CONNOR

I watch her go, controlling my wolf and myself from the urge of snatching her up in my arms and locking her in my bedroom. Only the pain in her eyes keeps me from acting on my instinct.

"She'll be fine, Alpha Connor. I'll make sure of it." The silent taunt in his voice when he calls me Alpha, doesn't anger me anymore. I just wish that my mate's brother would somehow help me in winning my mate back instead of brainwashing her against me.

"She'll be fine without me, Cayden but I can no longer survive without her." I accept. With each step that she goes and sits in that cab, my heart bleeds thinking that this might be the last time that I see her.

"Then why don't you work on winning her back?"

I jerk my head in surprise to look at Cayden who's watching his sister grimly as her cab starts pulling away. He looks back at me and the distrust in his gaze doesn't hurt me as much as it did when Catrina looked at me in that same way.

"I don't like you but I know that you are the best option when it comes to Xanthos and his new plan of hurting my family. I have sworn my allegiance to protect Fenris and his mate. Now that I've found Catrina, I will always think about her safety but I cannot have my mind distracted when protecting my Alpha and Luna. That is the only reason why I am okay with my sister belonging to you completely."

Cayden finishes his speech, spoken out of true sincerity and I feel my dislike towards this wolf reduce to a neutral acceptance. He is loyal to his duty which means that he won't try to steal Catrina from me.

"Thank you, Cayden."

"Don't thank me yet. If you ever hurt my sister or break her newfound trust in your love, I swear, I'll kill you. Consequences be damned!" he exclaims in a calm voice, so calm it is, that I know he's promising me, not threatening me.

I nod in acceptance and watch as his wolf recedes back in his mind making my own wolf settle back a bit.

"Let me break the news of your father's identity to her. She's a dormant but her chances of shifting are high according to Sierra. Fenris suggested that I should be the one to disclose this information so that I can earn her trust and..."

"Fine. I don't like it but I want to be with you. I want Ma to be there as well," he demands.

"If the circumstances are like that when I tell her then I promise to wait for you but I am not sure. Do you agree?"

"Why? What do you suspect?"

"Xanthos is close. I don't know if he knows that my mate is your twin. I don't know if he knows that Xavier has a daughter. My pack enforcers spotted some activity in the human town of my pack but I need more information to confirm if it's Xanthos. It can be my father as well," I explain. Hearing my father's name, Cayden curls his upper lip in contempt.

I sigh in resignation. My father hates Fenris and it's obvious for his Beta to hate my father. I just don't want any of it to interfere in my mating.

"I'll ask Fenris to delay our return for a week but if not then I want you to tell her before I leave. Or I can anytime take her with me," he threatens and I growl barely containing my urge to strangle him.

"Stop it, you two," Sierra steps in between us, her belly coming in my view before her face.

"Will you stay back? You'll get hurt," snarls Fenris as he marches down the steps of my house and hauls Sierra in his arms.

"Yes, stay back, Luna. This is between us."

"Oh, you forget. We are an 'us' now. My sister by mating, so she's my family and I have the equal right to threaten you," says Sierra, haughtily as I roll my eyes.

"Fine, I'll talk to Catrina ASAP." Sierra nods in victory and rubs her belly while she and her mate play another one of those mind reading games.

"We can wait only for a week. I want my daughter to be born in my land," spits out Fenris as he stops Cayden from arguing with a chilling look of his eyes. At this moment, he's the King and he's not going to let anyone argue with him.

