In Reach?

Liam’s POV

I’ve been interrogating the two rogues we caught from the attack the other day. They’re very tight lipped. And Noah and I were very brutal with our torture techniques. The one even died, but this other one is still showing no fear. It’s clear he would rather die than say anything. I guess I’ll just have to show him that I have no intention of giving him an easy out and would rather give him a life of endless torture.

I’m just happy that my pack managed to stop the attack before anyone got hurt. I know, because one of the hunters that attacked us dropped a hexed weapon before fleeing. These assholes were going to hurt my pack with these grotesque weapons. And now I’m sitting here with another hexed weapon in my hands, hoping Char can tell us if the counsel has figured a way to fight against these things yet. But she just keeps saying no. I know there is probably more that the counsel isn’t sharing, but I have no intention of reaching out to them now. They would probably just try to bargain that information for something else.

That’s when I hear a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

Alex pops his head in and takes the seat in front of me.

“What can I help you with?”

“Actually. It seems you'll get rid of me sooner than you thought. I have to leave.” He says a bit hesitantly.

“So soon?”

“Trust me, I don’t want to leave yet, but duty calls. I have to report back to my captain. I can’t send Rachel coz she just about found her mate, and I definitely can’t send Marcus. He isn’t from my coven. Can’t expect him to report to my captain. Besides, maybe I’ll be able to convince the captain to join in on this alliance. I’m sure he’ll love the chance for some action.”

He smirks at me.

“Well I definitely won’t be complaining about that.”

“Please just promise me that you will protect Mira.”

My wolf is annoyed that he would think otherwise, but I know he’s just worried about her.

“Of course I will.”

He nods. “I know you will, but I still asked Rachel and Marcus to keep an eye on her. I know you’re a busy man too.”

“Can’t hurt to be extra careful.”

“So any answers from your prisoner yet?”

I raise my brow at him.

“I know I may seem nosy, but I have my fair share of experience in dealing with rogues. They’re very stubborn when it comes to talking. I’m just willing to offer some advice.”

“And what would you suggest?”

“So he hasn’t said anything.” He confirms. “Well, with those hard-assed ones, you’ll need to do more than just torture them physically. These guys already have nothing to lose. So, you need to break them mentally. Threaten to take the one thing they still have, - their manhood or their wolf.”

These fuckers. I knew hunters were relentless when it came to killing, but their torture techniques were always known to be inhumane.

“Don’t look at me like that Alpha. We do what we have to, to survive. Not to mention, you’ll be more shocked when you hear about the things rogues get up to, especially in the cities.”

There’s a slight silence in the room.

“Well, I better get going. I still have to greet Mira.” But just as Alex gets up, he spots the hexed dagger in a rag on my desk. “Is that what I think it is?”

“You know what this is?” I didn’t think hunters from so far away would know about this. Just how far does Dahlia’s influence reach?

“Well, my captain was approached by a young witch a few weeks ago with one of those. They wanted us to join their fight against the wolf packs here. That's how we found out about what's happening up here. But we refused. We saw no interest in going on a murder spree for someone else’s revenge. But from what I hear, those do a lot of damage.” He says pointing to the dagger.

“Yes they do. So did the witch just offer it to you? How many did she give you guys?”

“She didn’t give us any. They apparently only give the weapons to those that join their so-called cause. But one thing I can tell you, is that those weapons can probably do just as much damage to witches than they do to wolves.”

I sit up straight out of curiosity. “What do you mean? These weapons were cursed to hurt wolves.”

“Yes, but both wolf and witch blood were used to curse it. I can sense wolf and witch magic radiating from it. It’s potent, both. So it will cause damage to both wolves and witches. My guess is that’s the reason they want to get hunters in on this. Coz we can use it and it’s too dangerous for witches to use them directly. But that witch didn’t dare mention it, and I got curious when she handled it with a covering. But then again, I haven’t seen it do actual damage to a witch. I guess you’ll just have to try it out and see.”

“Well that actually gives me some hope with this.”

“Glad to help. Just make sure to keep that thing away from Mira.”

“Definitely.”

