The Wanted Alpha

Chapter 12 - Gone

Ethan

I continued to search around the gorge, knowing my efforts would probably be in vain. I regained some hope when I thought I had picked up her trail again heading up the incline, but a small herd of startled deer further down the way disrupted her tracks completely. 

I had to concede in defeat, this time, but I would find her again. I wouldn't leave her to be alone in this world.

The walk back felt heavy, both physically and mentally. After a while I gave up and shifted, bundling my clothing inside the plaid shirt I was wearing as a makeshift bag. I arrived back at the prison within an hour, I had already mind-linked the trackers and Carrick to stand down and return back to their posts. Jude linked me to say he was at the pack hospital still awaiting the guards to regain consciousness. After getting dressed I headed back into the prison, wanting to collect the items my mate had amassed myself. New guards had been placed on the entrance and security feed room, all of whom bowed their heads to me in respect. I went to her former cell, taking a deep breath, just hoping to find some trace of a scent but knowing it was pointless. I saw the small stack of books by her bed, five in total. Bryce and Greer had each brought her things to read and I could tell exactly which book belonged to who by the cover. The history books were clearly Bryce's and the physiology and biology ones were most definitely Greer's. There was nothing else to collect in here, so after grabbing the books I went through to the shower room. Her things were sprawled out on the side, I was glad to see Jude had given her the best quality items we had in the pack house. I placed everything in the duffle bag, pausing on the hair brush. A few strands of red hair lay within the bristles making me wonder about and crave running my fingers through her beautiful hair. I had never seen a shade like it, naturally, on any woman. Grabbing everything up plus the small laundry bag left on the ground, I made my way back to the pack house running into Carrick who was just coming back from the hunt. 

He shifted beside me and fell in step with my pace.

"You goin' the hospital?" he asked.

"Yeah...just want to drop these off in my suite first" I replied, rather monotone.

"...I'm really sorry Ethan, that we lost her" he patted me on my shoulder.

"None of this is on any of you, it's on me. But I don't care how long it takes...I will find her again" I felt an emboldened resolve. Even if it was on my deathbed, I would see her once more.

"Dang, you made more personal growth in the last 2 hours than you have in the last 2 years. That mate of yours must be magic" I gave him a half smile at that.

"If me and Jude can track you down, we'll track her down too, scent or no scent."

I simply nodded. This would definitely be a harder task, they at least knew my scent to find me. And I prayed it would be a more peaceful reunion then when they found me. The month I had spent in the wilds I had no memory of and I was fairly certain I had spent the entirety of it in my wolf form. According to my Beta and Gamma, I hadn't come quietly and they had had to shoot me with a fuckton of tranquillisers.

"Here, I'll take these for you. You head on over to the hospital, I'll meet you there" he said while taking the items from me. I kept hold of the books as I knew Bryce was over there too, he'd helped in the search and had come to check Greer and the others were doing fine.

Upon entering the hospital, a nurse guided me to the room where the four guards had been taken. Bryce was outside about to leave, I handed him his books as I passed him.

'We'll find our Luna, Alpha. I'm sure of it' he mind-linked me, making me freeze and glance his way.

He just nodded and left without another word, I wondered if he knew this whole time?

"Bryce, why don't you take the rest of the week off. Your family has probably been missing you the last few days."

He gave me a thankful smile "thanks, Alpha. I'll take you up on that."

I headed into the ward room to see Greer sitting up holding his head, his sister, Dr. Julia Haynes, and my Beta stood by him.

"He's just woken up and still a little disorientated, but otherwise fine" Dr. Haynes spoke.

Jude gave me a sympathetic smile as I placed the books down on the bedside table.

As I spoke with Greer, the other guards, bar Nathan with the head injury, began to stir. Their accounts were all pretty similar. A strike from behind on their neck and an immediate headlock. Only Greer had faced a frontal assault. He thought my mate had scalded herself and was checking to ascertain how bad it was, luckily he had mind-linked Julia. If he hadn't we may not have known anything was wrong for hours, which I expressly told him when he began to apologise for failing in his duties. Julia assured me that Nathan would be fine and Carrick said he would get the guard's statement sent to me when he was awake and healed. I had no doubt that it would probably be near identical to the others.

