Lauren Hale had been asleep for two days, thanks to a chemically induced coma.

Alpha Kaddian had not left her side once.

Scottlin and Kyrrian had been searching for Liam Redd because they knew once Alpha Kaddian left the hospital, the likely hood of Liam Redd living was slim to none. The doctors had finally declared her as "out of critical condition" and that they would be waking her up in a few hours.

Kyrrian took this moment to grab her brother.

"I'm not leaving" he growled.

"You need to. Besides they have to bathe her and change her clothes" a petite nurse behind Kyrrian nodded emphatically.

Kaddian stared at both the nurse and his sister before finally rising and leaving the room. Kyrrian followed her stoic brother closely, not bothering to warn him about the weather just outside the hospital.

Completely unfazed by the view of rain falling from the sky, Kaddian exited the sliding doors of the hospital and then stopped, looking up at the sky, as if he was shocked by the moisture.

"Kaddian" Kyrrian said his name in such a tone that made him realize she was angry.

"Yes, Kyrrian" somehow, Kaddian had always managed to make questions seem like statements of authority and masculinity.

"Kaddian, look at me" Kyrrian growled. Kaddian turned, his hackles rising at her challenging tone.

When he said nothing, Kyrrian asked, "she's your mate, isn't she?"

Kaddian stared at his sister neutrally, before turning and walking toward his SUV in the parking lot.

Kyrrian glared down at the ground, clenching her fist in anger.

"You lied to me" she growled. When Kaddian disregarded her comment, Kyrrian sprinted and jumped onto her brothers back, wrapping her forearm around his throat. She leaned backward, putting him into a sleeper hold.

She only had the upper hand for a few seconds before he flung her over his hand. Her impact on the asphalt was jarring, Kyrrian felt her teeth rattle against each other with the act.

Kaddian stared down at his sister, waiting for her next move. He hoped she would make a wise decision. She looked up with angry tears in her eyes, and he knew two things instantly.

One, he had hurt her feelings far more than he expected to and two...

She was not going to make the wise decision.

Kaddian hit the ground when Kyrrian swiped her legs under his feet. She jumped on top of him and punched him once in the face before she was flung to the side. Before the opportunity for Kyrrian to stand was even presented, Kaddian rose to his feet, grabbed her by her legs and flung her into the forest to the side of the parking lot. Kyrrian landed face first in the mud, but when she heard her brothers sprinting steps she hopped to her feet. Whe he came over the edge of crest she had rolled down, she screamed loudly, baring her extended canines.

Kaddian's roar was much louder and much deeper than her own, and the sound made her want to cringe, but she was too angry to listen to baser instincts.

Kyrrian began sprinting at her panting brother, but never reached him as she was blinded sided by what felt like a freight train. The mystery person and Kyrrian landed hard, sliding through the mud until they collided with a tree. Kyrrian had been safely tucked in the strangers embrace, meaning she felt nothing from the abrassive tree other than the jolting stop.

"Let me go" Kyrrian yelled, but the arms around her waist were steadfast.

"Stop. You two are drawing attention to yourselves. You should not be fighting. He is your brother and your Alpha" Alpha Reik whispered, his voice labored whenever she struggled against his word and grip.

Kaddian watched Scottlin Reik prevent his sister from attacking him further and knew that the Alpha was not going to let her continue her onslaught. Kaddian took a deep breath and turned, heading back to the hospital.

Everyone in the lobby looked at his soaking wet person with confusion and shock but no one was brave enough to say anything, especially with the look on his dour face. That is, until a nurse noticed his head was bleeding.

"Sir, can I-" but one upheld hand from Kaddian silenced her effectively. He made his way back to Lauren Hale's room, whose door was closed, and waited until the attending nurse finished her duties. When she left, Kaddian re-entered the room and sat down. Not soon after, a doctor visited holding a large folder.

"Ah, Mr. Grayson, good evening" the woman replied cheerfully. He nodded his head in response.

"Mr. Grayson, we've given her the medicine that will bring her out of her coma, and soon she'll be awake. Try to keep her calm, she'll be in a lot of pain at first until she becomes accustomed to the new feelings overwhelming her. It's best if she doesn't talk too much" Dr. Linne, as her name tag read, informed. Kaddian nodded, again, and settled himself into the soft arm chair.

He only waited an hour before he registered her quickening heartbeat and breath. He saw the subtle movements of her hand and eyelids right before she moaned and opened her eyes.

Kaddian sat forward and realized that his own heart was ramming against his ribcage. He had no idea what to do next. Every molecule of his being was screaming at him to take her hand or caress her face, any sort of physical touch, but he knew that sort of action could be inappropriate to her.

Instead, as always, he watched her intently, waiting for her to register with reality.

