Chapter Thirty-Five

**Sloan**

“Hi baby, did you miss me?” A gravelly blast from his past crowed in his ear. Sloan stood up quickly, causing his stair to crash to the floor, silencing the chamber.

Sloan felt his wolf take over for a split second, growling his displeasure. He glanced at Declan, who jumped into action, speaking softly to an Acolyte on the control panel.

“What the fuck do you want, Elizabeth?”

“Oh boo… you didn’t miss me? Remember those nights when you had me screaming your name over and over,” She dreamily sighed in his ear. “… and over again, for hours on end.”

“Get to the point!” He snapped, not wanting to go down memory lane with her. She was his past, and Myra and their baby were his future. Once he found them safe and sound.

“Baby, don’t be like that… question, are you missing something?” She laughed, and Sloan felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. “It’s so embarrassing that *that* little Vixen bitch took what was rightfully mine.”

“I was never yours… don’t confuse animalistic lust for love because it was pure sex, nothing more and nothing less… and with you, it wasn’t even that good.” He murmured the latter, uncaring about her feelings.

He heard her gasp in mock shock, but off to his side, he noticed Declan motioning for him to keep her talking. “Fuck you, Sloan, I’m damn good, and you know it… besides, I’ve seen what you do with your little vixen, and you look bored.”

“WHAT!” Sloan roared, shaking the chamber. Picture frames and the windows rattled as drinking glasses clinked against each other.

“Tell Tristan to check his email,” She gloated, “Oh, would you look at that… it’s time for me to go. Chat again soon, my love.”

The distinctive click rang over the line, indicating that she had ended the call. Sloan crushed his phone in anger while struggling to control his breathing. At the same time, Tristan pulled out his phone and looked at the screen. He walked over to Sloan, holding out the phone. Sloan took a steady breath and shook his head, nodding to the Acolyte that Declan was talking to.

“Sorry, Alpha. The call was too short to find the exact triangulation, but we do have a general location, North of the city.” The Acolyte apologized.

After a brief pause, Tristan started speaking. “Someone sent me a video file… put it up on the big screen, please?” Tristan requested, and the Acolyte nodded. Soon a video started to play, and Sloan’s heart leapt in his chest. He immediately recognized Myra’s body bounded on a dirty, wet stone floor with a black hood over her head.

“Please tell me she’s breathing.” Theodore – his father – voiced for the first time since arriving in the chamber. The Acolyte zoomed in on her midsection, and they saw a steady rise and fall of her chest. Soon she started to move, trying to sit up but rolled onto her back instead. The position looked uncomfortable; even though it was a video file, he could sense her anxiety and panic.

“Why isn’t she shifting?” Another Alpha questioned when a man entered her room. He grabbed her upper arm, pulling her up to her bounded feet and sucker-punched her in the stomach. Myra collapsed heavily to her knees, and her body shuddered as if she was coughing. The man turned towards the camera and saluted.

Sloan’s blood boiled as he heard the desk crumbled under his fist. He was unconsciously gripping the defenceless desk tightly. The audio for the man was distorted, almost inaudible at times. But they could hear him telling Myra that her death wouldn’t be by his hands; he then laughed and pulled the hood off of her head and snapped his fingers in her face. Two other men walked into the room, carrying a laptop. They briefly set it up, and soon erotic pants and groans echoed throughout the room and filtered through the chamber’s sound system. Sloan’s eyes widened as he knew those sounds intimately because they were an addictive drug; that he craved daily.

The man’s next words caused Sloan to see red. They had been spying on their intimate moments and how they have been using it as pornographic material for their sick enjoyment. Myra tried talking, but it earned her a slap across the face. Then the man screamed in her face, telling her she wasn’t the Omega but a whore and a lab rat.

“Lab rat? What the hell are these bastards up to now?” An Elder questioned to no one in particular.

“That’s why she can’t shift… they gave her the blocker that the coroner recently found,” Declan concluded what Sloan already suspected.

The man grumbled again that her death was for someone else, but he planned to play with her first. He then proceeded to punch her hard in the face. The punch immediately knocked her unconscious, but it didn’t stop him from beating her mercilessly.

Sloan gestured to Tristan to kill the video; he had seen enough.

However, no one noticed the internal conflict Sloan was experiencing with his wolf. The beast was fighting him for control. It, like him, didn’t like what they saw displayed on the screen.

Their Angel was at the mercy of those bastards, so too was their pup. The danger was too real and the possible result unimaginable. Even though they knew in their heart that she was pregnant, she needed to return to him safe and sound. His beast roared in his head at the image paused on the screen. It was Myra about to be kicked in the stomach.

“I want every available body analyzing that video. I want to know where they are keeping the Omega. It could be the base of their operations.” Elder Reagan ordered, “From first glance, that room is either a cellar or basement… about late-century in design. So, look for any abandoned historical buildings in the Northern end of the city.” People nodded and started carrying out the orders set off by the Elder.

