{Some Time Ago…}
***[POV: Jace Duskpaw]***
I slam my paw into the riverbank, sending water and mud splashing. Three goddamn hours searching around this same spot, and still nothing.
Her scent just stops. Vanishes right at the water's edge and doesn't come back up anywhere downriver.
My black fur is matted with dirt and sweat. This should have been so simple.
Track her down, drag her back, make her understand what happens when you run from pack consequences.
I shift back to human form with a snarl. Bones creak and muscles tear as I force the change quicker than most would.
Embracing the pain and trying to catch up to how fast she'd shifted. A skill she'd clearly been holding back.
It makes me wonder how much I even knew about my own… my former mate. If only this constant, nagging pull over my chest would go away.
"Fucking waste of time."
Standing naked and breathing hard at the river's edge, the rage builds again. The mate bond should be broken!
Helene accepted my rejection - I heard the words clearly.
I rake human fingers through my hair, wincing at the sandy grit and tangles. My body aches from shifting for too long. From this search that's going nowhere.
Something about this whole situation stinks worse than a rotting carcass. The way she looked and spoke at me before bolting.
Not the voice of the Helene I knew. Not really.
The words were right, but everything else? It was 'wrong'.
Those grey eyes were suddenly so... cold. Like I was nothing to her.
After two years of her practically worshipping the ground I walked on. She just... changed in an instant after the little collapsing stunt.
Like she waited for sympathy that didn't come and then decided to stop acting.
"How many lies did she tell me?"
I grab clothes from the nearby rock and yank them on. Probably put there by Kyle for me.
Maybe I should have jumped in the river first, because now I have to ignore the mud smeared across my skin. Which is easy enough when my mind is elsewhere.
"This isn't over. Not by a long shot. Nobody makes a fool out of me. Especially not a weak little she-wolf who was lucky I chose her to mate with in the first place."
⧖ ☾ ❄ ☽ ⧖
When I trudge back into our makeshift camp, I'm already dreading the reactions I'll get.
Failing in tracking a rogue wannabe and wasting the day. Chad was already so insistent that we go tell his father first and then come back.
How the hell do I deal with that asshole now, when he was right?
Pacing around the tent, that damn phone in his hand again. Like he's expecting a call in the middle of nowhere with no service.
I spot Kyle sitting on a fallen log he pushed over here. Sharpening his hunting knife.
Not even sure why he carries that thing, the Omegas can dress our kills. Claws and teeth are more than enough.
He looks up at me with a sort of disappointment clear on his face when he notices I'm alone.
"Nothing?"
"What do you think?"
I snap back and drop onto the log beside him.
"The mighty wolf-who-would-be-Alpha returns without his prey again. Shocker."
"Shut up, Chad."
Fur bristles as I growl before snatching the water bottle Kyle offers.
"Like you found anything useful either."
Chad slips his phone into the fashionable human jacket he wears and spreads his hands in mock innocence.
"I just have a nose, I'm not the one with the mate bond. Aren't you supposed to be able to sense her general direction or something?"
The reminder makes the pull in my chest throb painfully. I've been trying to ignore it, trying to tell myself it's just phantom pain from a busted connection.
But it's there. And nowhere. All at once.
Whatever she did to me, to make it seem like I've been connected to her all this time.
"It's not fucking working right. Because she's somehow not marked and I am."
"Which is why I said we should go inform the leaders. That's not natural, you idiot."
"Doesn't matter. Trail's cold downriver and she can't swim. Probably… didn't make it."
Kyle looked like he had something to say, but was holding back. So I kicked at his shin and glared.
"What? Spit it the fuck out."
"I was just… I mean, she was acting differently, right?"
"You saw it yourself, why are you asking me?"
"Right. Well… the two of you keep saying she was only pretending to be like she used to be before now. What if the times she almost drowned… were fake?"
I stare at him. So long that he looks away and Chad laughs.
"She learned to swim and fought the current to trick you? To get away from you chasing her? That's goddamn hilarious! No wonder she ran right that way!"
His laughter grates on my nerves. But that suggestion sits uncomfortably.
I'd never once considered that Helene might have been faking those near-drownings. I wasn't even around for two of them.
But if her manipulation of everyone ran so deep…
"If there's even a chance he's right, we need to check upstream as well. I've been focusing my effort in the wrong direction."
Chad's amusement vanishes. That usually makes me feel better about my choice.
"You want to waste more time? We've already been out here for a day, man. We need to report this."
"One more sweep. We can all check upstream at first light. A couple hours. Just to see if a trail starts."
My voice leaves no room for a stupid argument. The way my father taught me.
"Then… we head back so they can label her as a rogue wolf. How did this happen?"
Kyle's bleeding heart was always his weak spot. Especially for girls.
He might have even been who I pushed Helene toward taking as a mate, after the impact of the rejection had run its course.
But that was before today revealed she was such a bitch. Even he doesn't deserve to get that foisted on him.
"You know it has to happen. We're running up the clock on the two day report limit."
I nod grimly to Chad's reminder. Inter-pack law was clear.
A wolf who leaves without permission and doesn't return within forty-eight hours is considered rogue.
Fair game for any pack who finds them. Or a target of hunters if they fuck up out in public.
Before today, I would have expected her to be helpless in that situation.
Now, she's starting to seem like the type to get away with murders for a while.
"My father is going to lose his shit."
The old Gamma had big plans for me. Connections he's been cultivating for years to position me as the potential next in line for Alpha.
This mess with Helene could ruin everything.
"It wasn't your fault. These things, uh, happen?"
Kyle offers with his soft voice and that annoying sympathy he's always throwing around. The type of thing Chad loves to counter immediately, at my expense.
A natural Beta.
"Do they? When was the last time you heard of a female running off and leaving a still bonded male?"
His words hit a nerve. When I first started searching, I started telling myself that she was just being dramatic.
That if she was alive, she'd come crawling back once she cooled down.
My fists clenched as an anger built again.
What the hell was she thinking? Making me chase her like this…
Making me look weak in front of others?