~ Chapter Twenty ~

**Erika Keller**
Heidi sat closely next to me, staring at my face intently as I worked. She liked to swing her legs, to twist her hair in her fingers, to tilt her head when she didn't understand and to giggle when she thought about how silly she was, thinking she could ever understand adult stuff. Jason had warned me that she wasn't quite *there*, that she was very young, despite being thirteen, after everything that had happened to her and the rest of the young group. Her way of handling it had been to revert to a younger time, when things were better, and she still hadn't quite reached a point where she was out of that phase, back to herself. When I placed yet another file onto the rejected pile, she pouted and frowned. "Are they not good enough either?"

I tried to smile at her, but I was hungry and tired and very confused about how Gina did this all day, along with managing an entire village in the background. "No, it's not that they aren't good enough, Heidi." I sighed dramatically to make her smile. "It is a big ask to take on six new pack members, especially all teenagers with no parents," I explained, "but I'll find you somewhere."

"Will we have to split up?" She sounded upset.

"No, not if I can help it."

"But what if we have to?"

"You won't," I promised, and regretted it in an instant. Heidi looked too happy, too pleased by my unkeepable promise. What was I supposed to do if I couldn't find a pack willing to take on six unrelated teenagers with no parents and traumas so deep some of them could hardly eat? It was a big ask even if the six of them were self-sufficient, well-rounded kids, but with their conditions, I was basically asking somebody to become a full-time parent to them. Even Jason, the eldest, who had tried to come around to liking us over the past week or so, had some deep-rooted issues that he refused to open up about.

***New recruitment mission; meet Gina downstairs***

"Heidi," I said softly, "I've got to head out for a little while. Can you go and find Jason?"

"He's outside," she chirped, hopping down from the desk. "I'll go ask him to play tag!"

"Okay, make sure you're careful."

"Okay!" Heidi ran away, out of my bedroom. I quickly followed her, but turned into the kitchen instead of heading through the front door, and I met Gina, Leanne, and Henry and Simon, who were all stood over a map and a phone at the island. Gina appeared hesitant, Leanne antsy, and Henry and Simon were stood back, nerves seeping out of their bodies. I could tell that something was a little wrong even without being told.

"Thank you, Miss, we will head there immediately," Gina spoke to the phone, and the person on the other side hung up. She clicked off the screen, glancing up at me. "Keller, good you're hear. Listen, I need to talk to you about this mission. It isn't... as simple as most, but it's only complicated for you. If you decide you don't want to go, you don't have to."

I frowned. "How is it complicated for me?"

"I just got off the phone with a rogue wolf; she's given us the details of an attack that's going to occur tomorrow. We want to - as usual - find as many rogues as possible to bring in and give a new beginning, excluding the leader of it all. But here's the thing, Erika..." She trailed off, pressing her lips togeher. Her pretty blue eyes suddenly flashed up at me. "The rogues are going to be attacking Alpha Stone's pack."

I gulped, unable to say anything.

"Is that going to be an issue?"

"N-no," I lied.

Henry gave me a look over Gina's shoulder.

"I haven't felt anything since I left, so I think the rejection worked. There's nothing to worry about. If I go back, I will be completely professional and I'll work as hard as I can to bring back some good people who just got dealt a bad hand." I was rambling, but I didn't know what else to do. It was true that I hadn't missed Dimitri or his pack since I left, but I also hadn't seen him; I didn't know if the rejection really had taken affect. I was confident enough that I was willing to go back, but cautious enough that I was hesitant to do so. Besides, in the back of my mind, I could see the stares from the warriors vividly, their shocked faces taking in the fact that their Luna really was leaving. Because I really had left, and I hadn't felt the need to go back once.

"Everything will be fine," I said certainly, my voice rigid with confidence.

