Chapter 30: Next Steps
Samara
After that Roman started searching for me, but my trail was so trampled he couldn’t find it to follow me. He searched every pack in the north and many in the south, just not those as far south as I had managed to go. Through his memories, I can see
where the other packs learned to fear him. His demand to search the packs for me was not to be denied. If he was, he’d attack the pack, killing the Alpha if necessary, and search for me anyway. It seems that word spread quickly and most Alphas became very accommodating very quickly when Roman showed up at their borders.
Through his memones, I can feel his devastation, his feelings of failure every time he didn’t find me. He let’s me see his memories of Teddy’s first birthday after he was killed and how he’d spent that day much like he’d spent today, holed up
his room, drinking and telling Teddy how sorry he was that he’d failed him..
“But I promise you I won’t give up. I will never give up until I find her and I avenge your death.”
That became a mantra of his over the years. Every year on the anniversary of Teddy’s birthday and the murder of our family
When he’s gone through all of his memories, we sit there, just holding each other and breathing in each other’s scents. The packhouse has gone quiet and I’m sure it’s early in the morning, but as exhausted as I am, I don’t move.
“I can’t believe I found you, finally, after all these years.” He chuckles. “I can’t believe I’m mated to you. That little rascal of a gurl who followed us everywhere when she was younger is my mate,”
I look up at him. “Are you disappointed?”
He strokes his fingers over my cheeks. “No. I’m proud to be mated to a white wolf. I never expected to be worthy of such a gift. Of course, there were only two options. And let’s be clear, you were the better option,” he says, smiling at me. “But I thought I’d lost you. Even if you hadn’t been my mate, I needed to find you, for myself and for Theo. But now that I know, I want to see Ayla. And we need to tell the pack. They need to know that we’re going to war and they need to know that we’ve finally found the lost Brenner. They would have protected you before, but when they hear that it was Sawyer that betrayed your family…
He stops, gritting his teeth as fur begins to sprout on his arms and I feel his claws extend around me.
“Now we can work together. We’ll make a plan and we’ll take back my family’s pack. I don’t know what that means as far as who will run the pack, but I know I refuse to allow Sawyer to have it after what he did,” I say.
Roman frowns and looks at me. “You don’t know.”
“Know what?” I ask.
“Samara, Althea survived the attack.”
“WHAT? Where is she? Oh my goddess, I had no idea! I never saw her that night”
I feel one arm tighten around me and the other cups my face “Sawyer took Althea as his mate. That’s how he was able to take over as Alpha so easily. The pack accepted her as their Luna and him as their Alpha when she accepted him. They just had their third pup,” he says
I feel sick “She doesn’t know, Roman How could she? I saw him kill Teddy. No one else was around. Even you didn’t realize what he’d done and you walked in right after Sawyer killed him. Oh my goddess, she bound herself to our family’s murderer We have to get her away from him,” I say, sitting up. (*)
He cups my face in his hands. “And we will I swore to you that I would get revenge on the people who hurt you I swore an oath to Theo after he died that I would do the same I will avenge the death of your family We will get Althea away from Sawyer She may need us after he’s dead, because killing him will weaken her, but the pack will follow her until their son can take over as Alpha,” he says, holding my gaze.
“The time of you and I not trusting each other is over, Samara. There can be no more secrets between us. We have to be
unified to get out revenge Sawyer’s pack, your family’s pack, isn’t as strong as mine. But he’ll call Dylan and Dylan will stand
with Sawyer against us.”
“Do you think he was involved in my family’s betrayal as well?” I ask him.
He sighs, his eyes going unfocused as he thinks about that. “He was the Alpha. Sawyer, as the second son, wouldn’t have had
access to Dylan’s warriors without his consent Sawyer didn’t kill your family on his own, he had help. With three packs fighting, we should have decimated the attacking Alpha and his pack while they were there.”
He grits his teeth and closes his eyes. “Goddess, in hindsight, it’s so obvious. Dylan had to be in on it. He wasn’t there that night. Perhaps he was working with the other Alpha, I don’t know. But Sawyer was leading their warriors, just as I was leading mine. I didn’t even think twice about why Dylan wasn’t there.”
He looks at me and kisses my nose. “We need to get some sleep. Tomorrow, I’m calling my father and telling him he has to come home. He’ll want to be a part of this. It will help him and my mother heal to know that I finally found you, and that you’re my mate. But before I do that, Pierce and I want to properly meet Ayla and then we have to announce who you are to the pack. They need to know that we are going to war, but most importantly, I want to properly introduce them to their Luna.”
He stands, somehow continuing to cradle me in his arms. “And when we aren’t so exhausted emotionally, I want to talk about when you’ll be ready to fully accept me as your mate and wear my mark.”
“Okay,” I say, cupping his face in my hand and kissing him
It’s a long, slow, deep kiss full of the intimacy and griet that we’ve shared over the last hours. It’s also full of promise from
both of us. He continues to kiss me as he carries me up to our room. He continues to kiss me as he lays me down in our bed. And he continues to kiss me as he lays beside me, our bodies wrapping around each other, neither of us willing to break the
connection.
When he finally pulls back, he looks at me with love shining in his eyes.
“I love you, Samara. I’m so glad that you’re mine.”
I smile at him. After everything we’ve shared tonight, I feel like it’s the right time to finally say it
“I love you too, Roman And I’m really glad that you’re mine”
