Chapter 37

ALEXIS

One week later.....

It was crazy how life could change overnight.

Who would think that one day you would wake up and find someone you loved missing?

How were you even supposed to deal with that?

It seemed everyone had a different way of handling the situation.

Hudson and I were immediately pulled into meetings with his advisors to talk about what we should do. They were convinced that Lacey was conspiring with the griffins and demanded that we go to war. We had to convince them to stand down and not jump to conclusions about this mess.

I didn't believe that Lacey would betray us. I had complete faith in her.

If she was planning to work against us, why would she leave Brielle behind? Even if she supposedly hated all of us, there was no doubting that she loved Brielle with all her heart and wouldn't dare to put her in danger.

Not to mention that she had done the blood oath with Hudson, who would have felt it if she really betrayed us.

So far, the only people who believed in Lacey were Hudson, me, his family, my family, Alpha Breydon, Boston, and of course, Matthew.

I couldn't imagine how Matthew felt. He was devastated when it finally dawned on him that she was actually gone. He wouldn't come out of his room, he wouldn't eat properly, and he absolutely refused to take a shower. According to Hudson, he didn't want to wash the scent of Lacey off.

I had only seen Matthew once this week, and that was when he was extremely intoxicated. He had stumbled around the pack, yelling and crying for Lacey until Hudson and Boston found him and brought him back.

Needless to say, any alcohol that was available was locked away after he nearly poisoned himself. Instead, he coped by staying in his room and away from the eyes of the pack, who didn't know how to keep their mouths shut.

Everything just felt so rushed.

We had the Alpha ball coming up this week, and this was when Hudson and I were supposed to talk to the other Alphas and hope they would be willing to help us against the griffins.

I had no idea how we were going to manage everything, especially with Matthew being completely out of it.

I heard a pair of footsteps coming down the hallway quickly. As they entered the kitchen, I turned around, thinking it would be either Hudson, Boston, or Brielle.

Only, it was Matthew.

I gaped at his clean appearance–he had finally shaved and showered after nearly a week.

"Well, look who's finally out of his room," I smirked, grabbing a bowl to give him some oatmeal. He rolled his eyes and sat down on the barstool.

He seemed to be deep in thought, and I wasn't sure if I should disturb him or not. However, curiosity took over and I slid his bowl across the island and gave him a small smile, "How do you feel?"

He chewed slowly as if forcing himself to eat, "Fine."

I took this as the sign that he didn't want to talk and went back to cutting the berries up.

"Do you want strawberries or blueberries in that?"

"Neither."

There was soft clang as he placed his bowl and spoon in the sink.

How fast did he eat? I had given him a whole bowl full.

"Where's Hudson?" He asked coldly.

"In his off–"

He was out of the kitchen before I even finished my sentence, and not a minute too soon either. Brielle shuffled in and rubbed her eyes tiredly.

"Morning Bri," I said forcing a smile on my face. She nodded and face planted on to the table. I chuckled and patted her back, placing a glass of milk in front of her, "Drink up."

She yawned and gave me a small smile, "When does Lacey come back from her vacation?"

"Soon, kiddo," I lied, praying that my lie would turn into the truth eventually.

She nodded and started chugging her milk, "Boston said he would teach me how to punch today."

"Did he? That's great, sweetheart," I grinned, sitting across from her with my breakfast.

"Yeah, he said something about boys and their wandering hands. What does he mean by that, Lexi?"

I wracked my head for an answer that was age appropriate, "He means that boys can be very mean and push you."

"So I punch them when they push me?"

I cringed at the thought, but nodded along, "Sure, why not?"

She was silent for a while, and I exhaled quietly. Hopefully, she didn't have any more questions that I couldn't answer–

"What's a BJ?"

–and I spoke too soon.

I nearly choked on a blueberry and gawked at her innocent, round face. She was staring me down as if she was waiting for an answer.

Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn't she ask me about something else, like the sky?

I cleared my throat awkwardly, "Where did you hear about a BJ?"

"Devin. He was talking to a lady and asked her for a BJ."

"Did he say anything else?"

"No. He just said, 'I want a BJ.' So what is it? I think I want one too. It sounds cool."

My wolf looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or hide. I, on the other hand, was ready to rip Devin's head off. The idiot needed to get a filter for his mouth or at least learn to not speak about these things in front of Brielle.

Suddenly, a thought hit me.

I smiled a little, "Remember how yesterday we were watching Barney?"

She nodded.

"Well, you know, Barney's friend is named BJ."

"So Devin wants to be BJ's friend?"

"Not quite. He wants a friend like BJ because BJ is very nice. Devin doesn't have many friends."

"Oh. Well, I like Devin. I can be his friend named BJ."

"You do that."

The irony of the situation was that Brielle's full name was Brielle Joanna Jones....so I could say that it worked out perfectly for Devin.

The front door opened, and I heard a familiar humming from the foyer.

"Morning Bri. Morning Alexis," Boston said, entering the kitchen with a grin. I rolled my eyes amusedly as he emptied the oatmeal into his bowl, leaving none for anyone else. Once he was seated, he looked between the two of us, "So what's the conversation on today?"

My eyes widened, and I was about to answer him when Brielle chirped, "BJ."