“Declan, Tristan… get Sloan home. Sian’s already worried sick about Myra’s abduction. I’ve also asked some trusted ranked members to round up Myra’s family and Megan. They should be at the Packhouse now, under lock and key.” Theo stated. “Go son... everyone is working on this. We **will** find her.”

* * *

Two days later.

A dark cloud descended over Sloan, and it refused to lift.

He was an empty shell of his former self. He had been operating on autopilot, moving through the motions of everyday life like a zombie.

He would eat without tasting what was prepared. Sleep but only restlessly and briefly, as his overactive worried mind was on high alert. Furthermore, he hadn’t spoken to anyone after the phone conversation and video event back in the Elders’ inner chamber.

Sadly, every square inch of the Packhouse reminded him of what was snatched away from him. He tried escaping the tormenting memories by locking himself away in the Den, but there too, he didn’t get any relief. He glanced at the reading nook in the corner of the room where Myra would curl up with a book and keep his company while he worked. He swore he could see his Angel sitting with her curly mass tumbling down her shoulders and a frown on her brow as she read through her book or even her unconscious nibbles on her thumb as she read a steamy part of the book. He missed that unique vanilla scent of her arousal that would awaken his hunger for her and their tireless hours of passionate lovemaking.

He growled in frustration.

The longer she was missing, the angrier he felt. However, this anger felt different. Sloan was approaching the point of surrendering all control to his wolf. Fighting with the beast was proving to be useless and exhausting.

“**Then give me control.**” A deep, dark voice echoed in Sloan’s mind. It was strange. No one, besides his father as the retired Alpha, could freely link with him. “**Give me control… and I will find our female.**” Sloan frowned when he realized that no one linked with him. For the first time in his life, Sloan heard his wolf speaking to him.

“*If I can’t find her, how can you?*”

The voice chuckled darkly, “**Give me control and watch.**” Before Sloan could make up his mind, someone knocked on the door. Megan’s spicy scent bellowed from behind the locked door.

“Sloan?” She called out, confirming it was her.

“**That is just a taste of what I can do… give me control and let me help.**” Sloan closed his eyes and willingly surrendered to the darkness that was consuming him.

“Sloan?” Megan called again.

He stood up, cracked his neck and walked over to the door, quickly opening it. Megan stood there, eyes red-rimmed, make-up absent and her hair tied into a messy bun on top of her head. Once they knew Myra was missing, Declan had her family moved into the Packhouse, which was still on lockdown, and Sian oversaw their settling into their guestrooms.

“I’m going crazy… how hard is it to find them?” Megan croaked as her voice broke, and she started crying once again. Sloan pulled her into his arms and simply held her sobbing body.

“**We will find her and massacre all who stand in our way.**” He growled, louder than expected.

Megan pushed out of his arms. Staring at Sloan in shock. “What the fuck happened to your voice, Sloan?”

Due to the advancement in his biology, Alpha heard a chair leg scrape across the hardwood floor and two pairs of running footsteps thundering through the house. They will have company soon, so best he started explaining before they arrived. “**It’s rare for a human host to communicate yet surrender control to their animal spirit, but Sloan’s pain is too great for me to sit by idly while he self-destructs,**” He shrugged.

Soon, both Declan and Tristan came running around the corner, and Alpha smiled. Declan wrapped his arm around Megan and pulled her behind him. But one glance at Alpha’s imposing figure standing in the Den’s doorway caused them to drop to their knees, bowing to him.

“What’s happening?” Megan stammered, looking down at the two warrior shifters submitting to Sloan.

“We are in the presence of Sloan’s Wolf,” Declan answered, not looking up, out of respect.

“**Maybe I should clear up a common misconception because I’m not some ordinary wolf… Not anymore, that is. I’m faster, more evolved and stronger than any mere wolf,**” He explained, “**No offence Tristan.**”

“None taken,” Tristan slowly replied, daring to look up at his brother. “I don’t.”

“**Please rise…**” He cut him off, and both Declan and Tristan stood up. Alpha motioned for them to enter the Den. When he closed the door, they were just standing about waiting for further instruction. He chuckled and gestured to the couches. “**As I was saying,**” he started once he joined him. “**I started evolving the moment Sloan took our Angel as his claimed mate… I continued maturing when we provided Myra with our seed.**”

“Seed?” Megan questioned. She was a bit confused, but soon realization flashed across her eyes, and she gasped. “Myra’s pregnant?”

“**Yes… I wouldn’t be standing here, chatting with you if she wasn’t.**”

“Fuck, we need to find Myra safe and sound… and soon.” Declan facepalmed himself in shock.

