Hello, folks, how have you been? I know it's been a long time since I've last come here. And I can't promise I'll be coming every week since I have several projects going on and no time to write at all.

What I can promise is I will not abandon this story. It'll be finished someday <3

Hope you stick with me until then and you enjoy this chapter.  If you do, don't forget to leave a vote for me. Thanks!

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It took a while for it to come back to me. Who he was, I mean. The alpha of the Moonlight pack. I couldn't avoid laughing when the memory came back, how could I have forgotten him, when he had met just a few weeks before? According to the doctor, it could be some collateral effect from the poison, but he couldn't be sure.

Of course not, he was not a witch to know stuff like that. I was, and I knew it was not possible. But not only me... Abe seemed to be hiding something from me since I woke up. He didn't answer my questions directly and always avoided my look.

On the other hand, Adrian didn't leave my side for a single moment during those few days of recovery. He didn't try to force anything on me, but it was hard ignoring that puppy eyes he gave me whenever I said I had nothing else to do there. He avoided my stare in those moments. Sure he and Abe had been talking.

"You will not leave this place until you're fully recovered," Adrian said one afternoon when seeing me already packing my stuff in the backpack Abe had gotten me.

A deep sigh came out from my lips. "I'm not staying here one more second." His eyes shivered. He was hurt by my words. I cringed, not understand what that meant. "You saw what happened. The mutts allied with the witches and they almost destroyed your pack. Imagine what they can do to mine if I stay here. Also, I'm completely fine already. Just let me go."

He kept staring at me, while I finished tidying my stuff. His body, however, stood between me and the door when I tried to leave the room where I had been agonizing the last few days.

"Don't go. You don't have to."

I stared at the man like he was crazy. "I do have to."

Adrian closed the door and turned back to me. Took the bag from my shoulders and, after putting it over the bed, held my arms. "Stay here. Bring your pack over. Mine is weakened by the attack and yours isn't as powerful as the Moonlight was."

I frowned, incapable to keep up with what he was saying.

"Let's merge our packs, become one," Adrian went on, despite the indignant look on my face. "Think about that for a second, Syera. We don't have a chance of standing on our own if we're together..."

Shooking my head, I didn't let him finish. "I have been studying on my own until now. Nor you or those mutts will change that fact. I don't need you to keep my wolves safe." He seemed disappointed. Getting rid of his grab, I took my stuff and walked back to the door, not looking back. "I'm leaving now."

Abe waited for me outside, not as ready to go as I expected. Still, he behaved weirdly quiet and distant. "You know he's right," the man said, as I walked across him. Of course, he would be against me.

I stopped and turned to him.

"Your efforts won't be forgotten or ignored, but we do need to help each other now."

"And you think the wolves will just accept a merge like this? After everything we've been through together?"

"We'll follow you wherever you go." He approached me slowly, taking my hand inside his. "I'm telling you this now as your beta. And I hope you hear my advice this time."