ZALE's POV;
It was well past midnight, the kind of night where the darkness felt almost tangible, wrapping itself around the forest like a shroud. The moon was hidden behind thick clouds, casting everything in shadows so deep it seemed as if the world itself was holding its breath. I stood in my office, pacing restlessly, the only sound the soft creak of the floorboards beneath my feet. The tension in the air was almost suffocating, thick with frustration and the weight of three days of failure.
"Wilder, have we gotten any lead on him?" My voice cut through the stillness, sharp and laced with barely controlled anger. The hunt for the traitor had become an obsession, each passing hour a bitter reminder that he was still out there, somewhere, lurking in the darkness.
Wilder, my Beta, stood by the door, his expression as grim as my own. "Alpha, he's been sighted by our spies, but every time they get close, he slips away. It's like he's always one step ahead, like he knows we're coming. But I've tripled the number of men on the lookout. We'll catch him soon. I give you my word."
His words were meant to be reassuring, but they did little to quell the rage simmering inside me. The traitor's continued evasion was more than a frustration—it was a threat to everything we'd built, everything we stood for. The thought of him out there, plotting in the dead of night, made my blood boil.
"Is there any paperwork I haven't signed yet?" I asked, desperate for something, anything, to distract me from the gnawing sense of failure.
Wilder hesitated, a flicker of unease crossing his face—a rare sight. "No, Alpha, everything is done… well," he paused, his voice uncertain, "there's one thing we need to address."
I stopped pacing, turning to face him fully, my frustration giving way to confusion. "Well? What is it?" The sharpness in my tone made it clear that I wasn't in the mood for games.
"It's about the Luna… Amora. We need to bring her back to the pack house soon. She's been out there, alone, and the longer she stays away, the more vulnerable she is."
Amora. Her name, spoken in the stillness of the night, sent a jolt through me that I wasn't prepared for. The one person I couldn't afford to lose, and yet the one person whose presence unsettled me the most. She was my mate, my Luna, and yet she was still so unaware of the world she was about to be thrust into. "Don't worry about that," I said, my voice cold, masking the turmoil brewing beneath the surface. "She doesn't get a say in this. I'll bring her here whether she likes it or not. She shouldn't even know what we are yet."
The room fell into a heavy silence, the only sound the distant howl of the wind outside. The thought of Amora—stubborn, strong-willed, and yet so vulnerable—gnawed at me in a way I didn't want to acknowledge. She was my mate, and that should have been enough to justify the decisions I was making, but there was something else, something deeper that made my chest tighten at the thought of her in danger.
"I've been asking you to follow her, right?" I said, needing to redirect the conversation, to push aside the thoughts that threatened to break through the carefully constructed walls I'd built around my emotions. "Any news?"
"Yes, Alpha," Wilder responded, his professionalism snapping back into place. "She's been at the library all day, as usual. She went home quite late, but I made sure she got there safely. I watched her until she was inside."
"Good…" I muttered, the word slipping out before I could stop it. There it was again—that strange sense of relief, a sensation I couldn't quite place. Why did her safety matter so much to me? Why did I feel as if a weight had been lifted at the confirmation that she was unharmed? The questions were unsettling, stirring something within me that I wasn't ready to confront.
As if on cue, my phone rang, its sharp tone slicing through the silence like a knife. The screen displayed an unknown number, and immediately, a sense of unease settled in my gut. Who would be calling me at this hour?
I answered, and the moment I heard the voice on the other end, my heart dropped into my stomach. "Wilder? Is that you? It's me, Amora…" Her voice was a whisper, trembling with fear, thick with a desperation that made my blood run cold. "Please, help me…" Her words were choked with sobs that echoed through the line, each one a dagger to my heart.
"Amora?" Her name fell from my lips before I could stop myself, my mind racing to catch up with what was happening. This wasn't right. Amora shouldn't be out in the dark, sounding like this, terrified and alone. What the hell was going on?
Wilder's eyes widened as he caught on, his body tensing. "Alpha, that's the Luna…"
Amora. The name reverberated in my mind, each syllable a hammer striking against the walls of my consciousness, breaking through the barriers I'd built around my emotions. This is why I've been restless all night, I realized, the pieces snapping into place with a clarity that was almost painful. "What's wrong? What happened?" I demanded, my voice betraying the concern that was quickly overtaking any semblance of control I had left.
"I… I… I'm being chased! Please, help me… The police aren't coming anytime soon… Please…" Her plea was filled with a terror that made something deep within me snap. I could hear her struggling to breathe, the fear so thick it was almost tangible.
"Where are you?" I asked, already moving, grabbing my car keys and heading for the door. My thoughts were a chaotic whirlwind, but at the center of it all was one clear, driving force: I needed to get to her. I needed to protect her.
"I don't know… I just kept running… I'm so scared…" Her voice was small, broken, the fear in it clawing at my heart in a way that nothing else ever had.
"What do you see around you?" I pressed, trying to keep my voice steady, though my heart was pounding so hard I could barely think straight. Hearing her name on my lips felt strange—intimate, almost—but there was no time to dwell on that now.
"It's very dark… all I see are trees… I can't see anything else…" Her words were barely more than a whisper, and I could hear the exhaustion creeping into her voice, the terror giving way to something even more dangerous: despair.
Shit. She's in the woods. The realization hit me like a freight train. The woods at night were no place for someone who didn't know them, especially not someone being chased. "Amora, listen to me. Find a place to hide, and don't move. I'm coming to get you. Don't hang up, do you understand?" My voice was firm, commanding, though underneath it all was a layer of desperation that I couldn't quite suppress.
"Yes…" she whispered, her voice cracking as she tried to hold herself together, tried to cling to the hope that I would find her in time.
"Wilder!" I barked, already out the door, my feet pounding against the ground as I made my way to the car. "Call Jax. Tell him to trace the location of the call. Now!"
"Understood, Alpha," Wilder responded, his own worry now mirroring mine as he pulled out his phone and began dialing. There was no time to lose. Every second counted.
I jumped into the car, slamming the door behind me, and gunned the engine. The night was a blur around me as I pushed the vehicle to its limits, the speedometer climbing higher and higher as I raced down the narrow roads that cut through the dense trees.
"Alpha, I've got the location," Wilder's voice crackled through the car's speaker system, pulling me back to the present. "She's in the middle of the forest, on the way to the casino."
"Amora?" I called into the phone, trying to keep the panic from my voice. "Are you still there? Stay where you are. I'm almost there."
There was no response.
"Alpha, I think the line is cut off," Wilder said, his tone heavy with concern.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. The connection was gone. Amora was out there, alone, in the dark, and I had no way of knowing where she was or what was happening to her. My grip on the steering wheel tightened until my knuckles were white, the tension in my body so taut I felt like I might snap at any moment.
Go to mate… Mate needs us. I don't feel good… Lace's voice echoed in my mind, his worry mingling with mine, amplifying it, feeding the growing sense of dread that was threatening to consume me.
"Lace, calm down. She's going to be fine," I tried to reassure him, though the words felt hollow, even to me. How could I promise something I wasn't sure of myself? The fear in my chest was spreading, turning my blood to ice, but I couldn't let it take over.
The darkness outside the car seemed to grow thicker, the trees closing in as I sped toward the location Wilder had given me. My mind raced, every possible scenario playing.