Lauren Hale looked around the hospital, wincing when she moved her neck, and then turned to look at Kaddian. After a few seconds of searching his face, she winced once more and yelled, "Son of a b-"

____________________________________________________________________________________

"I'm terrified" Sarai whispered to Porter Alment, "he's been missing for days. What if he was murdered, what if-"

"We don't know, it was his father that was killing the people, so we can't know if he tried to reason with his father or if his father kidnapped him. We're searching" Porter felt nothing but honesty would help Sarai cope. She may not know her mate very well but the bear bond between mates was a powerful and potentially destructive force.

Sarai sighed and Porter Alment watched as she exited the livingroom and went out the screen door. Rory Daggart moved to follow her but Lizbet Penner gently reached out and grabbed his bicep to stop him.

"She probably wants to be alone. To vent her frustrations out loud. It can help" Rory Daggart was shocked by the amount of emotion on Lizbet's face, and chose to stay in the house.

A loud ruckus from the front door drew the small group to kitchen. They immediately regretted the decision when Kyrrian, in an almost berserker rage, threw the door open hard enough to shake the house.

"He lied! TO ME! We don't lie to each other!" Kyrrian reached out and threw the end table in the hall against the wall, shattering it.

Scottlin Reik flinched as splintered wood shards flew about the confined space, but he still maintained a calm tone when he responded, "You said yourself, he's the kind of Alpha to deny his-"

But his sentence was interrupted by another scream and the shattering of a vase in the livingroom.

"What is tha noise?!" Chance Gore yelled from the second story of the house.

"Don't come down here!" Porter, Rory, and Lizbet yelled in unison. The three and Alpha Scottlin attempted to follow the enraged she-bear, hoping to stay behind her path of destruction and remain in the aftermath rather than the danger zone.

"Stupid, idiotic, emotionless, bossy-" Kyrrian continued to rant as she knocked pictures off the wall until she reached one of Kaddian and herself three years ago. She was tucked affectionately into his side, his large hand on her head. She pulled the picture down and slowly sat to the floor. Her anger turned into silent tears as she overcame her erratic emotions.

"Kyrrian, what are you really upset about?" Porter asked in a very calm tone.

Silence met the room until Kyrrian responded, "I have hated him for most of my life, and he never deserved it. He never deserved any of this. He deserves his mate and a happy life and yet he turns down what he deserves for this lonely, hellish life. I don't want that. I don't want him to lose faith in what his life should be like."

Lizbet leaned into Scottlin and asked, "who is Alpha Kaddian's mate, I'm a little lost".

"It's-" but Scottlin stopped when he realized Kyrrian's palms were bleeding from her own claws being embedded into them. He kneeled down with a 'tsk' and began wiping her hands with his shirt.

"If I could hazard a guess, I would say it's Lauren Hale" Porter answered Lizbet's question.

"What? No, she's human. That doesn't...happen..." but the realization dawning on Lizbet's face proved that she was experiencing contradicting her thoughts.

"That explains... quite a bit" Rory admitted in his typical blasé fashion.

"They got in a bit of a... tussle... at the hospital" Scottlin said as he helped Kyrrian rise to her feet.

"A 'tussle'? Is that what that noise was a while ago?" Chance Gore asked from the door way. He looked slightly hesitant to enter the room.

"Yes, Alpha Grayson is not afraid to assert his dominance" Scottlin Reik admitted. He could never tell anyone that his appearance in the woods had been so intimidating that he felt like a underling to the Alpha, even though they were equals. Kaddian Grayson was truly a fearesome thing to behold.

"So... hospital. How was Lauren?" Rory asked in an effort to take attention off Kyrrian who was slowly putting herself back together.

"She was still in the coma when we left but-" the sound of slamming car doors sent silence throughout the room in the middle of Alpha Scotltin's sentence.

The front door, which had survived Kyrrian's tirade was not so fortunate when the second Grayson came ripping through the house. The sound of old wood seperating from metal hinges and clattering on still more wood led everyone to understand that Alpha Grayson had ripped the door from it's attachments. Everyone quickly moved to the opposite side of the room except for Kyrrian and Scottlin.

"This is just a bad day" Rory Daggart whispered into Lizbet Penner's ear.

Lizbet, having never seen her Alpha so angry, reached behind her for Rory's forearm, in which she encased in a firm grip.

It was only then that Kaddian finally found the group of the people, however none of them were the person he was looking for, and he therefore barely registered their existence but to growl, "where is he?"

Everyone, too terrified to answer, looked to one another until finally Alpha Scottlin asked, "who are you looking for?" hesitantly.

"Redd" his eyes darted everyone's face and the group could tell he was one pressure point from shifting into a massive bear in the middle of the house.

"W-We haven't found Liam yet" Lizbet stuttered slightly, afraid to deliver the bad news.

"Or Jarren" Sarai added quickly.

Kaddian Grayson was not in the mood to speak or even listen. He charged out the the door and without looking back, ordered, "Twenty-four hour searches start now".