"I think we need to update our security systems. Change keys and cards to keypads and biometric readers. It'll be more practical for shifting too" I spoke as Jude and I walked out of the hospital, heading back to the pack house where we both resided. My Gamma had stayed behind with his mate in the hospital to assist the guards.

"Good call, we'll see if any more information leaks too. If it does, then that means they're in the system and we can monitor for any unusual usage."

"My thinking exactly."

We headed up to my office to start putting a plan in place to achieve the impossible, find a wolf with no name or scent.

----------

2 months later

Snow was starting to settle now as winter set in. When I had left Maryland around a week ago there had been nothing, but as I headed further north the landscapes gradually became a little whiter. Jude and Carrick were back in our pack running things while I had taken off after finally finding a concrete lead from two weeks ago. 

I had become increasingly desperate in the last month and felt like I was racing against the clock. Two weeks into my search, I had contacted a store I believed my mate had visited. The owner had confirmed he remembered someone of my mate's description coming in, but had also said another man had asked that morning about a woman with the same features. After that, for over a month I hadn't found anything and I was starting to fear the worst. It wasn't until finding that lead two weeks ago that had subsided my worries that my mate may have been captured. After that her trail had been easier to follow. Vermont, that I was sure she was still located, had no packs as it was all human owned territory, so it appeared she had roamed a little more freely without the fear of being found by pack wolves. I had been able to track her movements and predict her course because of this, from frames from the human CCTV. I was immensely glad now that I had helped write the code for a friend's algorithm she was developing for tracking wanted people down. Like me, she wanted to keep tabs on people excommunicated from the pack to make sure they were behaving themselves. It had been quite an amusing phone call at the time.

~~~~

1 month, 3 weeks ago

I anxiously awaited Stella to answer her phone. She was a friend I had met a few times at Alpha meetings and was the Delta to Silent Rivers pack in Tennessee. Like me, she was incredibly proficient in all things computer related, including writing code and programs, so we had stayed in contact.

"Hello?"

"Stella! It's Ethan."

"Well if it ain't my computer geek brother from another mother, how you doing?"

"Complicated...listen, I need your help. That search program I helped you write a while back, I need access to it...providing it's actually working?"

"Sounds serious. Well, lucky for you it's just had a hell of an alpha test. It found a guy missing for 9 years in 3 days" she sounded pretty proud of herself "I can send you the software, we can consider this it's beta test of sorts."

If this was true, it could lead me straight to my mate.

"The person I'm trying to track...I don't have a name or even a pack, just a description. She went missing about a week ago."

She seemed to go quiet with that.

"If you promise to never tell Alpha Eden, I'll level with you. The only reason I found the guy so quick was because he had a PO box. It did, like, 70% of the work for me. The guys here don't know this kind of stuff and just think I'm magic and I'd like them to keep thinking that."

I snorted "I'll take it to my grave, Alpha's honour. But do you think it'll work for this situation?"

"We're about to find out."

She went through how to use it and some helpful pointers to aid me in my search, before she bid farewell.

~~~~

I was in a town around three hours away from the Canadian border. She had been here barely a few hours ago and I could feel my bond pulling me, achingly, towards my mate. It had been growing stronger each day I came closer to her. I had checked into a large Inn and headed out into the streets in my search...that's when I caught sight of her. A few wisps of red hair that spilled out of the hood pulled over her head and her tall, slender frame could be no other person. She was heading down the sidewalk, with the odd passerby and car traveling past. 

How the hell was I going to do this?

I couldn't just grab her in the middle of the street without drawing a lot of attention. And I couldn't just approach her and say 'hey', she'd just bolt...also attracting a lot of attention. She turned the corner and I headed after her, I would just have to follow her and see if an opportunity presented itself. I turned the corner to see a streak of red sprinting away from me and heading towards the tree line by the town...I guess this was the opportunity I had to roll with.

I took off after her without a second thought.

But I was determined my mate wouldn't escape me again.

Chapter 13 - The Wanted Alpha