CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Breathing hard, the taste of blood in his jowls, Asher’s fury started to come under control. When he had awoken to find Valeria gone, he immediately called Ian and the sentinels. All the cars were accounted for, and it was highly improbable that she had left the premises. While Ian left to explore the eastern quadrant of the property, Asher took the western side.
It took less than an hour for one of his sentinels patrolling with him to receive a call from Ian, telling him that he had caught her scent and was changing into wolf form to reach her faster.
Ditching his clothes and transforming, Asher ran to the approximate location, a mix of emotions swirling inside him. Why would she want to flee again? Why couldn’t she trust him? Her behavior went against everything he knew as a wolf, everything he dealt with as an Alpha. When they made love earlier in the kitchen, he had made his decision. He wanted her. That was definitive. He had lost his family, even his two remaining relatives had disappeared; he wanted her by his side. Damn the Council or convention. And when she lay in his arms, he had thought his little witch felt the same thing.
So when he found her deep in the woods, bloodied, with Ian in human form, naked and holding her, he didn’t think, primal instinct taking over. It wasn’t his beta standing before him, it was another male, trying to claim what was his. His witch, his mate.
That very thought didn’t even faze him when he attacked, his vision like a tunnel on Ian.
Asher definitely lost all sense of time and location when he changed from man to wolf, and it was only when he heard a whimper from beneath him and a massive shadow to his right that he released his opponent from his fatal bite.
Heaving, he shook himself, starting to feel his bleeding wounds and aching bones from the confrontation. As he changed back into human form, the transition healed him. Standing over Ian, still laying down submissively, his neck bleeding, Asher turned to see Patricia tentatively coming closer.
The wounded wolf didn’t stir until Asher crouched down to cushion his head. Ian flinched but didn’t escape his touch.
“Change Ian.”
The command was said in a much calmer tone than he felt. Still ignoring Patricia, his posture clearly telling her to steer clear from all this, Asher waited until the swirl of energy shifted Ian from wolf to man. Most wounds had healed, but his body would still feel the effects of their battle.
“Any word before I banish you, Ian?”
The dark-haired man seemed surprised. “Banish me? For what purpose?”
“I can’t maintain the safety of this Sanctuary if you constantly disobey me, and even attack one of our guests.”
Ian gaped, clearly taken aback. “I didn’t attack Valeria!”
Fury had never made him faster, as he grabbed the other man’s throat, pulling him up before pinning him against a tree. “Don’t deny it! I saw the blood, I could even smell you on her! How dare you force yourself on a woman? On my woman!”
Asher knew Ian couldn’t answer as he pressed on his windpipe. And frankly, part of him didn’t care.
“Asher! Stop!” From the back of his mind, he could hear Patricia shouting, but he ignored the bear. He would deal with her later.
“Asher, Ian didn’t do anything. Valeria came back to Sanctuary, and she was vomiting blood. Crying blood too. There was no cut on her. It must be her magic doing this to her.”
The werebear words slowly materialized in his mind, dampening the anger, and he released Ian who fell to his knees, gasping.
“I smelled you all over her. What happened, Ian, why was she bleeding?”
Ian coughed and pushed himself up, rubbing his neck. Asher tried his best to concentrate on the words and push back his emotions when his beta told him about how he found the witch, weak and bleeding, and how she threw himself at him.
“I’m all male, Asher, and, of course, I was tempted. I kissed her, but something was off. She was offering, but as if to block something else, someone else. Then I confronted her about it, and that’s when she told me that what’s between you two, it could never be. That you deserved a family, a pack. And that’s not something that she could offer you. Ever.”
Asher swallowed, his chest tight as Ian continued to talk. Part of him knew that by choosing her, by giving himself to her, body and soul, he would gain as much as he would sacrifice. But he had made up his mind, and now, he had to find her and convince her that it was not necessary to sacrifice them anymore. And that he wasn’t letting her go without a fight, whatever, or whoever, she was now.