Boston's eyes became the size of golfballs, "Blowjobs? What the fudge, Alexis?"

I stomped on his foot under the table, making him wince.

"What's a blowjob?"

My eyes glared daggers at Boston even though I had a sickly sweet smile on my face, "Yeah, Boston? What's a blowjob?"

He swallowed hard, "It's a job where you.....blow up.....balloons. F–for birthday parties."

"Oh."

I held back a sigh of relief when she seemed uninterested in the topic. She went back to eating and playing with her doll's hair.

Meanwhile, Boston's ears were turning the color of the strawberry he was eating. I wanted to laugh at how flustered he seemed.

He scarfed the rest of his oatmeal down and nearly ran out of the house.

"Is he okay?" Brielle asked, wincing as the door slammed shut.

"He's fine."

***

HUDSON

I wanted to yank my hair out. Nothing made sense anymore. How did Lacey leave without border patrol noticing? I had questioned the men on duty that night at least three times, and they all said that they hadn't seen or smelled her.

I was starting to think that one of them lied to me. There was no way they wouldn't have seen her leave, even if she supposedly flew away in her griffin form.

There was a soft knock on my door.

"Come in," I snapped harshly, unrolling a map of the pack. I studied the borders carefully, trying to see if there was some hole or something in the line up that she could have slipped through.

"Hudson."

"What do you wan–Matthew?" I stared at my Beta in disbelief. I probably shouldn't have been so shocked, but considering the number of times he had gotten himself drunk and the number of times he cried, I wasn't expecting him to be up and about for at least a while longer.

He gave me a wry smile, "Yeah."

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, but what are you doing here?"

"I'm your Beta, aren't I? How long am I going to neglect my duties and leave Boston to handle them?"

He stepped into the room and grabbed a stack of neglected paperwork that was sitting on my desk.

"You need these done today?" He asked, skimming the pages.

I frowned and watched him get to work.

He was too calm. Too composed. Too stable.

Something was off.

"Matthew," I trailed off cautiously, "Why are you here?"

"I told you why I'm here."

"I meant why are you here doing paperwork? I expected that the first thing you would do when you came out of your room was start looking for Lacey."

"Who cares about Lacey? I don't. Who needs a mate anyway?"

My wolf popped his head up and growled at him, making me groan.

Not now. He didn't mean it.

Mate is good. You need a new Beta.

He just lost his so back the fuck up.

My wolf growled again and started pacing, keeping an eye on Matthew as he did.

"Matthew, what are you on? You liked Lacey a lot. Hell, you seemed like you even loved her."

"Yeah, well, things changed. She walked out on me," he muttered, scribbling some notes in the margin of the paper.

"She didn't walk out on you. She just.....left."

"Exactly."

"I'm sure she has a good reason to. Maybe she went to go spy for us like we planned?"

"She would have at least left a note if she was. She didn't even do that. She just disappeared...and right after the Luna ceremony too. Doesn't that seem awfully suspicious to you?"

"You can't be serious," I frowned, "She–"

"Look Alpha," he said mockingly, "You don't have to believe me. After all, you've changed too. And not for the better either. You've become weak."

It took all the power in me to not reach over and strangle his neck. My wolf was ready to shift and force him to take back his insults.

"Beta Matthew," I growled, watching him clench his pen tighter at my warning tone.

I took a deep breath and calmed my angry wolf down slowly.

He was only lashing out because he was angry and hurt, not because he meant it.

Matthew stood up and walked towards the door, carrying the papers in his hand. I let him go and went back to studying the map.

"You know, you were right."

I didn't lift my head up at his words. He continued anyway, "Men have to have expectations for their mate. Or else they'll end up accepting a dumb bitch who'll eventually walk out on them."

With those last words, he walked out and shut the door behind him. I sighed and rubbed my forehead tiredly.

He was turning in to me.

Suddenly, the door slammed open and I jumped in surprise. Alexis ran in and stared at me worriedly, "Are you okay?"

I blinked, "What?"

"I–I felt a wave of anger come through the mate bond. I thought something happened," she stammered,

I shook my head and nodded her over. She approached me warily and watched my face for any signs of anger or frustration. I pulled her into my lap and buried my face in her neck, sighing quietly.

There was no better stress-reliever in the world than sniffing your mate's scent. She made me feel at peace.

"Matthew's having a breakdown," I muttered, nuzzling her mark.

She pulled away gently so she could look at my face, "Did he say something?"

"He seems ready to reject Lacey."

She stiffened, "We have to find her, Hudson. Before he does something stupid on full moon day."

"I know," I murmured, kissing her temple.

She looked like she was about to say something else when her cell phone started ringing. We exchanged looks and she pulled it out of her pocked slowly.

"It's an unknown number," she nearly whispered.

"Answer it."

She pressed the answer key and put it on speaker, "Hello? Who is this?"

There was static in the background before a frantic female voice started calling her name, "Alexis? Alexis?"

Lacey.

"Lacey? Where are you? Are you okay?" Alexis asked loudly over the static.

I quickly mind-linked one of the pack trackers.

Find out where the call to Alexis' phone is coming from. Quickly!

"Alexis, you have to listen to me. The griffins lied. They're attacking before the second full moon."

"What do you mean?" I snapped.

"Hudson, they're attacking next week."