Blake’s POV
I smile as I leaned back in my chair, I knew that they should be happy when they return. Now that Kevin’s needs are now taken care of, Cheryl will be happy. She will probably be willing to talk to me, despite what she had implied earlier when she pointed out the difference between what I gave her, and what I gave Kara. I will then take the opportunity to let her know why I did what I did, and what I will do for both her and Kevin in the future. I will take them both to the mall, and let Kevin get everything that his brothers and sister already have. I will treat all of them the same from now on, and no longer be playing favorites. I will make sure that no one picks on him again. I will let my anger and frustration go, and we can move forward again as a united family.
I called the kitchen and asked for them to make Cheryl’s favorite meal for our table. The fact that the new kitchen head doesn’t know what that is, upsets me. I wanted to growl at her in anger, but I can’t, because I don’t know the answer to it either, and she was patiently waiting on the other end of the line for me to tell her. That made me even angrier, as she had been in charge for over 5 years now, how could she not know? I snapped at her to check with her predecessor and hung up on her. I am pretty angry now, but more at myself, than at the new kitchen head. She did what everyone else did, piled on to take my side, and not Cheryl’s.
“The same way you don’t know her favorite meal either, stupid” I heard Kona link me. He is even more agitated now than he was earlier, and angry on top of it. There was a time when I knew everything about her, everything. I made her happy with little things, like having her favorite flowers planted in front of the packhouse. That made her happy, and if they were blooming now, I would go out and cut some of them for her, have them arranged in a vase, and taken up our room for her. That would make her happy, the fact that I remembered what she liked.
“I will fix this, Kona, she still cares for me, I can tell. I can make her forgive me. I will let this thing with Kevin go, and we can move forward again” I linked him back. He huffs at me and doesn’t respond just fading back away from me. When it comes to Kevin, he is always angry with me.
I was thinking of a grand gesture for her when I got a link from Kara, there is a problem with the SUV. Before she can tell me exactly where they were, the link is suddenly broken, and I can’t reach her again. I am in a panic, I don’t even know if Cheryl is safe. Are they being attacked? Did the council find her? Why isn’t Cheryl linking me? I immediately contact my men and tell them to get several vehicles ready to go, and that we need to leave in the next 4 minutes to go find them. I cannot live with myself if they were in a wreck and something is wrong with Cheryl. I knew something was wrong. I should have gone with them. I wasn’t worried about Kara, I was breaking it off with Kara anyway, and I was not concerned for her at all. But I have to find them right now, and I went to grab the gun out of my locked desk drawer in case they are involved in an altercation. I am desperate to go and save them, and I am shocked to see that my gun was gone. Goddess, I suddenly have a really bad feeling that this is not going to end well at all.
I ran out the front door of the packhouse and we are pouring out of the pack quickly to go find them. The tracker beacon is strong and they are not that far away from here. I am really glad for the paved roads in my pack now, as were moving quickly to get to the highway. My heart is in my throat and I know that whatever has happened here, will be bad when we get there. I saw Graham running up to the packhouse from his own SUV when I got into my truck, and I knew he was coming with us. He looked bad, but I do not have time to speak to him, I need to get there right now, and Garrett and Marc rode with me. No one spoke and as soon as we got over a ridge, I see Billie, Cheryl’s mom, standing there and in shock. I slid to a stop 30 feet from her and was worried that the SUV was in the ditch. If Kevin had wrecked the SUV and hurt his mom, I am going to kill him was my only thought as I threw my door open and ran to Billie to look down into the ditch.
I was shocked too and was really not prepared for what I saw. Three bodies stared back up at me from the ditch and the SUV was gone. I fell to my knee’s as the pain of what had happened rushed through me. Cheryl and Kevin were gone. I pushed them so far that they left. I have no idea where they were going. I watched as Graham slid down the hill to his mate and cradled her in his arms. He howled out his pain at his loss, and I chimed in with mine too. My heart was heavy, and the pain was incredible. I was going to fix this, why didn’t she give me the chance to do it?
“Right, this is her fault too. I tried to warn you, and you ignored me. You listened to Graham over and over again as he made you break your mate. Did it work? She is gone, and we have no idea where. She never does anything without a plan. She is in the wind and we will never get her back now. You and your pack are going to soon be sorry for what happened. I tried to warn you” Kona told me, and I have to hold my body up with my arms as I went to collapse. He is right, she will never know how sorry I am. I have to get her back. I sent my men in two of the SUVs one in each direction, to go look for her. They pulled up the tag number for the vehicle they were in, and they both took off. No one knew where she was going. If she is smart, and I know that she is, she would go live in the human world. We truly will never see her again. She will be forever lost to us and I feel physically ill over this.
I truly never felt like she would leave us, never. That thought had never even entered my mind. I really thought that she would finally give in, and do what I wanted her to. Why didn’t she? She didn’t have to do it like this. My men are bringing the bodies up the slope, with difficulty, and Billie is starting to shake from the shock of seeing it. Silas was not with us, and frankly, I do not have time to coddle her.
