my lap as if something really were wrong, which I was convinced it wasn't.

"You should be elsewhere, Dylan," I said, unwrapping my fists. I couldn't look at him and see that face again when I spoke; I never sounded quite as authoritative as I used to.

"You should be mated by now," I heard him grumble.

"Don't be a dick, man."

"A dick?" he scoffed and stormed into the room, toward the punching bag. "Look what you've done to this thing. It was chained into the ceiling, Dima. Not everyone can punch a punching bag off of the ceiling. Hell, normally you couldn't, but you're so fucking wound up because you're busy making the worst mistake of your life-"

"It's been two weeks," I interrupted. "Has she come back? No. Do you think she misses you or Jess or Xanthe or the pack... or me? No." I stood and faced him, daring to meet the sadness forming in his eyes. "If I thought she missed us, Dylan, then maybe I would be acting differently, trying to find her and get her back, but I know she doesn't miss us. She doesn't feel anything for us. She's happy where she is."

Dylan gulped. "But you're miserable here."

"That's none of her business."

"It's mine. My business, Dima, because you're my best friend and I cannot sit here and watch you suffer. Look, this is going to be way out of line, but you could hardly respect her and her wishes when she was here, so why not do it again and go find her?"

I glared at him. "Way out of line."

"I did say." He rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it. I bet you think about bringing her back here every single fucking day."

I didn't reply.

"All we have to do is call Gina and she'd give us the location, Dima. That's all you would have to do. Then you could see her again, convince her to come back. Don't you think she would want to come back after she's discovered the truth?"

"You're talking like she lived here for years," I growled, as I threw one wrap into the trash can by the door. "She was here for a couple of days and the best time she had was probably getting in that car to leave with Gina."

"You're dodging the question. If she knew the truth, do you not think she would come back?"

"She doesn't know the truth and won't."

Dylan flung his hands into the air in frustration, blowing out of his mouth. He heaved the punching bag from the floor and placed it on one of the gym machines, causing the metal to creak and the legs to scrape against the floor. I'd pulled off about half of my other wrap already, but I wished I hadn't. I didn't feel like I was done punching things.

"I'm going for a run," I decided.

"Yeah, okay, man. Whatever." He couldn't even look at me in the face, which I expected. The disappointment was in his voice; I didn't need to see it in his eyes, or the sorrow mixed with it. I left him in the gym with the broken punching bag, throwing my second wrap into the trash on the way out. I passed a couple of my warriors in the kitchen, but didn't ackowledge any of them except for Jessica. She caught my eye and smiled, barely, in a way that just didn't suit her.

*Stop with the pity*, I ordered, and she just looked away. I continued out of the house, through all of the buildings on my pack grounds, and into the mountains. At first, the lower members of my pack had watched me as I walked, still in the midst of rumours about why their Luna had left them and me, but by now, they had run out of ideas and all they could think to do was get out of my way - which I wasn't going to argue with. I had been asked only once why I went the way that I did, since most people didn't know about the flower bed over the hill; I told the young warrior to do some push ups and never to question his alpha again.

The flower bed over the hill, with the pond and the trees and the multi-coloured plants littering the floor, was just about the only place I could be honest with myself about my feelings. Or at least my regret. I regretted not getting over myself to make it work with Erika; I regretted the way I treated the thing that was supposed to be the most important part of my life; I regretted letting her leave, and daring to watch her as she got into Gina's car avoiding all eye contact with the pack. That was the one I regretted most of all, watching her leave. It opened up a hole inside of me that I was simply not prepared for and as time went on, it was only growing bigger, stronger, more crippling. But what could I do about that, when Erika was obviously happy with Gina at the village? Miss Morone had had the decency to at least call me once, telling me that she had found a place for Erika. She said she thought Erika was happy, but she couldn't be sure as they didn't talk much. I hoped that, whatever Alpha controlled her now, she wasn't stuck in the same controlling loop she could have been in here, or in the same brainwashing environment of Roger. I trusted Gina - someone I knew had helped so many people before - to find her a good home. I needed to have faith in that, because otherwise, I might as well have just been empty inside.

***Alpha, we have a problem***

My mind became alert for the first time, as I sat next to the glistening pond under the dying sun, that there was an air of urgency surging through the pack mind-link.

*What is it?* I asked Jessica in particular.

*Rogues.*

I gulped.

*What's the action, Alpha? They're hostile.*

*If they are hostile then there is nothing we can do. I'm on my way, keep them busy and give me your location.*

I sensed where Jessica was before she even gave me directions. The wind carried her scent easily, blanketing it across the entire pack grounds. I stayed human, jogging ahead of most of the warriors stood on edge outside. Xanthe rushed to keep pace with me in silence, holding out a backpack that I didn't take. I wasn't planning on shifting, because my body was hardly under control whilst human; I didn't want to know what would happen if my wolf was able to take the reins. We reached the rogues in the clearing very quickly, facing off against my pack warriors, but not attacking them. All but one were wolves, pacing, growling, snapping at us. It was something I had seen before.

*I've been hearing about these for a while now, Alpha,* Jessica told me, circling our warriors to stand nearby. I glanced down at her in interest. *They've been terrorising the entire area, I was just wondering when they would come to find us.*

*Terrorising how?* I questioned.

*They want more wolves to become rogues and they think the way to do that is by attacking packs and collecting the warriors who don't feel at home there.* If Jess was human, she would be rolling her eyes.

I subtly cracked my knuckles and crept forward, closer to the human rogue watching us very carefully. *Let's see if we can get them to leave peacefully first, Jess. We'll fight them if it doesn't work out.*

*Pussy,* she muttered into the link, then laughed at herself. Her mood quickly soured, though, when she glanced at my face. *Sorry, Alpha, not the right time for jokes.*

*Let's just get these guys packing.*

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