Saving Briar

Somehow Theon had managed not to tear apart the hospital room he was staying in when the doctor explained to him why he kept passing out. He knew that he had no one to blame for the circumstances that he found himself in but himself, well and possibly Cara for attacking Briar. His wolf was most definitely feeling more and more aggression towards the high ranking female every time her name flitted through his head. He couldn’t even think of her as his girlfriend anymore, much less his fiance, as she’d now styled herself.

What would have happened if he hadn’t been with Cara, especially for as long as their relationship had gone on, when he’d discovered that she wasn’t his mate? Would he have been able to come to terms with Briar being an Omega? Or would he still have felt the need to reject her?

He knew that at the very least he wouldn’t have had her beaten. But fuck, every time that thought went through his head he wanted to kick his own ass. He was the Alpha of the pack. Cara wasn’t even his Luna. He should have taken control of the situation and stopped the beating from happening. Instead he had stood frozen in place and watched. That in itself was as good as approving of the assault.

Running his hands through his hair he shook his head. The doctor said a nurse would be in soon to remove his IV and give him his discharge papers and then he would be free to go. Free to go where was the question? Everything was fucked up so badly he wasn’t sure where to begin to go about repairing it.

Theon looked up at the sound of footsteps, his brow furrowing as he realized that it wasn’t the nurse coming in to remove his IV.

“Alpha,” his father’s Beta would not have been his first choice, but the man was still young enough to serve him and it hadn’t felt right asking him to retire just yet. Someday Theon would make that move, asking his own best friend, Hux to step into the role, but for now he knew that having a young Alpha had been more than enough change for the pack to accept. Hux’s father was his third in command. He and Hux had been best friends for as long as Theon could remember. While Beta Poe had only daughters, his father’s Third, Cadoc, who had died alongside him a few years earlier on a hunt, had three strong sons. Hux was the oldest of the three.

“Beta Poe. What news do you have? Did you bring her back?” Theon’s fingers gripped the metal bars of the hospital bed so hard he thought they might snap in two as he waited to hear the answer. The other man’s reluctance to speak told him all he needed to know before he had gotten out a single word.

“Unfortunately we weren’t able to capture the escaped prisoner and bring her back.” Theon bit back a growl at the way his Beta was referring to the girl. Surely he knew who she was and why they were tracking her, didn’t he? Fuck, if they found her he promised himself that whatever happened he wouldn’t make the same mistake of letting her be thrown into the prison cells again.

“Or harmed.” His wolf snarled the words in his mind. “You won’t let anyone harm her again either.” Silently he agreed.

“But do you know where she is?” Beta Poe’s eyes had been on the floor, but on hearing his tone the other man quickly looked up, scanning his face.

“I had six men with me when we found her. Hux and I were leading the way, with the rest of the warriors that had been selected for this task close behind. We tracked her far past the edge of our territory. She’s much stronger than any of us suspected.” A thrill of pride crept through Theon’s body at the words, mingling with his shame. So she hadn’t been so weak after all then, even as an Omega. “We came to the edge of a stream some twenty five miles east of here where it looked as if she’d collapsed when she stopped to drink. There were traces of blood on the rocks.”

“Fuck.” The word detonated from Theon’s lips as he stood up from the bed, ripping the IV from his own arm without feeling it, only half realizing what he’d done.

“I realize that this is a problem for you. Especially since it’s become apparent that the little slut will fuck anything on two legs. And the situation has become more complicated.” The growl that left Theon’s lips felt as if it had been torn from his soul. He threw back his head, feeling his canines slicing through his gums, before he managed to pull himself back. No. He didn’t have time to shift right now. He needed all the information that his Beta had, so that he could decide how to proceed.

“Don’t. Just don’t talk about her that way.” Poe frowned at him, his brows drawing together as he stared at the young man before him with uncertainty. Now wasn’t the time for Theon to grow a backbone.

“Fine, Alpha. But there’s more information. We continued to track the Omega’s scent from the river,” his Beta managed to make the word sound as disgusting as he possibly could. “She was taken to a nearby home. Her scent was mixed with that of a male Kodiak shifter. We staked out the perimeter. He’s a huge son of a bitch. And the two of them were cozy. Seems he liked what he saw and didn’t care she wasn’t a Bear Shifter since the one time Hux and I got close enough to the house to make sure she was inside we caught them in a pretty compromising position.”

