--Alarik--

I slammed the door behind me as I stormed my way into the house. Nothing was safe from my wrath. If whoever was behind this wanted on my bad side, then they'd most certainly accomplished that. 

I was mad for various reasons. 

I was mad because Allison was gone. 

I was mad because there was no trace of her. 

I was mad because all my efforts so far had been useless. 

I was mad. 

I felt the anger seething out of me, and just inside the kitchen I was met by my mother's worried expression. 

"Alarik-"

I knew that quiet tone of hers. She was going to try and talk me down, to get me to settle down and talk to her. I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to do anything besides get Allison back. I still hadn't been able to reach her and it had been nearly twenty-four hours. Either something was blocking her from me, or she was dead. 

No, she isn't dead. I would know if she were. Wouldn't I?

I thought I would. That somehow I would know. But I just felt the same as I normally did, only significantly more pissed off. 

"Mom please."

My father had told her what happened while I'd been out I assumed. Neither of them knew for sure if it was Allison, but there was no other explanation. She was no where within the pack limits. 

"Your father went to tell her parents," she whispered. 

Her parents. They'd been gone when I was over there, I had just been over there the morning before. I had seen her smiling face, I'd felt her lips on mine. I'd heard those sweet words come from her mouth. Now I was starting to doubt that I'd ever hear those words from her again, that I'd hear any words from her again. 

The O'Brian's had left long before they'd said they would. My father had drawn up the papers almost immediately and they had been on their way. When I'd gone to hunt Hazel down, both her and her father were gone without a trace. 

I knew where they were of course, they were back with their pack. 

"It was Hazel," I said through gritted teeth. 

My mother looked at me with a slight frown, not sure what I said. 

"Hazel did this."

"Alarik, don't you think you may be seriously jumping to conclusions here. And about another Alpha might I add."

I knew how dangerous it was to assume anything about another Alpha or their family, especially the heirs. However in this case I had no reservations about it at all. 

"Mom. She's worse than dad. If she sees something she wants then she's going to make sure she gets it. It doesn't matter how she has to do it, she'll do anything."

I paused for a moment, thinking over everything that happened during our last encounter, the last time they were here. 

"And the way dad phrased it made her believe there was a loophole."

"What are you talking about." My mother's voice had strained slightly. She was as worried about this as I was now. 

"He said that as long as I had my mate, I would not be married off for a deal between the two packs."

"Well she may not be here," my mother started, "But can't you still reach her at all? You know she's still alive."

"No I don't." My voice had been a choked whisper. Barely audible to even myself. "I can't get her at all. There's nothing there when I try, just a big wall of nothingness. That can't be right, I should be able to feel something shouldn't I? Feel if she's alive, if she's hurt, if she's--dead."

There was that dreaded word again. 

"I- I don't know sweety." 

Her lack of knowledge wasn't at all comforting. I didn't know anyone who would know what I should feel. I didn't know anyone with a mate that had died. But I was certain that I would have felt that. 

Unless she had felt nothing when she'd gone. 

My mind had been playing devils advocate since Allison had disappeared, always jumping to the worst conclusions. If you could even call them that. 

"I know she's not within our territory," I spoke up trying to change the subject. That means that she's somewhere else. On the trail yesterday I smelled two humans around the area her scent stopped. We don't have many humans who bother to drop by, and even less who just stop randomly in front of women's homes. 

Their trail had literally not extended a few feet, as if they'd just hopped out of whatever they were in, snatched Allison, and took off again. 

"I don't know how I'm supposed to follow an empty trail. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I can't follow anything, and I can't connect with her."

"I'll make sure your father is doing everything he can to get his people on the job. Until then all you can do is work with him, or see if you can finally make a connection with Allison."

Her words didn't instill much confidence in myself. What good was I if I couldn't even keep my own mate safe. My mate that I'd only had for sixteen hours before she'd been taken. 

If I couldn't even keep one woman safe then how in the world did anyone expect me to be an Alpha responsible for an entire pack. She'd been taken just blocks from my own home, on our streets and I had no idea about it. 

The guilt had started eating me up. 

If Allison was still alive, was she hoping that I would find her? Was she counting on me to burst in any moment and save her? Or did she know just how useless and pathetic I was?

I could see the look on her face as she starts losing hope in me. When realization finally hits that I'm not coming for her because I just can't do it, because I'm not good enough. 

I feel myself spiraling down into a pit of despair and I know that my mind is to blame, the most imaginative part of me, playing against myself. It wants me to feel helpless, it knows there's nothing I can't do, but my heart refuses to believe that's true. It refuses to believe there isn't something that can be done. 

I'm a werewolf for crying out loud, if anyone could find her, then it should be me. 

I sit at the table, my forehead pressed to the cool wood with my arms wrapped around my head. I hear my mother's hushed whispers and I know my father has come back in. She's filling him in about what I'd told her. 

I can hear his hesitation at my blaming Hazel as well. 

It's one thing for me to say something, but for the Alpha to outright call something like that, it would call for war. 

I'm not wanting war. 

I'm wanting ten minutes alone with that she-devil who believes she can have whatever she wants. I want to use those ten minutes to prove to her just how wrong she is. 

I know that my father won't call her out though, we have no proof. 

The woman who came witnessed two men take Allison, there was nothing about a woman, and I know those men were human. 

There is no way anyone would believe an Alpha associated with humans to have another werewolf captured, that would be blasphemous. Even if we aren't from the same pack, we're of the same kind and to turn over one of our own to those who hunt and kill us, those who would experiment on us is unthinkable. 

Unthinkable unless you know someone like Hazel. 

I used to think that I had been just like her, that being with Allison had helped me to start getting off that path, but the more I found the real creature that lived under that pretty skin, the more I realized that I was nothing like her. 

I'd been exactly right to say that she was worse than my father. My father is many things; rude, ruthless, masochistic, and sometimes kind. That's where the similarities ended however, they never reached the kindness. 

I knew that not even a mate could deter Hazel, not unless her mate was someone of powerful standing. If he was anything less than an Alpha, then Hazel wouldn't give him a second look. It wouldn't matter how many times they touched, it wouldn't matter how many times they shared the same air. 

She was a seductress. She wasn't in it for the passion and true love she would feel, she was in it to weave her way in and get the power. 

I wasn't even sure a woman like her was capable of love.

"Are you sure about this son?"

My father's booming voice pulled me out of my swirling thoughts. 

"Sure that bitch somehow got Allison abducted. Yes I am. She's just going off what you told her," I said bitterly. 

My mother had obviously already told him that as well because he didn't make any sound of surprise at my words. He's been expecting the harshness. 

"I'll have my Beta and the rest of our guards on the lookout for anything suspicious."

"They're already gone. They won't be coming back. They already have what they want, why in the world would they possibly come back here? They have nothing else to gain."

"We can't go wandering into other territories-"

"Then don't! Go out into the humans' lands. They were human, they weren't werewolf."

"Which makes your theory even more ridiculous."

"Not if you know the messed up person behind it. You found the most sadistic woman that was about to clinch power and brought her here and now she's trying to ruin my life. Now what I want is for you to have your people looking anywhere within two hours of here. Outside of packs, within the human's domain."

My father looked at me shocked at how I had just ordered him around. Well, if he wasn't going to do anything, then he was going to have to get used to it.

**************

Alarik seems to be very tense. And he's finally taking big action, ordering his pops around. Well that takes some big cojones.

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