Fuck!

~~~~~

"Alpha!"

I sense one of my pack members join me the moment I enter the pack house, the very next day after Catrina leaving me to think about our future.

"Yes, Natalie?" I keep my tone neutral even when on the inside the sight of this pack member, the one who I had once slept with, makes me cringe and my wolf bares his fangs in aggression.

"I have come to ask for your blessing," says Natalie, her cheeks turning a shade of pink as she stands in front of me.

"For what?"

"I, um, found my mate and would like to join him. We have claimed each other," she says. I take a deep breath, sniffing the scent around us and notice that there is no change in her scent. I raise my brows in question at her suspicious sentence and at the lack of absence of her mate.

Looking at my expression of skeptism, she flushes a deeper shade of red and I stifle the urge of rolling my eyes at her.

She's pathetic!

I am an even more pathetic and disgusting person for having fucked her!

"I met him a few days ago. We verbally accepted each other. So I want to leave this pack..."

"You do know that I cannot officially remove you from this pack without the proof about your mating."

"Yes, Alpha but he's unavailable to meet you and ask for my hand."

Again, I stifle the urge to roll my eyes. Why would her mate require my permission to mate his own soulmate? He just has to show his face so that I can break the pack bond.

"I cannot remove you from the pack but yes, you do get permission to temporarily take a leave from your pack duties. You can spend time with your mate. But who is he? Which pack?" I ask, frowning at her lack of enthusiasm.

"You would let me go just like that, Alpha?" she asks with that puppy dog look on her face.

That's when I understand her lack of enthusiasm and I suddenly feel tired. I loathe this. It makes me realise how disgusting a wolf I am. To sleep around, to be the man-whore that I had once accused my brother-by-mating of being.

"Natalie, you do know that I have found my mate. I just am waiting for the right time to claim her. Also, even if I hadn't found her, I wouldn't have chosen just any female to be my Luna."

I watch as Natalie's face crumbles with pain. I feel guilty to lead her on knowing very well that an Alpha isn't supposed to hook up randomly, especially with his own pack females. It just causes a lot of distress. Thank the Goddess, I slept with only one pack female, the rest of my hook ups being human girls from the neighboring town.

"It is good that you have finally found your mate who I am sure will keep you happy," I say, hoping to sound very polite and gentle in my reprimand. She looks at me once and then blinks twice to push away her tears before her gentle expression is covered by a mask of my pack hunter.

I feel relieved. One female breakdown avoided!

I nod at her and turn to walk towards the pack borders to check up on the patrollers. Fenris is busy in my pack library searching for some texts that my dad knew of and has preserved. Thinking of my dad, I recall all the huge mess that he left behind, one that I am not sure anymore if I'll be able to straighten up.

"Good morning, Connor," greets my new Beta, Yuri Borovkov. It has been only a week since I appointed him as my Beta. I have realized that it is just impossible to let my dad's beta work for me. He just keeps on creating more problems for me by keeping secrets which can cause my entire pack to crumble to dust.

"Good morning, Yuri. How are you feeling about your job?" I ask.

"It's an honor, Alpha but I do feel sometimes that by appointing me as your Beta you have officially put an end to my personal life," says Yuri with light mischief in his gaze which makes me chuckle at his soft way of showing that our pack's just hanging in by a thread.

"I know my friend and that's the reason why I chose you. I don't trust many people here. Some still don't really believe that father was such a bas... bad alpha," I correct myself, not wanting anyone to hear my near slip-up and judging my rule all the more than they do already.

They think that the King's exacting revenge because their Alpha had banished his son for befriending him. No one has a problem with Fenris as their King. The problem is that my pack belongs to the old world where they had clearly approved of the old ways and do not at all want to modernize themselves in this new world.

"Any news?"

"Yes. A lone wolf has been spotted in the human part of our pack territory."

I freeze.

My wolf snarls in warning and only one thing keeps chanting in my head. "Mate's in danger!"

I agree with my wolf. She is no doubt in danger.

"Any clue about his identity?"

"I personally looked into it when the lone wolf skirted expertly through our pack borders. He enters into our territory through the human settlement and exits through the same route. He even walks in his human form but his stench. It's of a lone wolf and he's stalking something... probably someone," says Yuri with a very grim expression on his face.

"Where exactly in the human settlements?"

"Near the upper east of our territory, Silver Oak High," he replies and I let out a sigh of relief thinking that my mate's safe but immediately tense up when I realize that it's the same school where I went when I was banished by my father.

No one from this pack knows that I went to that school after my banishment so the possibility that this lone wolf is my father is very high. It means that he knows about me and Catrina. He might also know that she's my mate and if he knows that she's my mate then he knows that my Cat's a dormant wolf.

Goddess!

He'll lose his mind thinking that my mate is dormant. He won't allow me to claim her and thinking of his rather degrading mind, I don't hesitate to think of the lengths he would go to keep my mate away from me.

Blyad! 

~~~~~

Thank you for reading!

What do you'll think will happen to Catrina? Will Conan get to her? Or will Connor reach in time to save her from Conan's clutches?

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I hope everyone is fine in different parts of the world. Take Care!