Chapter 70

Chapter 70
Claude

I was sitting at the head of the table, but I might as well not have been there.

Elder Rowan was talking.... again. Something about responsibility. Something about appearances. Something about how an Alpha couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“Your absence has been noticed,” Rowan said, his voice calm but sharp underneath. “The pack is restless.”

“I haven’t been absent,” I replied automatically.

Another elder scoffed. “You’ve been here in body, Claude. That’s not the same thing as being absent here in mind.”

I clenched my jaw. I wanted to argue, but the truth sat heavy in my chest. They weren’t wrong. I had been here, attending meetings, signing off on patrols, listening to reports. But none of it stuck. None of it mattered the way it used to.

Because Jesse was gone.

It had been over two weeks since his trail went cold.

Two weeks since my scouts had come back looking uneasy, telling me they had followed his scent as far as they could. I remembered that moment too clearly. The way my chest tightened when they laid the map out on the table. Two paths. One leading toward Variant territory and the other... the other was going straight into Rogue Land.

Rogue Land.

Even now, thinking about it made my skin crawl. That place was a place with no laws. No structure. Wolves who had lost everything or lost their minds. Anyone could disappear there and never be found again.

Elder Mira who had just returned to he pack after months of being absent leaned forward. 

“You haven’t addressed the increased tension along our borders.”

I nodded, pretending to listen. “We’ll increase patrols.”

“You said that last meeting,” she replied.

Did I? Probably.

My thoughts kept circling back. Variant territory or Rogue Land. Either option was bad. Both were almost impossible to deal with directly. Rogue Land swallowed people whole. Variant territory was Maddox’s kingdom.

And Maddox didn’t let go of what he wanted.

I had gone into Rogue Land myself. I hadn’t told the council that part. I took a small group, pushed deep past the edges where even hunters hesitated. We found signs of ferals. We were chased more than once. We barely made it back without losing anyone.

But we found nothing.

No scent. No blood. No proof Jesse had ever been there.

That should have been a relief.

Instead, it scared me more.

Rowan sighed loudly. “Claude, you’re drifting.”

“I’m thinking,” I snapped, then caught myself. I lowered my voice. “I’m handling things.”

“By chasing a ghost?” another elder asked.

I looked up sharply. “I'm not chasing a ghost.”

They exchanged looks. That quiet kind that said they thought otherwise.

If Jesse crossed into Variant land, he wouldn’t just be taken. He’d be kept. Maddox didn’t cage wolves unless he had a reason. And Jesse had always been one of Maddox’s interests. 

My hands curled into fists under the table.

I hadn’t given up. I wouldn’t. But something inside me had shifted. The longer the silence stretched, the clearer one thought became.

Rogue Land didn’t keep Jesse.

Maddox did.

Somewhere out there, beyond my reach, beyond my authority, Maddox had Jesse locked up in a dungeon somewhere…

Lisa had been the first to say it out loud.

I remembered the moment clearly, even though I wished I didn’t. We were standing near the edge of the courtyard, the air quiet except for the guards switching shifts. She had watched me for a long time before she finally spoke.

“You need to let him go, Claude,” she said.

“What did you just say?” I had asked. Lisa always seemed to go back and forth when it came to Jesse. One second she wanted me to find him, the next she wanted me to let go.

"It’s been weeks. You can’t keep tearing the pack apart over this.”

That was when I snapped.

“I am the Alpha,” I told her. “You don’t tell me when to stop looking. You don’t tell me when to give up.”

“I’m just trying to—”

“Enough,” I cut in. “I’m not giving up on Jesse. Not today. Not ever.”

She nodded then, stepped back, and didn’t argue again. But the look in her eyes stayed with me. Not anger. Not fear. Just something tired. Something sad.

After that, people stopped pushing me. They stopped arguing. Instead, they started drifting away from the search.

That hurt more than I expected.

Brandon was the first one to slow down. He had helped search around Grayridge at the start. Then one day, he just… stopped coming to the morning briefings.

Ellis used to ask me every time we crossed paths. “Any news?”

Carl would wait near the gates, hoping scouts would return early.

Kane stayed quiet, but his eyes always searched my face.

