Chapter 246 - His Mate or His Girlfriend
“Aria wasn’t supposed to leave until tomorrow,” Melanie said sharply, going over the roster of present witches.
After waiting and waiting until their dinner turned cold, Melanie finally called in her staff to inquire Aria's whereabouts. She was completely taken aback when they told her Aria had left. Aria wouldn't commit to a dinner date with Melanie and then suddenly leave without informing her.
“Her schedule stated that she’d be leaving today miss, and she left today,” a girl with mousy brown hair said softly.
Aria had definitely originally been planning to leave today. But after discovering Melanie and Brad’s relationship, Aria had said she’d delay her departure for another day so Melanie and her could have a private dinner together. Aria wanted to discuss a few things with Melanie. A few things Melanie suspected revolved around Brad being allowed to mark his mate. But of course, Aria probably hadn’t altered her schedule on file yet. It was just like her to change her plans and not go through the proper channels to change her departure dates. Every witch was required to enter their arrival and departure dates when entering or leaving coven headquarters. Only Melanie was exempt as Coven Head, and thank goddess for that. With the way she portalled in and out, her staff would have a field day penciling things in for her.
“Hmmm,” Melanie rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Aria wouldn’t leave without telling her, would she? Not when they’d planned to have dinner together. It wasn't like Aria to ghost her. Aria would never...
Getting up from her desk, Melanie wrote out a letter to the Coven instructor to come see her immediately. Not twenty minutes later, the head instructor appeared before Melanie.
“Raine,” Melanie said gently. “Did Aria tell you of anything coming up all of a sudden because of which she had to leave unexpectedly?”
Raine’s eyebrows bunched together in confusion.
“But her schedule said she’d be leaving today and she left today! She told me as much when she arrived for the meeting.”
Melanie leaned back in her chair pensively. So no one except her had known Aria’s intent to stay an extra day…
Melanie immediately got out her map and performed a locater spell. Aria was cloaked but Melanie had her own ways to track Aria. Melanie touched the pendant around her neck and muttered a few words to invoke the spell. The map went up in flames almost immediately. Melanie gasped, fear in her eyes. This wasn’t good. Aria was in trouble!
“You can’t blindly just portal to wherever you think Aria might be!” Brad exclaimed, watching Melanie collect herbs and antidotes into her leather satchel.
She’d portalled him to her study after dismissing the witches. She’d then calmly explained that Aria had been kidnapped and, without raising the alarm, she wanted to go find her. Brad was being told as a mere courtesy, since he was her mate and might worry about her.
“I can and I will!” Melanie retorted, standing infront of the cabinet in her study stocked fool of emergency potions. “I’m powerful enough to fight any underling wizard or witch Sybl dispatched to keep Aria trapped.”
“It might be a trap for you,” Brad pointed out.
“It wasn’t. This was done as part of a plan to make sure no one found out what happened to Aria. She was supposed to leave today and she left today. I was the only one that knew she’d changed her plans at the last minute,” Melanie counteracted.
She stuffed a few maps into her satchel as well.
“Please, let’s figure out a plan first. Jumping head first into something like this is a bad idea,” Brad reasoned. He was doing his best to stay calm and fight the urge to physically restrain Melanie.
“It’s not because I have the element of surprise on my side,” Melanie retorted triumphantly. She snapped her fingers. “Shoot, I forgot about the smoke bombs. I’ll definitely need tho-“
Melanie was cut off when Brad suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him.
“You’re not going,” Brad growled out, eyes glowing yellow.
Melanie wrenched herself out of Brad’s grasp.
“I am!” Melanie yelled, her own eyes going yellow. “What would you do if it was Janet or your mother? Aria's my family-" Melanie's voice cracked as she said the word.
"You're a leader," Brad said sternly. "You can't risk getting yourself caught. Don't compare yourself to me. Think about the repercussions of being caught! We'll have lost the war before even getting a chance to fight it!"
"I won't be caught!" Melanie exclaimed hotly. "I'm going!" she announced stoutly. "And I’ll fight you if I have too,” Melanie threatened. “I’m not weak just because I’m pregnant.”
“My wolf isn’t going to let you go,” Brad gritted out. “He’s possessive over his mate. You’re carrying our pup…”
“I’m strong enough-“ Melanie began.
“You’re not going!” Brad roared, the glass paperweight on Melanie’s desk shook from the vibrations of Brad’s powerful growl.
Melanie put more distance between herself and Brad. Things were not looking good. Melanie was beginning to think that maybe she shouldn’t have told Brad.
“I’m going and you can’t stop me,” Melanie snapped resolutely.
