Trouble

Seph had been actually sleeping for a few hours when she heard a commotion outside her door. Indistinct chatter, furniture moving around over her head. She sat up in the bed, shuffling to the edge of the bed. The door was roughly pulled open; Seph slowly stood, expecting the same man from before, and she wasn’t disappointed. “You need to take this ward down right now and let me in before someone much worse comes”, he begins.

“What’s going on? Why the hurry? Decided you are scared of my Mates after all?” Seph retorted with all the attitude she could muster.

“Yes, the wolves are coming, and if I can’t convince you to stay, then the elders will hurt you. I do not want my future wife to be hurt,” the man told Seph, a hint of desperation in his voice.

“Excuse me?! Oh, hell no, boy. I have two mates, and they have marked me. They will find me and kill you if I do not kill you first,” Seph exclaimed. Her eyes flashed with anger.

The man took a step back “look, you can’t stay with the wolves; it is all wrong. You should be here with your own kind-“

“Oh really? Then why did my family kick me out? Huh? Why didn’t they even try to fight for me? They let the elders torture me, let them let my rapist torment me, let him get away without any hint of justice. If I am better off with ‘my own kind’,” Seph made the air quotes around the words as she spoke, “Then why would they do that? Puzzle me that why don’t you? Just fuck off. Like seriously, do I need to throw something for you to leave me alone?” Seph turned her back on the man again, returned to the bed, sitting and leaning against a wall to wait for Theo.

“Honestly, girl, just let the ward down. I do not want you to get hurt. If I have to bring someone to take it down with me, then you will be in trouble”

Seph huffed and laughed a little while the man paced in the corridor “Nothing new there, I’m always in trouble with you lot”

“Fine, fine, if that is how you want to play this.” He spat at Seph before walking off.

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Theo was well on his way, just over an hour away from the coven borders, when their elders got back in touch with the pack. Elder Maher answered the phone on speaker, Kayla ready to relay any relevant information to Theo on the road. However, before Maher could get a word in, the man began on the other end of the phone. “How many times do we have to tell you flea-bitten mutts? We do not have the girl; even if we did, we would not be handing her back to you. This is her rightful place. A witch of that calibre should be with her own kind, people who can nurture her properly.”

It sounded like he wanted to go on, but Kayla shouted over him. “If her place is with her own, why did they reject her? Why did they treat her so horribly that she was terrified of you even knowing she was in the country? Why is she scared for her life? I have seen the scars and heard a lot of her story. You cannot convince me with that pureblood, prejudiced rhetoric. Seph belongs here, with her mates, with people who love and cherish her for who she is, not the power she holds. You, you are the worst possible people for her-“

Kayla was interrupted by glares from the elders and her father attempting to drag her from the room. Reluctantly she took her seat once more.

“Yes, as one of our upcoming Alphas was just saying, we do not believe that you have Miss Adams’ best interests at heart, nor do we believe that she would be with you of her own free will. She has been in touch with us. We also have a good source of information that strongly suggests she is, in fact, on your property. The high court would be on our side in this dispute. We do not want to involve them, nor do we want to hurt you; Miss Adams’ Mate is on his way to collect her. Should you refuse to release her to him, he will tear apart every building until he finds her.”

“The mutt is of no consequence to us, and he will not get onto our property without our consent.” The other Elder replied before he hung up.

Elder Maher took a deep breath before turning to look at the remainder of the table. “We may have no choice but to inform the court, especially if Theo has to get violent to secure her release.”

The high court they were talking about was nothing like the human version with a judge and orders on paper. The court was like royalty. There was a small group of representatives from every supernatural group. They were rumoured to have castles worldwide, but no one ever saw them, or if you did, it was unlikely that you would live to tell the tale.

The wolf king had made a round of the packs a few years ago when he came of age and took the throne. Kayla remembered it vividly. He had walked in on her, and his second, the king, didn’t call him a beta, in a somewhat compromising position, then just sat on the sofa in the guest room until they finished. Kayla was sure he was trying very hard to hide his boner when she left, barely dressed. The man hardly seemed to be in touch with his human side. It was disconcerting, to say the least. But he was so hot, like a typical bad boy hot. Dark all over, clearly works out, tall, strong, didn’t speak much, but a voice to make you drop your knickers. They say he can make you ride the edge of pain and pleasure like an expert. Women followed him everywhere, like groupies, but there was a weird aura about him; something just felt off. Maybe it was the whole two-alpha thing; two alphas cannot comfortably be in the same space for too long. As a warning to stay away from him or something, who knows? Anyway, if the elders called them in, they would send a representative from the wolf and the witch courts at the least to settle the dispute. Hopefully, we can just submit a retrospective report stating that we had no choice but to use force because we couldn’t leave her there to die, which she would. After all, Seph was marked, and their bond was still very much intact; Seph would get sick and continue to suffer immensely the longer she was away from the pack and her mates.

Theo was driving like an idiot, he knew it wasn’t legal, but he’d deal with any tickets later. The closer he got to the coven, the more he could feel Seph. He knew she was alive and, for now, not in pain. She was tired and hungry but not hurt. ‘Hold on, princess, I’m coming for you, not much longer now, he kept sending mentally, and he would continue to try until she heard him. Pressing harder still on the gas, he sped up a few more kilometres. He had to get to his mate. “Hey, Siri… Phone Kay” he told his phone; he needed to know if anything had changed. “Any updates?” He asked when Kayla answered.

“The elders are talking about telling the court. The witches say you won’t get in without them letting you, but it doesn’t matter because they won’t admit to having her still. They said, even if they did, they would never give her back to us because she needs to be with people who will nurture her powers,” Kayla scoffed, and Theo growled loudly.

“The closer I get, the more I can feel her. I don’t think she’s hurt. She’s cold and tired and hungry but not hurt,” Theo told Kayla, who agreed that this was a good thing before they both hung up.