Theon’s claws ripped through the calluses on the palms of his hands. His mate was already fucking someone else, just like the doctor had predicted. That’s why he’d started passing out. But fuck. None of this would have started if he hadn’t made it so she felt like she had to run for her life.

“Hux and I came back to give you the report, but we left the other four behind to monitor the situation and I just got word from Ian that there’s been a change.”

Theon stood, hardly noticing the trickle of blood that was running down his arm where he’d ripped the IV out. It had already begun to slow as his wolf helped him heal.

“Tell me.” He stared at the other man, his eyes narrow as he waited for his answer.

“They couldn’t get close to the house. The Bear Shifter is a monster. I almost thought-” the Beta paused for a second, rubbing his hands on the legs of his jeans nervously before shaking his head as if to dismiss whatever it was he had been about to say. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. You need to know what we know. This guy is enormous. He came after us when he saw us looking in the window the first day. We barely got away. And he kept prowling outside for a while afterward.”

“Anyways, while this bastard is a huge motherfucker, he’s still fast. After that first day, he didn’t come back out again, we only saw him through the window and we didn’t see the Omega at all. But we kept watch on the house after we fell back and I can guarantee that she didn’t leave while we were there. After Hux and I turned back I got word that a truck arrived with one male bear shifter, a female bear shifter and what they believed was a female wolf shifter.”

Theon ground his teeth together. He didn’t like where this was headed. He had no idea where exactly that was, but he had a feeling it couldn’t be anywhere that was good for him.

“They were inside for maybe six hours before a helicopter landed. Two women ran out of the house, both female wolves. Two men got down and met them and helped them into the helo.” For the first time the Beta seemed nervous, walking across the room to look out the window at the parking lot.

“What did they see?” Theon had run out of patience with the older man and the only thing keeping him from sending him sprawling across the room was the fact that he had the answers that the Alpha needed about where his mate was now.

“Ian got close to where the helicopter landed. Almost too close. We were lucky they were upwind or those assholes who came to meet the women would have known they were there and our men likely would have been done. Just about scared the shit out Ian too, from what he told me.”

“What the fuck had Ian that scared?” Theon shook his head. The warrior in question was hardly a coward. He was one of the best fighters and he’d proved himself in battle time and time again. None of what Poe was saying was making sense.

“At first he wasn’t sure what they were. When they got down he stayed low in the brush he was hiding in and he could hear them talking. Their scent was carried straight to him and he said that they smelled cold to him. I asked him what he meant and he said like winter. He’d never scented anything like it, but he said that his wolf freaked. If he hadn’t had complete control over the thing, it would have bolted right then and there.”

Theon’s rage gave way, at least in part, to curiosity. He had never heard of something happening like what his Beta was describing. Who the Hell were these people?

“He heard them say that Brianna, or maybe Brielle had gotten a hot one and that the Boss would be more than pleased when they got her back home. And then the girls came out. That would be all we know but when the helicopter took back off Ian managed to get a look at the bottom of it before it got too high and there was a symbol of a rose on the bottom of the damn thing. I knew you’d understand what that meant, even if he didn’t. Thank the Goddess he thought to mention it to me.”

“Rose Industries. There’s no way. He’s in Alaska now? Are you serious Poe? You aren’t just fucking with me?” Theon let out a slow breath. “No wonder Ian thought they smelled cold. Heartless bastards probably don’t even have a pulse. And I guarantee they won’t once I get through with them.”

“You can’t be serious.” His Beta had been looking out the window again but he turned around the face Theon the moment the words left his mouth. “She’s gone. Isn’t this what you wanted. Fuck, she’s weak. She probably won’t survive a month there. Problem solved, right? Your hands are clean. Your mate’s death doesn’t even need to be on your conscience. Rose will handle it for you.”

“I can’t let that happen.” Theon found his pants folded on a chair and quickly pulled them on, before reaching up to tug at the ties of the hospital gown. “I let her go once and I sure as Hell won’t make the same mistake twice. I have business to settle here and then I’m going. She may not forgive me, but I’m not going to let her die because I fucked up and let her get chased away from the place she should have been safest in all the world. I have shit to make up for and I plan on doing that before I figure out how to do a better job than I’ve apparently been doing of being Alpha here.”