“Which way did she go, Billie?” I asked her and she pointed back toward Black Moon. I know she isn’t going home, she is probably going to the city. She is smart, and I know that there is no real chance of us finding her, but I need to try.
I mindlinked two more SUVs with warriors to go to the city to find her. They were on the road two minutes later. Graham would not let Cassandra go, and it took him a while to get her up the slope. His tears were real, and suddenly I wanted to kill him. He caused this whole thing. This is his fault, and Cheryl always told me that. She insisted that this was his payback for the sentence that we gave Reagan, and right now in my heart, I know she was right. We destroyed Reagan’s life, so he destroyed ours. That spiteful man. How dare he do this to us? Cheryl liked Cassandra, she did. They spent a lot of time together, and I knew exactly why she had done it. He made Cheryl lose her mate, so she took his. My mate is so smart. With this information, more pieces are coming to me now. Shit that I should have thought about when he first started to approach me and lay what I now knew to be his groundwork for tearing us apart.
How could she have cheated on me, if the only person who left the pack was Graham himself for the first 3 months? That was just to go to the bank, or real estate office. I let all he did for me and the pack, allow me to eventually forget that he could not be trusted at all. Eventually, it was Graham and Cassandra who got to leave to go visit Reagan after I banished her after what she did. Cheryl never left the pack. She was always terrified that the council was going to find her, so she never left the pack, for anything. She ordered online and had the delivery picked up at the gate. So if she never left, and no one trespassed, there was really no way for her to have cheated on me. An eerie calm has washed over me, and I know now, that Graham is going to be dying by my hands.
Graham has me so jealous of anyone being near my mate, that I forgot reason, and just let anger burn through me. What have I done? I punished the only person who truly loved me the most. Who selflessly gave to me, our children, and the pack, and all I gave her in return was a lot of pain. I wanted to rip Graham apart, but I will not tip my hand. I will get him back to the pack, and I will take care of it myself. I cannot allow him to know that I know exactly why we are here right now. We did this, pushed Cheryl to the breaking point, and I am going to deal with him. I have to say that his pain, is making me feel better. He finally got to realize that he couldn’t escape the payback he deserved and I was proud that it was my mate who let him know it. She did this, and she is not a hateful person. I know it hurt her to carry it out, and that she probably felt back for the warrior, and Cassandra, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that she didn’t mind taking Kara out.
No wonder she didn’t want her coming, she had made plans, and I had upset them, and yet she flawlessly carried it out. She and Kevin were safe from Black Moon now, and my heart is broken. My son, my own flesh and blood. I have lost him. I cannot apologize and make it up to him anymore. My heart feels like it squeezing in pain from this. How badly did I hurt Cheryl and Kevin that this was the only option that they felt they had? My men had loaded Kara and the warrior into the back of my truck, but Graham had refused to let Cassandra go. I refuse to feel bad for him, and I knew exactly why she did it this way. He was going to have to live with the pain of losing his mate, because of his own actions.
Graham had torn us apart with his accusations and rumors. He fabricated lies and used innuendo to keep my anger up. Graham ran around and spread gossip to the other pack members, so it ran rampant throughout the pack. He wanted her broken down, not because she cheated, but because we managed to hurt his daughter, and he wanted retribution for it. He wanted to punish us, for coming up with such a humiliating punishment for Reagan. I figured if she wanted to sleep around so bad, I would help her, and my cousin too. Aaron had been looking for a strong she-wolf, and Reagan’s actions showed us all that she was still up to her old tricks here too. She could not be allowed to stay here, after that.
I managed to stand, with Garrett’s help, and he said, “I am sorry about Kara, Blake.” His thinking that she was the reason that I was upset, not the fact that my mate and son were gone upset me. My fury is immediate and caused me to allow some of my aura out. I realized that my men that were out looking for Cheryl and Kevin were on a manhunt to catch, and probably kill them. Instead of a search and retrieval to bring them back safely. “Let all of my men know that I want my son, Kevin, and mate Cheryl back, unharmed. If there is one scratch on either of them, the warrior that causes it will be dealt with personally by me” I told him. His stunned face told me that things had been allowed to go way too far at Black Moon. That they thought Cheryl has no value, and they were searching for her to atone for killing three pack members.
I did not want Graham to know that I was onto him yet so I headed back to my truck after I told Garrett to make sure that my mate and son were unharmed. I told Garrett to relay to the other ranked wolves that Graham no longer had any pull, or authority, at Black Moon. I had plans for Graham, and none of them were going to be good for him. He had forgotten who I was and that the penalties that I dole out, would be quick, and harsh. I guess after 7 years of letting him live inside my brain rent-free, he really thought he was safe now. He is probably quite confident that I would be mad at losing Kara, and would want Cheryl, and Kevin, to be punished. He would be wrong on all counts. It won’t be Cheryl who gets punished for this. I motioned for Garrett to drive as I just couldn’t right now, I am completely drained. Billie got into the back seat of my truck, as I am sure she didn’t want to be sitting next to Graham holding Cassandra in his lap. That was a little too creepy for me too.
