Chapter 36

However, hours later when he was stood over the body of an unconscious female, he quickly came to the conclusion that the distraction was far from a blessing. However, the fact that they had been able to find her, and only a few short hours after the ruckus had started, was nothing short of a blessing from the Moon Goddess.

As the doctor examined her in the pack house and her family eagerly waited outside, Marcellus turned his head to lock eyes with Alpha Romano who was stood by her family, a solemn, mystified expression on his face. They didn’t need to verbally communicate as they both nodded their heads in sync and began away from the pack hospital and toward the pack house where Alpha Romano’s office was located, all the while fashioning an eery silence.

It was only when they stepped into the office that they dropped the silence and addressed the topic playing on both of their minds.

“Take a seat, Alpha Marcellus.” The other Alpha instructed politely as he closed the door and rounded his seat, a tired and worried expression on his face. “I appreciate you sticking around to help us out. You were a great help.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Romano.” Marcellus waved his hand in the air dismissively as he leaned back in his chair. “I’m just glad the she-wolf was found without any evident harm.” He left out the part where she had been found unconscious without so much as a scratch on her.

They would just have to wait until she awoke to find out exactly what happened.

“Where was she found exactly?” Marcellus asked curiously.

“My Beta found her just over the border.” Romano sighed and propped his chin up on his hands, his lips pursed.

He frowned at that. “That means she’s been missing for a few hours.”

“Two hours since her parents reported her missing this morning, but we’re not quite sure how long she’s been missing before then.” Romano confirmed with a nod.

Marcellus frowned slightly as he thought back of the moment when the Beta had rushed back to the packhouse with the unconscious female in his arms.

“She didn’t smell of anything.”

“No, which is very strange.” The older Alpha sighed and ran a hand down the side of his face. “Other than the fact that she’s been missing for a few hours and was found over the border, there doesn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. I don’t quite understand why or what could have caused her to go unconscious.”

“Does she have a habit of doing this sort of thing?”

“No, nothing like this has ever happened before.” Alpha Romano shook his head. “She was supposed to be back from her night shift at the pack hospital in the morning but when she never returned, her parents started asking around and it was only discovered that she was missing. Before today, Melissa has never done anything out of the ordinary and has never been anything but a staple to the pack, helping out wherever she could.”

“None of this makes sense.”

There’s something fishy going on here. His wolf hummed. Normal people don’t go missing for hours and then randomly turn up, unconscious and without anything wrong with her.

“You’re right about that, but it appears that we won’t have any answers until Melissa wakes up to answer them herself.”

Marcellus could do nothing but nod his head in agreeance.

Even though Alpha Romano had offered to put him up for the night as it was nearly midnight and it would take him a few hours to return home, Marcellus couldn’t accept the gracious offer. Instead, he had settled on receiving updates once Melissa, the missing she-wolf, woke up and was able to answer questions about her whereabouts for all those hours she was missing.

His wolf for some reason wanted nothing more than to return to the pack house. He wasn’t sure exactly why but appeared adamant and so had no choice but to make the journey home, even going as far as to abandon their car at the Silver Claw pack as running in wolf form would be faster. Thankfully, Alpha Romano had offered to have someone drop it off the next day.

And that was why he was running as fast as he could in his wolf form with his two trust warriors, Zion and Mohammed, by his side.

“Thanks, Zion. Thanks, Mohammed. I’ll see you both in the morning.” He smiled softly and clapped them both on the back in thanks as he severed course from them and headed back to the pack house while they returned to their houses and respective families.

After the long day Marcellus had just had, he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pretend as if he didn’t enjoy dreaming about his mate and the life they could possibly have if only he let them.

A sigh escaped him at the thought and as he raised a tired hand up to brush through his hair, but quickly stopped in his tracks.

The last thing he expected was to return to the pack house in the middle of the night to find his mate sitting on the porch, staring out into the trees of the forest with a small smile on her face.

His earlier words to the sisters when describing his mate all came rushing back to him – having spoken about her and the little he already knew about her from their limited interaction – and he couldn’t help but wonder if subconsciously, he had already accepted her as a mate.

Either way, he knew it was too late as he had already caused enough damage, not to mention the fact that the council would look down on such a pairing since she was already carrying the child of another.

Not that he cared about what they thought, but he simple didn’t believe himself to be capable of raising a child that wasn’t his, especially one that she had conceived with another man before they had met each other.

He scarcely allowed himself to wonder if things would have been different if they had each other eight, or even nine months ago.

And that was why he surprised even himself when he ended up taking a seat next to her on the porch – albeit objectively leaving a safe distance between them so as to avoid any touching which would result in tingles and further activation of the mate bond, as if he didn’t have enough trouble resisting her already.

“Hi.” He whispered, his whole resolve near crumbling as she turned to gaze upon with her beautiful baby blues.