“Ian?” Asher had learned from his parents that a good leader had to make amends when wrong. Ian may have crossed lines, but he saw now that keeping him by his side had been the right thing to do. “I’m sorry I attacked you without asking questions. When I saw you with her…”
Ian nodded, and looked at Patricia, who sighed in relief. The beta wolf took a step forward and put a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “No apologies. I had a fault in this, but I also saw how much she cares about you. And your outburst reminded me of a similar incident with my mate.”
Asher nodded and saw the loyalty in the man’s eyes. Patricia whistled.
“Gentlemen, if you’re done with your manly friendship reconciliation, there’s a witch not feeling at the top of her game back at Sanctuary.”
Without a word, Asher changed back into a wolf and raced away, Ian and Patricia on his heels. As he finally exited the forest, he immediately saw his truck missing. Without missing a beat, he leaped and changed into human form just before entering the side door to the kitchen.
The smell of her blood caught him off guard, but apart from the pool on the floor, the trace of her hand on the counter and what he could detect coming from the sink, there wasn’t a lot. But she had bled in the forest. Was she still bleeding?
“Patricia, how was she when you came to get me?”
The werebear shrugged. “For a witch, she appeared okay despite the blood. Not very steady, but she didn’t seem about to flee anywhere. Otherwise, I would have stayed with her.”
Asher looked around and remembered he was naked when he went to pat his back pocket.
“Where did I put my cell phone? I thought I left it on the table when we came back here yesterday.”
Ian walked to the landline and called Asher’s phone. All three of them waited and listened. If anywhere within the building, they would hear it ring, and even vibrate.
“It’s not here anymore. Did you leave it in the truck? Patricia, can you go into Asher’s room and see if his truck keys are there?”
The werebear took off. Ian turned back to Asher. “Any idea why she would have run off?”
The Alpha werewolf racked his hands through his hair, almost pulling it in frustration. “Since we went to see her friend, she’d been acting weird. I could see the wheels turning in her head. And to be honest, it started when she learned her mother and fiancé were still alive.”
“Oh yeah, the fiancé. Well, after all you told me, if she can’t approach her father without revealing herself to the Council, then I guess her next move would be to get some answers from the fiancé.”
Asher couldn’t help the low growl that escaped his throat.
“Steady, Alpha. I don’t know the witch well, but I don’t think she’s trying to find him to rekindle an old flame.”
“She loved him, agreed to marry him. That may still be the case even if she now knows that she’s mixed blood.”
Ian crossed his arms. “Is that a way of saying that we’re not going after her?”
Asher arched an eyebrow. “I’m your Alpha. I beat you once, I can do it again.”
Patricia jogged back into the kitchen now fully dressed. She threw pants and shirts to the men and dangled Asher’s keys.
“If she took your truck, she had enough magic in her to jump-start the engine. I didn’t find your cell phone, so she probably took it. Oh, and also, I made a little detour. I detected her smell going into the basement. In the small bathroom near the cell. She didn’t shower or anything, but I could catch something magical happening there, but fading. It must have happened before she went into the woods.”
Ian frowned at Patricia. “What would she be doing there? What kind of magic?”
“There is a mirror in there. So I suspect she contacted someone.”
“Then why would she go into the forest? Could the person she contacted join her there?”
“Impossible to have gone around the sentinels, and Ian would have smelled or seen him or her when he found Valeria.”
Ian nodded. “I agree. I guess she tried some sort of spell in the forest. Maybe something to test her powers and it backfired on her. It would explain the weakness and the blood.”
“I don’t understand why she would try magic so far away from me. Her friend Sera told me that because of her broken magic, and until she found the cause of it, she should refrain from using it. Or if she did, use it if I’m close by.”
“Why?”
Asher shrugged, unwilling to divulge more information yet. “I don’t know much about witch matters. From what I could understand, I act as some sort of stabilizer.”
“Well, Asher the Stabilizer, as we’re speaking, the witch is flying away, pun intended.” Patricia smirked.
“I think I should go back to town and speak to Sera.”
Patricia pulled up her phone. “Or you could follow her using the GPS I installed on all of our vehicles three months ago.”
Asher smiled. “I forget how much of a geek you are. And a genius too. Let’s go.”