Ellie… she asked every single day. Every day.

“Has he been found yet?”

And then, slowly, the questions stopped.

One by one, they went back to their duties. Back to their lives.

At first, I was angry. How could they move on when Jesse was still out there? How could they act like the world hadn’t stopped?

But after a few more days passed with nothing, no signs, no scent, no proof... something ugly settled in my chest.

I started to understand.

They couldn’t hold on forever.

One night, Brandon had said something that stuck with me.

“Maybe Maddox doesn’t have him,” he said carefully. “Maybe… maybe Jesse didn’t want to be found.”

I almost tore into him for that. Almost.

But he kept going.

“Maybe when he heard you were searching Grayridge, he ran the other way. Maybe that was his choice.”

I laughed at him then. A short, sharp sound. “You think he’d run from me?”

Brandon didn’t answer. He just looked at the ground.

That silence followed me long after he walked away.

What if Jesse didn’t want to come back?

What if he heard I was looking and decided disappearing was easier than facing me?

I hated the thought. But it crept in anyway. Late at night. Early mornings. Every quiet moment.

I had rejected him. I had pushed him away. I had told him I could never be with him.

And now… now maybe he believed it.

Maybe he chose a life without me.

The idea hurt more than any wound I’d ever taken. 

I had spent years convincing myself I did the right thing. That rejecting him was necessary. That it was for the pack. For stability.

Now I was left with nothing but the aftermath.

\---

I was already tired, already done with the elders picking apart every choice I made like they knew what it meant to carry this pack on my back. My fingers tapped against the arm of the chair as I listened to them go back and forth about numbers, patrols, borders. None of it mattered to me the way it used to.

Then one of the elders cleared his throat.

“There is another option we haven’t considered,” he said.

I looked up. “Which is?”

“An alliance,” he replied. “With another pack. It would strengthen our unity and our resources.”

The room shifted slightly. Murmurs followed while I stayed quiet.

“And which pack would we be considering?”

There was a pause. Then someone said it.

“Variant Pack.”

The word barely left his mouth before I stood up.

“Fuck. No.”

I didn’t sit back down. My hands were on the table now, palms flat. 

"Absolutely not.”

The elder who suggested it blinked. “Alpha, with respect—”

“We will never ally ourselves with Variant Pack,” I snapped. “Never.”

They stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“They are bandits,” I continued. “They cause trouble everywhere they go. They raid. They provoke. They thrive on chaos. I will not tie Revelle Pack to wolves like that.”

One elder frowned. “That is a strong reaction. Their name alone isn’t reason enough—”

“Their name is reason enough,” I cut in. “Variant. Unstable. Dangerous. Every time they show up near another territory, something goes wrong.”

I didn’t say Maddox’s name, but it burned at the back of my throat.

I couldn’t imagine sitting across a table from him. Couldn’t imagine trusting him with anything. Especially not after he had taken Jesse once before. Especially not knowing what kind of Alpha he was.

Of course, the elders didn’t know that part.

They didn’t know about the history. The bad blood and the tension that went back years. They didn’t know what Maddox had done or how close Jesse had come to being lost because of him.

That was why they suggested it so easily.

“Alpha,” one of them said carefully, “we are only discussing possibilities.”

“And I’ve given my answer,” I replied. “This discussion is over.”

No one argued after that.

The meeting ended shortly after, and I left before anyone could try to pull me aside. My head was pounding by the time I reached my quarters.

I pushed the door open, already planning to pour myself a drink and sit in silence for a while.

That plan didn’t last even two seconds.

Alicia was there.

She was standing near the window, When she saw me, she smiled and walked over without asking if she should.

“Claude,” she said softly.

Before I could respond, she reached up and kissed my neck.

“Alicia,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Not now.”

She didn’t stop.

Her lips moved again, slower this time. 

“You’ve been so tense lately,” she murmured. “I can help with that.”

I turned my head slightly, trying to pull away. “I don’t have time.”

She ignored that too. Her hands came up, resting against my chest, and she kissed my neck again.

And that was when it happened.

All I could think about was Jesse.

The way Jesse used to kiss my neck without trying. It felt so fucking good.