“I have photos, but let’s back up a second. Our scout team caught two of the fuckers that, well. These two were looking for the girl.”
He paused, giving me a few seconds to let the anger settle in. He cleared his throat and continued.
“From the sounds of things there are more females at one of the borders. That must have been what she was asking about at the bar. When she said "others.”
The desk creaked under my grip as I squeezed the shit out of the edge of it.
“She was part of the trade? They had her in the trade?”
My wolf was wild with rage. She was ours. No one should have touched her. I couldn’t allow it. But then, she didn’t know that. She also didn’t have a choice. The trades were barbaric and they should have been dead, buried in the past. But we’d been hunting ghosts for what seemed like years. This was the closest we’d gotten so far and it seemed to be an ever-growing problem. The rogues were in on it and now we had the proof to get the council packs on board with a plan. What plan was the question.
Colton held up his phone, but he stepped away from me at the last minute. I didn’t realize why until the desk cracked and split in two.
“Fuck. What did that table ever do to you?” he asked.
I let the halves fall with a thud. The pens and papers sliding off onto the floor.
“Fuck. I’ll have to order a new desk later today. Remind me to keep you away from the tables in the dining hall.”
I didn’t care what he was going on about. All I could see was her dirty face. All I could feel was how weak she was when she fell into my arms. Even under all the grime and the wolfsbane I knew. I knew she was mine. What hadn’t been as clear was who she was. But my wolf hated to see her suffer. Someone would pay for this.
Colton laughed, and I looked at him dropping the wood.
“What the hell is going on in that head of yours, Devon. This was some quality craftsmanship and served the alphas for the last three generations.”
What was going on in my head? I looked up to see the scrutiny in his eyes.
“Could she be my mate? Not a second chance mate. The real deal. The girl from the gathering all those years ago?”
Colton paused from picking up the pieces of the table.
“That’s not possible.” He glared at the desk again and then met my own questioning gaze. “We went looking for her. You wouldn’t not let us go after her, and when we got there? They said she was killed by rogues.”
At this point logic was gone, and my wolf was raging to go back to that pack and tear them apart. We knew it was her, even if my human brain struggled to grasp the why or how.
“I know. What if they lied? She’s older, more mature than that girl and her scent is similar even with the drug in her system, I can sense her wolf. I swear it’s her. But she doesn’t seem to remember me. She didn’t have the slightest clue.”
Colton was nodding like a damn bobble head and it was pissing me off.
“Wolfsbane. How long has she been on it do you think?” I asked.
On it? On it? No one chooses to be on it.
“I don’t know. Sarah said it was pretty strong in her blood stream right now. It was blocking her wolf from healing her and by the looks of some of the wounds? It’s been blocking her healing for some time. It can fuck with your memories and perceptions,” Colton said.
All of it was true, and it was fuel for the fire burning inside me. It was a nasty drug that fucking worked on us. I’d be a liar to say that I’d never use it on some of our prisoners. I paced again needing to feel movement, needing to calm the need to run.
“Look Devon, she didn’t know you were her mate back then now did she? And to be fair the night you met her was the first time you’d ever shifted. We’ve all changed after that first shift and she was gone by the time we all got back from the first run. There’s a lot stacked against her at the moment. Give her time.”
He clapped me on the back, and I took the first deep breath since coming into this office. He was right. It wasn’t her fault. I was fucking pissed off for being robbed of her for the last ten years, but she was here and she was safe. Maybe it was time to direct my anger elsewhere.
“We need to go down to the cellar and deal with the rogues. Maybe they know something we don’t,” Colton said.
I nodded, but fuck. I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl.
We’d met once. That was all it took for me to know it was her. My wolf had just awakened, and I was so young back then, but she was mine. My mate. I’d been an idealist. Naive, but she was still my mate. I’d begged my father to negotiate, to bring her here and for what? For her to end up in the trades.
I followed Colt down to the cellar. The scent of musty earth filled my nose and the chill of the low maintenance space was a reminder we were underground.