Brad advanced towards her, realizing he'd have to resort to physically restraining her, but before he could take more than a few steps, a gust of wind sent him off balance and flat on his butt. By the time he was up again, Melanie had stepped through the portal. He ran after her but the portal closed before he could go through.
“FUCK!” Brad growled out.
Instinctively, he grabbed the first thing nearby, which was a photo of him and Melanie, facing her seat on her desk. It was when they’d had their fake prom night and he’d kissed her right before the picture had been taken. Melanie had said she’d never use that for her desk but apparently she had. She usually kept it in a locked drawer in her desk and took it out to look at it throughout the day. She'd been agitated thanks to Aria's disappearance and had taken it out during her investigation. In all the ruckus, she'd left it face down on her desk. Not it was in Brad's hands and in the blink of an eye, he threw the frame across the room in anger. It shattered.
His wolf was angry, hell he wanted to rip something apart in frustration. Melanie had potentially just walked to her death. He hadn’t even marked her, so he had no idea where she was.
“What’s going on in here?” Sarea demanded, stepping through the door. She was always nearby.
“Your leader just walked into a trap!” Brad exploded angrily. “She’s too emotional! She shouldn’t have gone!”
“Where did she go?” Sarea asked fearfully, bracing herself against Brad's temper. The young gamma was so angry, a vein was throbbing in his temple.
Brad gritted out the story as best he could. As soon as Sarea had assessed the situation, she was calling up Ricky.
“We can’t raise the alarm,” Sarea warned. “If we do, Melanie loses her element of surprise. But you two need to go find her.”
“I should have marked her, then I’d know where she was,” Brad stated mournfully.
“She’ll be fine. Just find her and ger her back,” Sarea soothed. “There’s a way to bypass the cloaking spell she has on her. I know how to do it,” Sarea confided. “I’ll find her coordinates and send you guys after her. In the meantime, go get the necessary supplies you might need for a rescue mission.”
So an hour later, Brad and Ricky were ready to be sent off to wherever Sarea was going to send them.
“There’s something wrong,” Sarea muttered with bunched eyebrows. “I’m getting two coordinates for Melanie and they’re the same locations we planned to raid to see if they would be used for the summoning ceremony…” Sarea trailed off as her eyes lit in understanding.
Brad and Ricky exchanged knowing looks. This was through and through a trap.
“Sybl knew Melanie would come after Aria,” Brad breathed out. He punched the wall in anger. So his wolf had been right.... it had been a trap!
“What’s more…she knew we planned to scope out these two locations. So she’s made it look like Melanie is in one of these spots if we perform a locater spell to find her,” Sarea added.
“Sybl knew Melanie would react to Aria being caught. She knew we'd end up performing a spell to try and figure out where Melanie went. But where does your magic feel her to be?” Ricky asked quickly.
“She could be in either of these places or none of them,” Sarea responded weakly. “My magic can’t feel her out the way mates feel each other’s locations. I performed a spell and the results are before you.” She spread her hands out towards the map.
“ You go to Texas,” Brad directed. “And I’ll take Greece. Let me know if you find her. I’m a gamma from a different pack, so I can’t mind-link you, but take Sarea. She’ll use her magic to get me the message even if I'm in wolf form. She can open a portal for me to come to where you guys are.”
Sarea nodded, reaching for her own satchel of emergency potions she’d prepared. She’d been planning to go with them regardless.
“ You need a witch with you too,” Sarea added. "So we can come to you if you find her."
Brad shook his head.
“If I find her, I don’t need anyone to help me. Because I’m going to kill everyone with my bare hands and then I’m going to deal with Melanie,” he warned ominously.
“ Hey, you can’t hurt my sister,’ Ricky interjected angrily.
“I’m not going to hurt her, I'm just going to chain her to my house for the rest of my life. I don’t need any of you getting in my way,” Brad spat. “I’m done playing to her tune. She just walked into a death trap and didn’t even care that I was begging her not to go.”
Brad was livid and just barely holding it together. But if something happened to Melanie, it was clear he'd lose it.
Brad looked at Sarea expectantly. Sarea, who didn’t like the way he was speaking of her mistress but was afraid of the strong-willed gamma, wisely kept quiet and opened one portal.
“Don’t we need two?” Brad queried testily. "A separate portal for each location?"
“This was Melanie’s own creation. She created a portal that would take you to the location you wanted. So we only need one portal. Just think about the coordinates while going through,” Sarea directed.
"This was Mel's idea?" Ricky asked appreciatively, pride oozing from his voice.
Sarea nodded proudly. "She's always coming up with new innovations when it comes to magic." Even Sarea couldn't help but gush about how perfect Melanie was.
Quietly, Brad stepped through. He could care less about Melanie's innovativeness when it came to magic. He was angry with her. So angry he wondered if he’d actually be able to get past what she’d just done.