Wolf-less Omega Luna novel Chapter 61

Axel’s POV

Less than an hour into the surprise party the pack organized on my behalf, my dad —surprisingly— mind linked me to my office for a talk.

He initially came down to say his birthday wishes to me as he had sometimes done in the past, so imagine my surprise when I got to the office to see my dad holding a frame of Alana’s family with her mom's face cut out.

What that act meant by whoever did it was still a mystery, but it sparked two things in me. One, concern for my mate, and two, anger. Whoever did this was trying to get a reaction from me and it was working.

As soon as Alana stepped outside the office and shut the door, my instincts pushed me to follow her even if she had clearly said otherwise. I knew she needed her space but I wanted to be selfish and go after her to give her an explanation as to why I kept what I knew to myself.

Thinking about it now, my keeping things a secret was unnecessary. If I had told her before now, whatever she heard wouldn’t have had this much effect on her.

Her words kept replaying in my head. “You made me fall in love with you when you knew I didn’t deserve this.”

An invisible hand punched my gut painfully hard, I felt like throwing up. What Alana didn’t know was that I loved her before I even knew her. And when I got to know the kind of person she was, I fell even more. Helplessly. And there was no coming back from that.

She effortlessly made me laugh, she found solutions to problems like it was second nature to her, and she made everyone around her feel important and cared for. The realization hit me that actually, she didn’t deserve this.

I had to fix all of it. I had to let her know what truly happened.

With quick strides, I closed the office door behind me and bolted for the room.

“Son,” my father called from behind me. 

“She’s upset,” I said as I turned to him and ran a hand through my messy hair. “I have to find Alana and explain things to her. She clearly thinks we went intending to harm her pack which isn’t true.”

“You should, Son,” Dad nodded. But do you think that now is the right time? As you said, she’s upset and not in the right state of mind. Give her a minute to calm down and talk to her.” His eyes held an unspoken apology as he squeezed lightly on my shoulder.

“She’s hurt because of me.”

“You should only be concerned about how to move forward from here. Yes, you could have handled things better but that doesn’t matter anymore. Give her some time and talk things through.”

I nodded absentmindedly before my dad spoke again. “Your mother apologizes that she couldn’t be here but sends you the best wishes.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I forced a reply and a nod.

How many minutes was enough time for a person to calm down from hearing whatever Alana heard about her pack? As soon as my dad left the building, I went back into my office knowing that Alana might be in the room and I paced back and forth for minutes that felt like days. 

The more I waited, the more the sickly gut feeling I had intensified to a painful point. To kill the time, I started making notes of what I was to say to Alana when I got inside.

“All I have to do is tell her the truth,” I said to myself after several attempts to form a speech. “Just tell her what happened.”

As the bile in my stomach rose to the tip of my tongue to the point where I could taste it, I discarded the last shred of dignity I had and made for the room. 

The bed was nearly made like it hadn’t been laid down on, but the shower was running. “Alana,” I called from a little distance behind the bathroom door,

I deserved the silence and more. It occurred to me to speak to her from behind the door but I decided against it. I wanted her to see and hear how sorry I was, and understand that her pack getting destroyed wasn’t entirely our fault.

 As I sat at the edge of the bed waiting for her, thoughts of how she must have felt from knowing that her mother was dead flooded my mind. She couldn’t have known before because the pain in her voice was so fresh that it had my heart threatening to rip from my chest.

I let my face drop into my palm as I shook my head. The blame was all mine. I was supposed to be Alana’s safe space and haven. Instead, I caused her this amount of pain. I had never seen that sad and disappointed look in her eyes.

“You made me fall in love with you when you knew I didn’t deserve this.”

I listened closely to see if she was still sobbing and that was when I felt something off. I couldn’t hear her.

My heartbeat kicked up and I stood up in a flash.

In a split second, I was right at the bathroom door and I steadied my pounding heart to listen for her heartbeat which was supposed to be a mirror of the way mine usually beat. It wasn’t there. Blood flooded my head and I heard the panic in my voice.

“Alana, can you hear me?” Her scent. Even in the shower, I was supposed to still be able to get a whiff of it. It wasn't there. Could something have happened to her in the shower? It instantly hit me that I wouldn’t survive it if anything happened to Alana.

I slammed the door open and looked around hysterically, searching for her. There was no sign of her. And then it made sense.

She left.

If I had come into the room to find it empty, I would have assumed that Alana went somewhere else to wind down from whatever she found out today. But the running shower? She did that to throw me off and buy herself some time.

I mindlinked Tyler immediately. “Alana is gone, Tyler. Find her!”

Not only because I was a possessive mate whom the thought of being away from their other half was devastatingly terrifying but because it was too dangerous for Alana to be outside the pack by this time when a threat or rather, a message that was targeting her was just sent to me.

Moving at Four’s speed, I searched the entire mansion within seconds and she wasn’t there, save for the faintest scent of her. 

Reliable as he always is in times like this, Tyler’s voice cut through my haze. “She’s nowhere to be found, Axel. Get to the border.”

I got to the border in less time than werewolf possible and held the head guard on duty, Collin, by the throat.

“Where is she?” I wasted no time in getting to the point. “And don’t you dare ask me who, because you will not live to find out.”

“The Luna said she was going shopping alone and we let her,” Collin muffled through the chokehold.

I released him to the ground, running a hand through my hair twice as he coughed for air. 

“What did she leave with? On foot?”

“She took your car,” Tyler said since the head guard was still rubbing on his neck.

I didn’t wait to clarify whatever confusion Tyler or the other guards were in. I raced back to the house, grabbed a key, skinned back the car cover on the Ford Thunderbird in the parking garage, and zoomed off.

If I was asked, I had no idea where I was heading but I had to get to her and get her back. The endless possibilities of where she could be or what could happen to her only fueled my drive as I crossed the border onto the next pack.