I sat at the desk looking over papers. The High Council was sending me over the multitude of requests and issues going on so I could weed through them to see what fires needed to be put out. It seemed like an uphill battle though. Weeks had gone by. Weeks and still not a single word from my mom. She didn’t even acknowledge me. It wasn’t a childish ‘tell Vale this’ or ‘relay this message to him’ or even just writing something down. No, it was as though I wasn’t even home. Ezekiel tried to talk to her after the first week but to no avail. You could even see the slight worry in Hector and Bryan’s eyes. My tablet was next to me with the current roster of people in the pack. We had a good amount of warriors. A lot of the families from the old captains from Harvest Moon came to join the pack. Their kids taking up the mantle since most of the other captains had retired. I was sending groups of three usually to each issue, helping put out the spots that were coming up. The problem was the a

I stood in the shower, hot water streaming down my body. My eyes were closed and my head was facing the shower head above me. It felt good, my body’s tension releasing slowly. It had been four days and it didn’t seem like Ezekiel was even close to stopping. My only reprieve right now was when he passed out from coming too much within a short amount of time. Taking a deep breath, I leaned over and spread my ass cheeks. Blood ran down my leg and into the drain. Naresh now came forward to force Faris to submit when he got too excited. He also was able to heal every time it happened but it was slow going. I still let him take the reigns though. I knew he was an Alpha, as there was something in him still needing to be that Alpha. Ezekiel was starting to already take over the pack, working with Hector, Bryan and my Mom for the every day things. Apparently, it wasn’t enough. Faris showing his true colors as he took over. 'Vale, do you need anything, dear?' I chuckled, hearing my mom mind l

It took twenty minutes of walking before anyone even came to greet us. I was following Mark but I didn’t know why we weren’t shifting and running in. It seemed like the long way to be going in but when the Beta, Joshua, finally showed up with two other warriors, Mark shifted. He still hadn’t said a word to me the entire time. I adjusted my duffle and shifted as well. All of their eyes went wide as my shift probably shocked them. My size and color also didn’t help, considering I towered over Mark. We had never shifted and I had never seen his wolf form just as he hadn’t seen mine. So it wasn’t surprising but I felt a shift of wariness in all of them. As though my ‘stupid frat boy’ persona may be broken. They took a minute but were able to gather themselves enough to lead the way. Again, even in wolf form, it was slow going. Heading north, we passed the outskirts of a town before coming to a stop at an older castle looking building. It was gothic and reminded me a lot of the High Counc

Warily, I looked into the doorway but there was only a few steps before a staircase went down into an underground part of the castle. It smelled like something was dying or decaying and I held my hand over my nose. I walked in and looked behind me, the door had a handle on the inside. Pulling it shut, I descended down the stairs slowly. Already, I knew that Alpha and Beta were out with Mark doing the rounds or whatever they did. No one would interrupt me for at least another hour. Not that they would be looking for me in particular, I just didn’t know how often they came down here. The stairs descended underground, where the stones became mossy and dripped with condensation. Some of the stones even had come out and there was just straight dirt behind them. I stepped as lightly as I could, but as I reached the bottom there was no door but it opened up into a bigger room. Peering in, the whole room was lined with huge cages and cells. It was definitely a dungeon and seemed like most of

***Hectors POV*** Arriving at the border of the Crescent River pack was easy but walking into the territory was even easier. I thought Auri has said they had better security since losing pups but the fact that I just walked up the road without seeing a single wolf was shocking. I was hauling ass on the road, knowing Vale was in serious shit with this group. Auri said everything that we needed to speak about would need to be done through signing and I knew he was in deep shit. Ezekiel should have gotten here at least a few days before me. I hadn’t been able to get out of the fire Morgan and I were trying to put out for two days. It had been a fucking mess and I realized how old I felt, especially not having Auri. t The need to live up to her expectation and keep up with her was stronger than I thought. I had spoken to Bryan a bit about the situation but I basically got the cliff notes of what was going on. Bryan was a little mad that he didn’t get to come but whatever was the issue,