As I approached the pack lands, the all too familiar scent of Eli, my beta, flooded my nose. I wasn't surprised though, seeing as I was the one who called him out in the first place. When I got closer, he sat against a tree with a bundle of clothing in his hand, staring at my approaching wolf.

Finally, I shifted and he tossed the clothing at me before standing up. I could now see the worried expression on his face.

"Dude, where the hell have you been? I was worried that you finally kicked the bucket. And what the fuck happened to your ear? Nolan is going to freak out when he sees it!"

"Can you shut up?" I frowned. "I just got back, don't start bitching just yet. I'm sure Nolan can do enough of that for both of you. Where is he?"

Eli rolled his eyes at my statement. "Back at the office. He's been freaking out since you fucking disappeared and has been sending out search parties to try and locate you. He's been a mess."

A small twinge of guilt coursed through me when I heard what my brother had been going through. I knew that when he saw me, he was going to be both relieved and pissed, but we had bigger things to focus on. Bigger things such as finding out who had attacked me that day.

"Come on, I need to speak with him. Anything strange happened while I was gone?"

Eli followed behind me. "Not that I can think of, but dude, seriously where were you? We searched and just couldn't find you."

Having known Eli for practically my whole life, I knew his question came from genuine curiosity, but that didn't mean I was going to tell him of my previous whereabouts. It wasn't that I didn't trust him, but rather I didn't want anyone who could potentially be listening in to know. Not to mention that I didn't want to get the Howling Night involved in this.

As annoying as I found Tatum, he didn't deserve that. I didn't even know the scale of the problem I was dealing with just yet, that would've just been a dick move. And while I may be the king of being a professional asshole, that didn't mean I was going to needlessly bring trouble to his pack. Even if he had kicked me out.

Even then, I could understand him. He was doing what he thought was best and I had to agree. Not just for him, but for me as well. Though my original intention was to stay for one more day, I could acknowledge the fact that the two of us just wouldn't blend well together. That was Nolan's specialty, not mine.

But then there were his eyes. His sad, green eyes. I wasn't the type of person who was good with emotions — the exception being anger. Anger I was good at — However, it wasn't hard to see the sadness that seemed to stand out so strongly in his eyes. There was a story there and it made me want to find out more, but I had to remind myself that I couldn't. At the end of the day, Tatum was his own person. He was the alpha of his own pack and so was I, we each had jobs that we needed to do. Jobs that didn't involve each other. And that was just the way it had to be.

I never liked the way it had to be.

"Shut up and wait until we get to the office," I told Eli who rolled his eyes.

"I'm glad to see that you're still as charming as ever, Alpha," Eli said sarcastically.

Had it been anyone else, I would've been pissed. But it was Eli so like I normally did when Eli decided to open his mouth, I ignored him and kept walking.

As we walked through the pack, I could feel eyes on me but nobody dared to say a thing. My eyes subtly examined the crowd, looking for someone's expression that seemed out of place. Someone who was shocked or perhaps pissed off that their attempt to murder me had failed.

I didn't see any expressions that screamed 'I tried to murder you in a cowardly way, Nixon!', so I continued my advance to Nolan's office. Eventually, I'd find the people who were involved and they'd receive their punishment. It would be the same thing that they failed to do to me. They would be killed.

When I reached the office building, I entered with Eli not far behind me. I walked up the stairs and went to the furthest room down the hall where I knew Nolan would be. Not bothering to knock, I push the door open. Nolan's head snapped around to face me and Roan did the same. I eyed the distance between them, or rather the lack thereof. Roan caught my gaze and attempted to back up, but Nolan stopped him before standing up.

"Nixon?!" Nolan called out, rushing to me. His arms wrapped around me. Just as fast, he pulled back and punched me in the shoulder. "Where were you? You had me worried sick you jerk!"

"I—"

"And what happened to your ear?! Are you okay? Do we need to—"

"Nolan, for goddess' sake shut the fuck up," I told him.

Nolan looked unimpressed by my words and crossed his hands over his chest causing me to sigh. How was I the younger one out of the two of us? There had to be a mixup.

"Eli, close the door," I told my beta who quickly followed the command. I took a seat and gestured for Nolan to do the same. "I was attacked."

"You were what?" Nolan frowned. "By who?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm determined to find out," I told him. "I'm pretty sure they had to be people in the pack. Had it been random wolves, I would've been able to easily pick up the unknown scents, but if they were already here—"

"Then you didn't immediately realize the threat," Nolan concluded. "But you said 'people' meaning more than one. You think that we have traitors here?"

"It wouldn't be too hard to believe. Some of the pack members haven't quite been Nixon's number one fan ever since..." Eli trailed off.

Ever since I killed Isaiah three years ago. That was when the changes first started to occur and it was also the reason why Nolan and I had to wait longer until we were able to take over as the alphas of the Silver Night. Isaiah's death impacted the pack in more ways than one. It impacted Nolan and me more than people knew.

But it was like I told Tatum. I didn't regret killing him. Had it messed up my reputation in the pack? Yes, but that didn't matter. If anything, I wished I killed him sooner than I had before.

"Do you think the two are connected?" Roan asked.

"Why would they wait three years to try and get their revenge? That's fucking stupid, there's been multiple chances to attack me."

"Anger and resentment can make people do strange things. Maybe they've kept it bottled up for so long and it finally just...exploded," Nolan reasoned. "But we don't know who 'they' are yet."

"So what are we going to do?" Eli asked. "What does that mean for us?"

"It means," Eli's eyes met my identical ones. "That you're not safe here, Nixon."

The room fell silent and my mind went back to that night. I couldn't sleep so I decided to go out for a late-night run to release some energy. It wasn't the first time I'd done so and I wasn't planning to stay out long since I had to test the warriors in the morning. Nobody else was out, or so I thought. What was supposed to be a short and simple run changed when I stopped to get water. It was then that I heard the footsteps approaching behind me and began to turn, but before I had time to figure out who was attacking me, wolves pounced and we all ended up in the water.

"We'll find them," I told Nolan, pushing my previous thoughts away.

Nolan shook his head. "I know we will, but...but I think that until we do, you should stay somewhere else."

What?