Colton’s POV
I turned to Alpha Bastien who looked pale but determined at the same time. There were a lot of questions that we both had, but I had a feeling we weren’t going to get them from Rachel. She was clearly traumatized and speaking in circles.
She kept murmuring something that neither of us could understand and she was continuously rocking back and forth. It was obvious that she wasn’t in the right state of mind.
“Rachel, we need to find out where Ella is. Is there anything you can tell us that could be helpful?” I found myself asking anyway, knowing she wasn’t going to say much of anything.
She kept shaking her head as she sobbed.
“Alpha, should we lock her up?” Jake asked, staring warily at Rachel.
I looked at Bastien again; I didn’t have the answers. But I didn’t think Rachel killed these people out of her own free will. I don’t think she killed her father on purpose. When I looked back at Rachel, I saw that she was now looking at me.
“The… voice…” she murmured, her eyes looking scarily ghostly. I knew she wasn’t fully there, but her words struck a chord with my wolf. He was listening to her intently. I narrowed my eyes at her and bent down so I was at eye level.
“What voice?” I asked firmly, but not too firm where I’d scare her silent.
“It was in my head…” she whispered. She was staring at nothing in particular; her lip quivered, and I knew she was about to start sobbing again. “It told me to do awful things…. It hurt so bad…”
“Do you know who was in control of that voice?” I asked; maybe we were getting somewhere after all.
She thought about it for a moment before shaking her head rapidly.
“No… no…no….” she cried in her lap.
“Okay, that’s okay, Rachel,” I said, trying to be reassuring, but the energy was so high that I couldn’t get my voice to sound compassionate. I was pissed and it was clear in my tone. “Do you know why it made you do those things?”
She was quiet for a moment; I didn’t think she was going to respond, but she lifted her head and stared at me through her unshed tears.
“Darkness needed to feed…” she whispered hoarsely. “It can’t survive long if it doesn’t feed.”
Those people she killed at the school must have been sacrifices to the darkness to keep it around and strong. I shuddered at the thought of Ella being next on its list. But it was odd that she wasn’t here and that they took her away.
“Do you know why they wanted Ella?” I found myself asking.
“Vessel…” she whispered.
Then she began to sob again, and her entire body jolted and shivered.
“She’s clearly not well,” Alpha Jonathan seethed. “Take her to the dungeon. We will deal with her later. We need to clean this mess.”
“Yes, Alpha,” the gammas said as they grabbed Rachel's arms and pulled her to her feet with great force. She didn’t fight them or even whimper at the force they’d used.
She struggled to walk, but she managed. But as she walked past me, she looked up at me, and with quivering lips she said, “You can’t stop it… no one can…”
Then, she was dragged out of the room.
Alpha Jonathan shook his head with disgust.
“I’m not humoring that mess,” he muttered. “I need to make my guests leave now. The banquet has been ruined.”
“That’s not the important thing,” I growled.
“No, it’s not,” Bastien agreed, both of us glaring at Jonathan. “We need to find my daughter. She disappeared in YOUR packhouse, Alpha. Have any ideas who could have taken her?”
“I was downstairs with you the entire time,” Alpha Jonathan said, narrowing his eyes. “How the hell should I know?”
“It’s just weird that you suddenly wanted to have a banquet and now my MATE IS MISSING,” I growled, shaking the room we stood in.
Alpha Jonathan’s eyes widened with shock and at first, I didn’t understand why. But then I realized the mistake I’d made.
Shit.
“Ella is your mate?” Jonathan asked, taken aback. “Since when?”
“It’s not important,” I muttered, shoving past him to leave the room.
“As the guy who OWNS the school she studies in and the school you WORK in, it is my business,” Jonathan seethed. “You could get FIRED for not reporting this, Alpha.”
“My job is the least of my concerns right now,” I muttered.
“Why are your gammas still standing around?” Bastien growled. “I want every gramma this pack has to be searching the entire territory for my daughter.”
His Alpha voice carried around the packhouse and gammas all over jumped into action.
“I’ll get a hold of my Beta and get him and some of my best gammas here as well,” Bastien said, grabbing his phone.
While Bastien did that, I mindlinked Jake.
“Call your men, get them here,” I ordered him. “I want the best warriors to search for Ella.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Jake quickly replied.
“Bastien…” I heard a familiar female voice sounding choked up, coming from a short distance.
We were walking down the stairs when Luna Selene met us at the bottom. Bastien wrapped her in his arms, and she cried.
“Please, tell me you have a clue as to where our daughter is…” she sobbed.
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