Alex extends his hand out to me as he stands, and I don’t hesitate to stand and shake his hand.

He tightens his hold on my hand and looks me directly in the eye. “I hope you know that this won’t be the last you see of me. We’re family now.” He smirks and leaves the office.

Great. I’m family with a hunter now. But why does it make me smile?

Liam’s POV

It’s already late at night and I’m still in the office. I’m still trying to fix and update the map we had splayed out on the wall, of Dahlia’s possible locations. I had so much work to do today, I just want to finish. I hear a knock on the door and sigh hoping it’s not more work.

“Come in.”

Char walks in all smiles. “Hey Tarzan. Why are you still up so late?”

I just give her an annoyed look. I told her to stop calling me that.

She giggles. “I just came to let you know that Aubrey is all good again. She hit her head pretty badly, but it’s all good now.”

“That’s good to hear. I’m sure Noah will be happy to hear that.”

She walks closer and leans over all the documents I have lying open on my desk. “As organized as you are, how are you still such a messy boy? How can you even focus with all this mess?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what stuff I still need and what I can throw away.”

She looks at the file with Mira’s picture on it.

“You have a file on Mira?” She gives me a suspecting look.

“This was when I was still trying to figure out who she was.” I get up and start packing all the other files away.

Char grabs Mira’s file. “May I?”

“Yeah sure.”

She takes it and reads it as she makes her way to the nearby couch. “Wow, I knew you said she’s a dancer, but she actually went to Juliard. She must be good.”

I can’t help but smile at her compliment to my mate.

“She had a lot of names, but always kept her first name. It must be her birth name.”

I’m just about done clearing up my desk when I see her tensing up as she furrows her brows.

“What? Still shocked about yet another thing about my mate?”

But she gets up and hands me the file with a forced smile. “Uhm. I have to go.”

Before I can even say anything, she already rushed out of the office.

What was that about?

I shake my head and put the file away, I don’t want to stress to wonder about that right now. I want to see Mira. She’s been avoiding me since this morning, and something tells me it’s about last night. And I definitely don’t want her feeling shy after she just about opened herself up to me about her sexual desires. There is so much more to discover about her, and I know we barely scratched the surface last night.

I make my way downstairs. I know she’s probably in the library. I can feel her there. Just as I get closer to the library, I hear some muffling coming from inside the library.

“Marcus, what are you doing?”

“What? Now that you have a so-called mate, now you forget all about us?”

Us?

“There is no us. You need to stop this. I thought you have a girlfriend now.”

“She’s nothing compared to you. Why do you think I dropped everything just to help Alex bring you back?”

“You shouldn’t do that to her. It’s not right. Besides, I have Liam.”

“Oh please, you and I both know you’re only staying here because you can’t leave…….yet.”

There’s silence. She’s not saying anything back. Why?

“Th…that’s not true.”

“Really? Then why haven’t you marked the Alpha? You can stop lying to me. I know you, I know you’re not as innocent as you have everyone believe.”

“Stop it.”

“That’s why you even kept me a secret from Alex. That’s why you never told him about what happened between us.”

“Nothing happened between us. It was a mistake, remember.”

Pfh! “One that I regret apologizing for.”

Smack! I hear the sound of a slap. I rush to the door hoping nothing happened to Mira.

Just as I make it to the door, Mira rips open the door and crashes into my chest.

“Liam?” She looks shocked seeing me, but seeing that hunter hold his face, tells me he was the one that got slapped.

“I came to get you. It’s late.” I look back up at the man.

“Yes. Let’s go. I’m tired too.” She walks out as she pulls me along by my hand.

I don’t know if she wants to get me away from him or if she wants me near her, but I’m not going to stop her. I’m still confused with what I just heard. I knew she had slept with Alex, and it almost destroyed me when I found out, and it did a lot of toughening up of my patience when I finally saw the man. I know the two of them are just friends now, but it still bothers me in the back of my mind. But now this guy shows up talking about them having something. Did she sleep with him too?

I know I'm not innocent and my list of fucks is endless, especially since I don't even remember half of them. As a man who had no hope of waiting around for a mate I had nothing holding me back. I hope I never have to talk to her about it, yet I'm worried and curious about her list. But I don't think I even want this topic of discussion to ever come up.

