Chapter 32: CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Sam hurried to the pack house in fright. He's been gone for more than a week and he already knew that he was in trouble especially since he missed the blood moon ceremony. The thing was, he didn't even remember anything about the ceremony until the early hours of the morning after he and Alisha had woken up and were about to start a fresh round of lovemaking sessions.

If he was going to be accurately honest, Alisha had remembered about the blood moon instead of him. After which she had hurried up and taken her bath and dressed up as fast as she could. Sam had even accompanied her to the outskirt of the town that led to her pack house mansion. And as panicking as Alisha had been about the whole situation, Sam had acted like everything was cool. He had even shrugged it off when Alisha had told him she was worried about him and how his father would react to him.

After he had seen her home safely, he had gone back to the hotel in the city and thought about how he could save himself from the sure wrath he knew that he would be facing from his father. At the end of weighing all his pros and cons about the situation, he had decided that he would stay back at the hotel for about five more days before going home. Once he was home and he faced his father and the Haiti pack jury, he would lie to them that he had gotten kidnapped by some men and had just managed to free himself.

And that was the plan he had gone with, even more than the initial five days he had thought of spending at the hotel, he had even added two more days to the days. Then he had skipped some meals to make sure he got a little lean so that his story would be more believable. Then he made sure that the clothes he wore away from home were looking dirty and a little tattered. Sure, it might look like he had gone the extra mile to act out his kidnapped story, but he knew his father.

The man was not just wicked, he was cruel. He was a man who never gave a second chance to his enemies. Forget the enemy, his father never gave another chance to even his pack member who wronged him. Sam was no longer surprised by the actions of his father since the man never gave her and his brothers any chance to despite being the children from his loin. His father always made sure that everyone and anyone who offended him paid for their crime in full payment without any remorse.

Sam would never forget in a hurry one of the numerous times his father had punished one of his brothers for not shifting in time during one of their full moon hunts. In his terrific wolf form, his father had bitten his son on the arm. For more than two weeks, his brother had spotted fever and had drifted in and out of consciousness. For those two weeks, their father hadn't checked on the son even for a moment. At a point, even Sam had thought that his brother would never be able to survive the bite but his brother had.

From that day on, Sam had grown to be afraid of his father even more than he already was. Although, his father had always been lenient and had hardly punished him except for the things that Sam couldn't escape the punishment from. The punishment and price for those offenses were always more than Sam could always bear. For such punishment, Sam would always plead and plead for mercy. Mercies that his father never granted him in any of those scenarios.

His mother, the moon goddess bless her soul, was always the intermediary between the Alpha of the Haiti pack and his children. Otherwise, Sam was sure his father would have killed them and feasted on their bodies with other heartless werewolves who called themselves the elders of the pack. There are times that whenever the Alpha wanted to forgive an offense, they were the ones who fueled his anger until he punished the offender.

A guard stopped Sam. "I'm sorry, Sam, but the Alpha commanded that you are no longer allowed to enter into the pack house."

He looked up to see which of the guards had spoken and he set his gaze at the man when he realized that he didn't know who he was. Sam removed his hands from his pockets and shook his head. He knew that his father would punish him but he hadn't counted on his father throwing him out of the pack just because he missed the blood moon celebration. If he couldn't even get into the mansion or even see his father, then all his efforts had gone to naught. He had starved himself and wore dirty clothes, all for nothing.

No, he couldn't afford to let that happen. He would have to look for a solution to the problem at hand. If he got thrown out of the pack, that would make him a lone wolf and in the werewolf world, a lone wolf was a spoil and they were fair game for hunting. He couldn't let that horrible fate befell him he thought. When he saw his mother appear in the window, he got an idea. Sam sat on the floor and began to scream.

"Mother! Father! Mother! Father!" He kept screaming for both of his parents interchangeably. While he knew that his father would not come out of the mansion or even act like he heard, he knew that his mother would come out. His mother was after all the complete opposite of his father. Where his father was wicked and callous, his mother was gentle and kind. When the door of the mansion opened and his mother appeared in the doorway, Sam smiled inwardly and got up instantly.

"My son, what happened to you? Why do you look so hard?" his mother asked the moment she saw him.

Sam rested his head on his mother's tiny shoulder and wailed loudly. His mother patted his back, not knowing that he was faking everything including his loud wail. When he felt like he had wept enough to pass his distress feeling across to his mother, he stopped crying and looked at his mother.

"Mother, I was kidnapped on my way back from the city by unknown men. For six days, they held me captive and I couldn't shift because it wasn't a full moon. It was only yesterday that I managed to free myself," Sam said with a slight sob. He was still sniffing a bit too to add to his charade.

"What?!" his mother screamed. She held his hands and tried to drag him into the house. The guard by the door stopped them.

"Luna, we can't disobey the Alpha's command," the man said.

"Do you want to die?" she asked him with a sneer.

The man cowered but still, he didn't make any attempts to move. Probably because he knew that between the Alpha and the Luna, the Luna was the lesser of the two evils.

