Chapter 363 363
Maurice POV
Security had been tightened across the pack. I’d doubled the night patrols as a precaution, posted more guards along the borders. Damien had even offered to spare a few of his own men, but for now, it wasn’t necessary.
Whoever they were, they still hadn’t crossed my borders. They lingered instead hidden in the dark, watching. Waiting. And I had no doubt who they were here for.
“Alpha, northeast perimeter.” Maxime gestured toward the CCTV wall as a silent alarm registered movement beyond the tree line. We’d been holed up in my office for hours, tracking patterns, watching shadows.
I sent a sharp warning through the pack link, ordering my warriors to full alert.
“Who’s covering that section tonight?” I asked as Maxime pulled up the night rota.
Rows of names appeared beside border checkpoints.
“Hugo’s leading that watch,” Maxime replied, switching another camera feed to the main screen. The image showed little more than branches swaying in darkness. Cameras weren’t our eyes that’s what warriors were for but eventually, these intruders would slip and show themselves.
“Tell Hugo we’re on our way. Hold the line,” I ordered.
“Yes, Alpha.”
It was nearing midnight. Bee had been asleep for two hours already, safe upstairs. Knowing that allowed me to focus to finally try to corner these bastards once and for all. To avoid frightening her, we’d only pushed them back during the night, keeping the threat invisible by day.
Damien knew what was happening. I’d kept him updated. But this was my pack. She was my mate. The decisions were mine.
Hugo had been entrusted with his first small unit on the northeast side, with other warrior teams positioned at strategic points along the borders. Each group had a single goal push our unwanted guests farther back, away from our land.
We still didn’t know who they were or who had sent them. But tonight, I’d planned to change that.
I stood rigid, listening through the pack link, forcing myself to remain where I was. Every instinct screamed to be out there, tearing into anyone who thought they could get close to my mate. Use her. Exploit her.
Bringing Bee here had eased that primal need to keep her close but it had only sharpened my need to protect her.
Something’s wrong, my wolf warned, unease rippling through us both.
Then it happened.
Hugo’s link all of them went dead.
They were down.
“Warriors down. Northeast border,” I barked through the pack link, already moving.
The moment I flung the front door open, my shift tore through me. Bone and muscle reformed as I surged into my massive black wolf, paws slamming into the earth. Maxime was right behind me, issuing commands through the link as beta.
The urge to kill was raw. Savage. My wolf took the reins, and I let him.
We reached the clearing to find the entire team sprawled across the ground. Hugo lay unconscious at the center, blood soaking his chest from a deep wound. He was the only one bleeding.
The rest were alive but barely.
No attackers in sight. Whoever had done this had vanished.
“Cowards,” my wolf snarled, fury burning hotter.
As reinforcements arrived, we worked fast to slow the bleeding. That’s when Maxime handed me a parcel.
“This was left behind.”
His eyes were wide. Too wide.
The package was addressed to Bee.
I tested its weight first, my hands gauging for traps before ripping the brown paper open. My breath caught as I pulled out the contents.
Small. White. Pills.
“Alpha?” Maxime said quietly.
I lifted my gaze and realized every conscious warrior was staring at me. At the pills.
“Can you handle this?” I growled. “I need to check something.”
Cold flooded my veins as I shoved the pills back into the parcel.
She wouldn’t.
Would she?
While my pack bled to protect her
I shifted again, bolting back toward the Alpha house, the parcel clenched in my wolf’s jaws.
I shifted at the front door, storming inside and taking the stairs two at a time. Her room was empty. Most nights she slept with me now, though she hadn’t moved her things yet.
I tore through her belongings until I found her backpack beneath the bed.
My hands shook as I ripped it open.
More white pills.
She was still taking them.
Still suppressing her wolf. Still rejecting our bond.
Rage detonated inside me white-hot, molten. I gathered every pill, stormed into the ensuite, and dumped them into the toilet. The new packet. The old packet. All of it.
She’d lied to me.
Again.
She’d endangered my pack.
I flushed them away, watching them disappear.
As long as my borders held, she would be stopping cold turkey.
Whether she liked it or not.