Chapter 208 I Uhv You
The heavy, steel-clad reality of what needed to be done settled over Fennigan, but he didn't let the darkness bleed into the bright, fragile warmth of the hospital room. That battle was for the outside world. In here, he was just a mate and a father.
Fennigan pushed himself up from the edge of the mattress. He leaned down over Leela, his large hands gently cupping her face, and pressed a deep, lingering kiss to her lips.
"We have to go," Fennigan murmured softly against her mouth, his thumb brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead. He looked into her bright silver eyes, offering her the absolute truth. "We have to try and find Magda. She's the loose thread. If we catch her, she can tell us exactly who was funding my father's sick research."
Across the pushed-together beds, Jax was doing the same. The Beta leaned down, pressing a tender kiss to Ginny’s exhausted, smiling mouth, and then gently touched his lips to newborn Iggy’s impossibly soft cheek.
Leela didn't argue. She didn't beg him to stay or try to hold him back. She was an Alpha's mate, and she understood the brutal necessity of the hunt. She reached up, her smaller hands resting flat against Fennigan's broad, soot-stained chest, right over his beating heart.
"I know, my wolf," Leela said, her voice steady and fiercely supportive. "You go do what you have to do. You keep us safe, and we will talk when you find her and we're truly safe again." She smiled, her eyes shining with absolute devotion. "I love you."
Before Fennigan could even respond, a bright, chaotic chorus erupted from the foot of the bed.
"I uhv you!" Caspian babbled loudly, slapping his chubby hands against Elana's knee.
"Uhv you!" Briar echoed immediately, throwing her head back and erupting into a fit of breathless toddler giggles.
The heavy, suffocating tension of the impending war completely dissolved into laughter. On the edge of the bed, Elana pulled the squirming twins tightly against her chest, burying her face into their soft necks and blowing a raspberry that made them shriek with pure delight. She snuggled them close, her silver eyes bright and completely focused on the sheer joy of her grandchildren. She fiercely and deliberately refused to let the motionless, dead weight of her legs steal a single ounce of happiness from this moment.
Fennigan smiled, a genuine, heartbreakingly beautiful expression, before pulling back.
He gave Leela one last look, a silent promise between mates, and then turned toward the door. Jax fell into step right beside him. As the two massive warriors walked out of the room, the soft, warm laughter of their family faded behind the heavy double doors.
The moment the latch clicked shut, the tender fathers vanished. The Alpha and the Beta of the Blackwood pack stepped into the sterile hallway, their postures straightening, their silver eyes hardening into the cold, predatory gaze of wolves ready to hunt.
Fennigan and Jax strode down the sterile corridor, their heavy boots eating up the distance until they reached the pack’s central command hub. Miller was already at his station, his fingers flying across the glowing keyboards as he monitored the pack lands.
Jax didn't even slow down. He marched right up to the desk and slammed his heavy hands down on the surface, making Miller jump.
"I know you know the Weaver," Jax said, his voice a low, lethal growl that left absolutely no room for negotiation. "I want you to contact them. I want my father's encrypted files cracked, decoded, and completely torn apart. I want every single ledger, every hidden account, and every dirty secret dragged into the light."
Miller swallowed hard, his eyes darting between the furious Beta and the stone-cold Alpha standing right behind him. "Jax, the Weaver is a ghost. It takes time to—"
"I don't care what it takes," Jax interrupted, leaning in so close Miller could feel the heat radiating off him. "We want to know exactly who was funding his sick, twisted bullshit for the last thirty years. Find the money, Miller. Fenn and I are going looking for that bitch who was his partner."
"Yes, sir," Miller stammered, his fingers already clattering back over the keys. "I'll get it done."
Fennigan gave Miller a single, curt nod of approval before turning on his heel. Jax followed him out, pushing through the heavy oak doors of the packhouse and stepping out onto the expansive wrap-around porch.
The cool, crisp mountain air hit them instantly, a stark, blessed contrast to the suffocating heat of the vault and the sharp antiseptics of the infirmary. The moon hung high and heavy over the Blackwood territory, casting long, silver shadows through the pines.
Jax paused at the edge of the wooden steps, his eyes scanning the dark tree line. He took a deep, calculating breath of the night air, sifting through the scents of the forest.
"When the bunker blew, I saw which way Magda ran," Jax said quietly, pointing a thick finger toward the jagged, ascending ridge to their right. "She headed east. Toward the jagged peaks."
Fennigan followed his gaze, his jaw tightening. They both knew exactly what was out there. The eastern portion of the mountaintop was a treacherous, honeycomb network of natural limestone caves—an underground labyrinth that plunged deep into the bedrock. It was the perfect place for a desperate traitor to hide, and a deadly place to hunt.
"Let's go," Fennigan rumbled.
They stepped off the porch and melted into the dense tree line.
They moved with practiced, lethal synchronization, but they stayed entirely in their human forms. The urge to shift, to let their massive wolves out to tear through the woods and hunt their prey on four legs, was almost overwhelming. But a shifted Alpha and Beta gave off a potent, terrifying scent—a suffocating aura of dominance and wild musk that Magda would smell from a mile away. If she caught wind of the wolf, she would panic and burrow so deep into that labyrinth they might never dig her out.
To catch her, they had to be quiet. They had to be human.
For a long while, the only sounds were the crunch of pine needles beneath their boots and the distant, haunting call of an owl. The silence was heavy, thick with the adrenaline of the hunt and the lingering trauma of the night.
But as they began the steep incline toward the eastern caves, the silence finally became too loud for Jax.
"Fenn," Jax spoke up, his voice barely louder than the rustling leaves, though he didn't break his stride. "Down in the bunker, when everything was going to hell... you kept muttering something. You kept saying something about 'looking like your babies.'"
Jax glanced over his shoulder, his eyes catching the moonlight. "What were you talking about? What the hell did you see in his lab?"