"Are you disobeying the Luna?" a voice said behind them and Sam turned around. Sam saw that the person who had commented had bent low and was picking something on the ground. When the man straightened up and Sam saw that it was Gasher, one of the royal guards, he smiled at the older man before he turned back to the stubborn guard. Sam cocked his brows at the man and he left the doorway instantly. He chuckled a little as his mother let him into the house before she followed suit.

Gasher watched as the most stubborn son their Alpha had given birth to go inside with his mother. He knew that everything the young man had said must not have happened. It was probably only a ploy from him to escape the punishment his father had given him for not attending the blood moon ceremony. Gasher opened his palm and looked at the locker that had fallen from the pocket of Sam when he had brought out his hands from his pockets and frowned.

He was sure that the locker belonged to someone from the Colven pack; a pack that was now their enemy and he wondered what the locket was doing with Sam. He knew that whatever it was, the result of the two packs getting involved with each other again would only end in disaster. A disaster that might not get any solution this time around, Gasher thought and sighed loudly before he walked away from the place to attend to other things.

***

As Adam drove away from the scene where Xana had claimed that Sarah had attacked her, he began to wonder if the redhead had not played a fast one on him because she knew how worried he was about his mate. He reprimanded himself for having such a thought toward the gentle redhead who had been nothing but supportive after she heard that Sarah was missing from the mansion. Even though he wasn't interested in her, Adam didn't fail to notice how kind she was.

But still, he was very worried about his mate. Even if it was true that Xana had had an encounter with her and Sarah had attacked her, that still didn't guarantee to Adam that she was safe. The only time he would be able to rest assured about her safety was when he saw her with his two eyes, otherwise, his mind would never be at ease. Why had she left the house anyway? Adam thought as he drove to his house. He had decided to sleep over at the place since it was a lot closer to him than the pack house mansion was.

As he raced past a taxi, he thought about how weird Sarah could be. Who leaves the house just because someone told them to stop fighting? If that wasn't an act of childishness, Adam didn't know what else it could be termed. But it was also one of the many reasons he liked his mate so much. He never could get tired of thinking about how such a strong-willed and fearless woman could also be naive and feel insecure a little. She was supposed to be so full of herself.

He cleared his throat as he stopped the car in the driveway and got down from the car. Was there ever a time when Sarah wasn't full of herself?" Adam thought as he brought out his house key from his pocket, inserted it into the lock, and turned the key in it to open the door. When the door didn't open, he realized that it had been locked with the passcode, so he entered those and waited for about three seconds before he turned the door handle and went into the house.

The first thing his eyes zeroed on was the bronze hair that belonged to Sarah. He rushed into the room when he recognized the hair. He felt elated to see him in the house. After he had searched the high and the low of the surroundings for her, he finally met her in the house. When he got to her, he saw that she was fast asleep. He wanted to leave her to rest at first but he needed to know why she had left the house and why she had refused to pick up his calls or even respond to his text messages. So, he tapped her multiple times until she was awake.

The moment Sarah opened her eyes and saw Adam leaning over her, looking into her eyes, she pushed him away from him. She was sure that if he wasn't someone who had enough strength, then he would have fallen to the floor given how hard she had pushed him out of anger. She didn't let that stop her though. She got up and brought out the pocket knife she had tried to kill the redhead with earlier.

"What is that knife for, Sarah?" Adam asked.

"To kill you!" she shouted at him before she launched herself at him.

Adam got up very fast and moved out of the before his mate would go ahead and murder him in cold drops of blood. What had gotten into her anyway? When she rushed at him again, he channeled his wolf energy and held her hands just before she successfully connect the knife with his heart. Even though there were only a few ways to kill werewolves since their body regenerates faster, a direct stab to the heart was one of the few ways to ensure that anyone with the wolf gene stopped breathing in a moment.

Adam was a little hurt as he thought about that little fact that if he hadn't held her hands, she would have killed him and probably not feel any remorse about it. Willing to test her loyalty, he let go of her hands and he watched in silent agony as she lifted the knife and brought it down to his arm.

Sarah stabbed Adam with a little bit of remorse. Even though he had cheated on her with the redhead and she had promised that she would kill him if she ever set her sight on him again, she found that she truly didn't mean it. When she had lifted the knife and he hadn't done anything to stop her, she had redirected the directions she had taken the knife and stabbed him in his arm instead. Even though she had stabbed the arm, it still hurt her that she had inflicted pain on the man who had done nothing but took good care of her ever since they met.

When Adam saw the hurt and remorse reflecting in Sarah's eyes, he smiled. Despite her claim that Steven you killed him, she had still nearly gotten into tears when she had stabbed him. He yanked the little knife away from his arm, only wincing a little as he did. When he looked at her again, he raised himself a little and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She scrambled away from him instantly like he was a plague but he still didn't care about that. All he knew was that she felt a lot more for him than she was letting out. That thought alone filled him with joy and he laughed.