Billie was still in shock, over what happened. I bet Cheryl was too, she was pushed way too far. She only did this to protect Kevin, from his own father. Her words flashed through my mind of her telling me that “one day I would be sick about all I put him through keep” running on repeat in my mind. I didn’t want to speak in front of Billie, as I didn’t want any of what I was about to say to get to anyone that I didn’t want to hear it. I just started mindlinking my ranked wolves what had happened, and how I was tricked. That way they know what the hell is going on, so they can move forward accordingly. I am suddenly exhausted and do not know what I am going to do. My mate, the one who keeps me calm is gone. This is going to be a problem.
Cheryl is smart enough to have made strong plans. Plans that I would have to really look into to find out what surprises will be coming my way. I should not have been surprised that this happened. She told me in a thousand different ways that I was wrong, That she never cheated. She told me that she would not accept me after cheating, and for continuing to believe Graham over her. Graham wanted us to get here, and I can guarantee him now, that he will be sorry for it. He knew her bottom line was cheating, that there was no coming back from it, and yet he kept encouraging me to do it. Pointing out all the she-wolves that made it no secret that they were happy to help me out, in any way possible. Graham told me that in doing this, Cheryl would have to react in jealousy and claim me again. By doing what he had said, put the final nail in my own coffin.
I laid my head back on the headrest. My life is completely fucked right now. The shit has hit the fan, and it is everywhere. She could really tear my pack apart. Is she mad enough at me and Graham to have the courage to go to the council to turn herself in, in exchange for protection for Kevin? I think she is. That means that we might be getting visitors and soon. I have to protect my pack. I wish I could claim ignorance that “I didn’t know that they were wanted”, but the fact is, I did. There is no way for me to dodge this. None of us have any deniability in this. We get a BOLO on the first of every month in our email, even 15 years later, looking for the 6 of them. I get it, and all of my ranked wolves get the same email. We knew, and we have hidden them for 15 years at this point. We have no leg to stand on, and this could cause me to lose my pack. I have never thought of this as a possibility, and I am worried now.
I have to make plans. I know she has only been in the wind for 30 minutes, but as angry as she clearly is, she could be willing to do anything. I have made plans too. There is no way that Graham will be, escaping punishment from me. Yea, he is upset at losing his mate, I am too, and he caused it with his own actions, and pushing me. Always egging me on to do what he said, so he can "help me fix my relationship.” Goddess, I was so stupid. But from now on I won’t be. My men are out looking for her, she has nowhere to go. I told my men to check the local hotels and motels because they will need a place to stay, but I know they are already gone. She will drive for 8 hours straight to get away from me if she has to. Her only thought is to get Kevin to safety.
The fact that I bullied, and hurt my own child is killing me. I love my pups, I tried to give them everything, and did, for 3 out of 4 of them. Casey indeed had Cheryl’s coloring too, and I never doubted her for one moment. It was only Kevin, who Graham had purposely led me to believe wasn’t mine. I bet Graham was so happy to see what he led me to do. I am disgusted with my own behavior. Why was I so angry and possessive that I lost my control like this? I am smart, why did I not sit down and think? Garrett pulled up at the packhouse and I headed up to the apartment. The kids are still gone, and just cannot stay in here, all alone. My heart is weighed down and I am not myself. I head down to my office and have to put my head in my hands.
I truly do not know what I am going to do now. I cannot bounce back from this, not without her. Not at least being able to sleep in the same bed as Cheryl is going to come with some real issues for the pack. Kona wants blood, and I know he wants to rip Graham's head off. But I have better plans for both him and Reagan. Graham will have to pay for his treachery, and I am glad to take everything that he values away from him, just like he did to me. His home, his daughter, and his money, which he values more than anything else. I could leave him alone, and let him live in his home, but I want him to know I know what he did. I want him to realize that the cost of it is higher than he ever expected.
I wanted him to know that he would live out his life in one of my cells until I wanted him dead. I want him to not have fancy clothes, a fancy car, and his fancy home to live in anymore. I wanted him to suffer with being treated badly, every single day until I get my Cheryl back. But he will still be imprisoned in that cell until the day she fully forgives me, which I am positive will be never. I am sure of it, but just having her here with me, and being able to get my son back, will be enough for me. I am hoping to sweeten the pot by telling her if and when she is willing to return that I will give her Graham, for her to be able to kill him herself as her reward for coming back to me. I know that I cannot survive without her, I was already on sinking ground with all the “ideas” that Graham had come up with to break her.
Now it is my turn, I will be coming up with ideas to break him now too. I know how to get it done, Graham forgot to factor in how much vengeance I like to dole out, and he really shouldn’t have. He saw what happened to Sierra, and he saw what happened to his own daughter, by my own hand. What makes him think that he will be getting a pass on what he has done? There will be no pass, and there will be no peace, for anyone, until my Cheryl and my son Kevin come back to Black Moon so I can make this right for them. Until then, no one is going to be safe here when Kona finally demands to be let out.
Graham is Delusional