Page 81 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

It’s the early hours of the morning now, the sun rising and painting the sky in beautiful shades of pink, blue, and yellow. It’s cold out here, and I wrap the cloak tighter around myself, shivering. Drew is focused on tracking Robert’s scent. I am amazed how he’s able to pick up a scent that’s more than a year old.

“Not a year,” he corrects me, making me realize I must have spoken out loud. “A couple of months. He definitely came by here a few months ago. But I’m a tracker. Even rainfall and snow would not hinder me. As long as there is a hint of his scent on the ground, I can catch it.”

The poisonous plants have begun to thin out, and we soon enter what appears to be a small town—an abandoned one, anyway. As I look around, it occurs to me that this must be one of the sites of the massacre. The whole place has been burned to the ground. Roofs of houses are caved in, buildings abandoned. It looks like a ghost town, and my skin crawls as we walk through it.

I remember Alex telling me that he came to Black Alder territory to bury the dead after Karina killed everyone and left their corpses rotting out here.

It’s one thing to hear about a slaughter taking place and an entirely different one to walk through a town that was once bustling with activity. The inhabitants are long gone, an entire pack erased from history, and for what? So that one man couldhide his secret, and one woman who craved power could get more of it.

These people don’t deserve to be rulers. They don’t deserve to be in power, in control of so many lives.

They deserve to die.

My wolf snarls in approval.

So many mothers must have grieved. So many families must have wept with broken hearts. Did they just stand there as Karina’s people murdered them?

My heart aches as I take in my surroundings, trying to imagine what took place here.

“Robert passed by here,” Drew says heavily. “Quite recently.”

I can see the tension in his jaw. Drew is also affected by what happened here.

“He wouldn’t have kept her in the town,” I say, studying the buildings cautiously. “What if Karina’s people came to raze this place to the ground to build something else here? My mother’s presence would have been discovered.”

“I agree. The Black Alder pack was spread out over their entire territory. We have two more towns to cover, but I don’t think she’s in either of them. Robert did pass through here, though. And he was on foot, which is why his scent is so prominent. If he were headed to the other towns, he would have used one of the vehicles still standing in the garages here. And he would’ve passed through the free zones to get to the towns. No, your mother is somewhere near this town.”

Drew starts walking quickly, and I follow closely behind him. Every now and then I feel a bit of hope spring up, but I try to tell myself to remain calm. We don’t know what’s waiting for us. I don’t know what state my mother will be in. If I take those dreams of mine at face value, and if I believe that it truly was my mother trying to contact me through them, then she’s not in very good shape at all.

As we cross the town, back into the forest on the other side, Drew is moving even faster. Ultimately, he shifts into his animal form and begins running. Startled, I don’t wait around to figure out what he’s up to, and I shift, too. I’m able to catch up to him because every couple of minutes, he stops and sniffs around some tree or rock before picking up his pace again. This time, the butterflies in my stomach can’t be calmed. He’s onto something.

I run as fast as I can, trying to keep up. Finally, Drew comes to a stop in front of what looks like a large rock. He sniffs around it before shifting back to human form.

I follow suit. “What is it, Drew?”

“Here.” There are vines covering the rock, and he pushes them aside, revealing an entrance to a cave. The overgrowth is so dense that, without the vines removed, we never would have noticed it.

After taking a few steps inside, Drew shouts to me, “He was in here. We’re going the right way.”

I head into the cave after him, my heart beating like a drum inside my chest, about to burst out of it.

It’s dark in here, but our shifter eyes are meant to see through darkness.

As we go deeper and deeper into the cave, it’s spiraling downward, almost like some sort of crudely cut staircase. We are deep underground at this point, and a putrid scent hits me. I lean against the cave wall for a moment to try to calm myself down. I recognize that scent. I’ve smelled it so many times in my dreams.

Stumbling forward now, I see the cages on either side of a small, stone hallway. I know exactly where to look, and I push past Drew, gasping, “Mom?”

The word is torn from my mouth. Running to the end of the hallway, I look to my right, and I see her.

She’s in her wolf form.

It’s the same wolf from my dreams.

I grab the iron bars, and unlike in my dreams, they bend easily. Shifters and iron do not go well together; iron weakens a shifter, which is why Drew looks surprised by my ability to bend these bars. However, there isn’t enough room for me to squeeze through. I quickly break the lock on the gate and pull it open. Rushing inside, I wrap my hands around the chains holding my mother and immediately hiss in pain. The sound of sizzling reaches my ears, followed by a painful sensation on my palms. I let go of the chains and stare down at my palms. My skin has been seared off.

“Sophia!” Drew cries out in alarm.

I hold up a badly blistered hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Let me handle it.”

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