I didn’t even notice that we were already in the room, when she let go of my hand. She’s still not looking at me as she makes her way to the walk-in closet.

“Mira. Is something wrong?” I ask watching her change into her nightdress.

“No.” She avoids looking at me as she walks out.

I sigh, not knowing what to do. I don’t want to force her, but I’m more worried that she might lie to get out of it.

I undress and join her in bed in nothing but my boxers. She’s not even lying in the middle of the bed like she always does, so I can hold her. I switch the bedside lamp off and lie on my back staring at the ceiling. I don’t even know if this knot growing in my chest is from me or her.

But she suddenly sits up, getting my attention. “I can’t do this.” She basically says to herself.

I sit up too and put my hand on her back as I ask. “What is it Mira?”

“I have to tell you something.” She looks at me with a worried look on her face. I can see her eyes tearing up, as the moonlight shines into the room and against her face.

“Okay.”

She turns her body to face me as she sits on her knees. “But please, just listen to everything before you say anything. And I really don’t want you to get angry.” She looks at me pleadingly.

But I can feel my mouth going dry, worried for what she might just tell me. So I just nod and wait for her to continue.

“Thing is, I know Marcus, before he even came here.” She looks at me expectantly. “He,….he…” She bites her lip, hesitating to speak. “I got to know him through Alex. They apparently worked together a few times. But Alex told me to stay away from him, that he’s not a good guy for someone like me. But I wasn’t bothered by that, it’s not like I really wanted to get to know him either. But one night something happened.”

She looks down at her fumbling hands. I can feel the worry and guilt running through her. But luckily she continues.

“One night when I was out with a colleague, I saw him at the bar completely wasted. I helped my friend get a car to take her to her place, but I went back to him to just check on him. I didn’t know if he would be able to get home like that, so I asked him to give me his address so I could get a cab for him. As I helped him get out of the bar to wait for the cab, he…… he pushed me into an alleyway. He got really rough, trying to kiss me and hold me. He kept talking about how he knows I’m always playing hard to get. I kept pushing him away but he wouldn’t let go. So I just slapped him. It must have sobered him up a bit, because when he looked at me again, he kept on apologizing, saying that he was just drunk. I didn’t want to tell Alex about it, because I didn’t want to be the cause of bad blood with his colleagues, I definitely didn’t want an ‘I told you so’ speech.”

She looks up at me and I know she can see the anger in my eyes, my wolf’s anger. That fucker tried to force his hands on her.

“I’m sorry.” She says in a broken voice as a tear falls down her cheek.

I pull her onto my lap. “What are you apologizing for?” I try to say with as little anger as possible.

“I should have told you about him sooner, but I just didn’t want to add to all the stuff you already have going on.”

I pull her chin up to have her look at me. “Nothing about you is ever a bother to me.”

“I just didn’t think it was even worth mentioning, because he apologized and said it was all a mistake. But just now in the library he said,……”

He said he didn’t regret it.

I pull her tighter in my hold, resting her head on my shoulder. “I won’t let that delusional asshole anywhere near you.” I stroke her beautiful, long hair on her back.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers into my neck.

“Sshh, sshhh. Don’t apologize for this. But thank you.”

“For what?”

“For telling me,.... for trusting me.” I kiss her temple, inhaling her wonderful scent.

Holding her and smelling her scent is calming me enough to not march down there and ripping that fucker’s dick off, and feed it to him to choke on his own delusional bullshit.

He clearly thinks he has a chance with her. Well, he can forget about it. I’m not letting him anywhere near her, she’s mine. He can ‘protect’ her from a distance for all I care. Alex better hurry back and drag this guy’s ass away from here, before I kill him. But maybe I can kill him. Alex did say he’s not from their coven. I’m sure no one will miss him. But it will probably upset Mira. Ugh.

I hear her breathing even out and I know she’s asleep in my lap. I just lay backwards, letting her small frame lie on top of me. I continue to stroke her hair until I myself fall asleep to the sound of her small breaths against my neck.