Gina raised her brows. "You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then I'll give you the same briefing I've given everyone else: the leader of this group is manic and a little bit, well, *hell-bent* on a similar aim we have. He's one of the rogues who discredit everything we say and make us look awful, and he's botched our missions plenty of times before. We're hoping this time to get rid of him for good. However" - she caught my stare intensely in her own - "we *cannot* attack him unless we are given a very good reason, do you understand? He is untouchable unless absolutely necessary - and be warned, he likes to provoke."

I nodded. "I'll stand back with everyone else."

"That's good. Now, as you know, we're going to have a little bit of a journey to get over there. If we head out now, we should be able to make it before they attack. Intercepting them is ideal, of course, but not necessary. We will manage... Alpha Stone and his pack if they have already found the group." She paused. "Are you certain about this, Erika?"

"Of course. If I was meant to be with him, something would have drawn me back there by now," I explained confidently. "We have a long journey, we should head out."

Gina nodded. "Yes, we should. Leanne?"

*Move it, people! Into the cars!*

/////

Perhaps eating before a car ride that lasted hours was a good idea, but not one I thought of. I felt close to faint by the time Gina and the warriors pulled the cars into a stop at the edge of the trees. We didn't know how long we had between now and the time of the attack - or if it had already started - and Gina was too stressed and busy to be bothered by something so inconsequential. I was fairly certain that as long as I didn't shift, I wouldn't actually faint; I'd promised to stay back anyway, not to fight unless necessary, so I should have remained comfortably in my human skin.

Gina spent a couple of minutes conferring with Leanne and a phone, before she turned to us. "We have located the rogues; they have already attacked, but aren't in the midst of battle. Alpha Stone and his pack have been trying to reason with them, to remove them from their grounds. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be working out very well for them. When we step in, we're going to have to work fast to console both sides. We're in the middle of a battlefield today."

"What happens if a fight breaks out?" asked a young warrior I didn't know.

"Then we will take Alpha Stone's side. At the end of the day, no matter how much we try to help these rogues, if they attack a pack, an alpha has every right to retaliate, and it's our duty to help protect all wolves who have kindess in their hearts." Gina reached out in a moment of silent affection to squeeze my hand, then nodded toward the trees. "Leanne will lead us as a wolf. Follow her into the clearing and keep vigilant. Our contact is not the only one hidden from the clearing."

"Understood," the warriors - including myself - said at the same time. I fell into step behind Henry and Simon, who followed Gina very closely. Leanne's huge, strong wolf led us swiftly, at a crisp jog that was starting to get easier for me with my training at the village. I noticed that Kelsey was near me, but trying to stick close to the back of the group. The trees barely thickened before they thinned out into nothing, revealing a large clearing ahead of us filled with wolves on either side, a split in between them as if Moses had parted the fur sea. There was only one wolf who was human on the right, a middle-aged man with an angry face, wrinkled and torn apart by years of apparent frowning. He definitely seemed like the type of man to find himself on the radical end of a lot of spectrums; on the other side, however, there were more humans, including one tall, brown-eyed, light-haired, shirtless *god* of a man. I dared to look at him, which was my very first mistake, and then I dared to keep looking, even when I didn't have to anymore, when I and the rest of the village rogues were plainly visible to both parties.

And I kept looking even when he glanced in our direction, unintentionally meeting my eyes.

A sharp feeling of guilt, regret, horror and anxiety stabbed my gut, aggressively prodding at my head, where my wolf was screaming out in a mixture of agony and relief. I felt guilt for leaving; I felt regret for staring at him; I felt anxiety about what I was going to do about the pained wolf; and I felt horror at the realisation that crushed my shoulders with pressure.

Alpha Stone had rejected me and I had rejected him, but the Moon Goddess was not done with us yet. She had more in store, just like everybody said, like they thought even if they didn't have the guts to say it aloud; I could not escape it now that I felt every bit of relief from when I'd seen him alive in the garden that night rushing back, glad that he was okay and here now. I was overwhelmingly happy just to see his face.

Because he, Alpha Dimitri Stone, was still my mate.

**Follow my Twitter :) @GracieMackinto1**