“Why didn’t Sloan tell us? Shit, this is confusing. So, do you have a name?” Tristan stuttered as different thoughts tumbled out of his mouth since his brain couldn’t filter through the various information provided to them.

“**Sloan had his suspicions, but the changes were small and inconsequential. However, he hadn’t shifted since this past weekend to fully comprehend my existence. Furthermore, the stress of Myra’s kidnapping had solidified my metamorphosis.**” He proudly explained. “**As for my name, I have gone by many… but I prefer to be called Alpha; I’m the first Lycan in centuries to be fully synthesized into existence.**”

Tristan’s eyes bulged out, “Ly… Lycan? They’re only myths. Bedtime stories told to young shifters.”

“**And yet, I stand before you… breathing and speaking to you.**”

“I don’t quite understand what’s happening here, to be honest.” Megan finally grumbled, folding her arms and leaning back on the couch.

Before he would answer her, Alpha looked to the door and inhaled deeply. He recognized another familiar scent coming towards the Den. He waited, and soon, Theo walked in and immediately took pause.

“Son?” He called, and from the corner of his eye, Alpha saw Declan patting Megan reassuringly while whispering in her ear. Alpha provided them with privacy and didn’t listen to what was being said.

“**Sloan isn’t present at the moment.**”

Surprisingly, Theo smiled brightly and clapped his hands in triumph. “A Lycan was a fruit of my loins… I could die a happy wolf.” Theo cheered, “Welcomed great one.”

Alpha nodded to him before turning back to the group. “**Anything new?**”

“Sadly no…” Tristan sighed in frustration. “The bastards have once again gone underground. The video IP address has been bouncing all over the globe, so tracking them through that way is useless… the labs are still working to identify the chemical make-up of the animal spirit blockers,” He took a breath before continuing. “Lastly, the Council’s acolytes are still going through various blueprints to pinpoint the type of cellar or basement they’re keeping Myra in.”

“**What about Kenny?? Has he made any progress?**”

“It’s slow… whoever hacked our security system was good at keeping themselves hidden,” Declan confessed.

Alpha took a deep calming breath as each passing bad news caused despair and disappointment to further burrowed deeper into their joint souls. What he had failed to mention to the group, however, was that he could link freely with Myra’s Vixen from anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, she needed to be conscious for that to happen. The chemical blocker was making contacting her even more difficult at the moment.

“I double, then triple, check every house staff member. Everyone was where they should have been and cleared.” Tristan continued to deliver more bad news.

Just then, Declan’s phone vibrated. He looked at the screen, and his surprised face offered some glimmer of hope. “Speaking of the devil, Kenny wants us in the control booth… He’s found something.”

Alpha was the first to stand and leave the Den, not waiting for the others to follow. As he parted ways, he heard Declan, once again, speaking to Megan. He wanted her to go find Myrielle and Sian and update them on Alpha’s presence.

While walking through the hallways, he was struck by the lack of Myra’s scent. It had only been two days, but her scent was already fading. However, he strangely picked up a fresh hint of her scent. That shouldn’t be. The smell confused him because it was new and mixed with something chemical.

He shook off the feeling and entered the control booth. Since the break-in, Kenny had been unofficially promoted and had total run of the room.

The young man stood up once he noticed Sloan had entered the room, followed shortly by Tristan and Declan. Alpha, however, didn’t want his presence known by many, so he looked to Tristan and nodded discreetly to him.

Taking the queue, Tristan spoke first. “Kenny, what do you have?”

“A lot… I found it strange that someone could have hacked our un-hackable system from the outside,” The man started, pushing his glasses back up his nose bridge, “It’s virtually impossible… So, it got me thinking, and I said to myself, *Kenny, stop looking for an external hack, but an internal one.*”

“Are you saying the hack was an internal leak?” Tristan questioned, and Kenny nodded. “We did summarize that there may be a spy amongst us.”

“What we didn’t conclude was that the spy was a member of the security team in charge of monitoring the CCTV feeds,” Kenny confessed. Everyone froze and stared at the smiling, glass wearing shifter before them.

“Come again?” Declan frowned.

“I traced the hack to a particular computer in this room, and the log-in details were specific to one person and that person alone.” Kenny’s smile brightened as another security shifter walked into the booth. Alpha turned still as a rock as the hint of Myra’s scent from earlier was now overwhelmingly pronounced. “Thanks for coming in, Richie.”

The look of horror on the new guy’s face solidified his guilt. Before he could escape the room, Alpha’s lightning-fast speed had the young boy slammed up against the wall with his hands around his neck.

Alpha leaned in and sniffed his struggling prey. “**Where the fuck is she?**” He growled inches from his face.

The boy’s face started to turn blue as he fought to pull Alpha’s fingers from around his neck. But, he momentarily stopped struggling, and his eyes widened when he heard the change in Sloan’s voice.