Chapter 24

Nico

I woke up to the sound of muffled voices arguing nearby and at first, I was sure that I was dreaming. As I started to gain my bearings, I realized that I was lying on the floor of a semi-familiar room and the voices were coming from the other side of the closed door.

Sleeping on the floor wasn't too bad, but it took me a minute to stretch out my neck and back as I quietly sat up.

Gage had already let me know that we were not alone, and I inhaled deeply as I quickly picked up the scents of Dylan and Lecia.

Glancing around the room, I noticed that they were still asleep on the bed together and, for a moment, I forgot about the voices and just sat there staring at them.

My mind was still trying to wrap around the fact that, in the short time I had known Dylan, she had become such an important person to not only me, but to Gage.

I was also still trying to deal with the fact that Lecia was my only sibling still in this world with me.

The ache in my heart throbbed and I squashed it all down before it could take hold and fully consume not only my thoughts, but my entire being.

I would grieve the loss soon, but right now, there were things that needed to get done and I wanted. No, I absolutely had to be a part of them.

Tears filled my eyes as I watched the two of them sleeping so peacefully beside each other. It took me a moment to realize that while they were not right beside each other, they had their hands clasped between them.

Even though they were both older than me, I felt as if I was looking at two young girls and not who I have come to know them to be. 

As I continued to just sit and watch them, Gage began to listen to the voices that seemed to be getting louder and louder as time went on.

Unsure of what time it was, I slowly rose from my position on the floor near the foot of the bed.

I stretched out my legs and back again. I remembered coming in here and Tristan practically throwing me to the floor to sleep and laughed a bit to myself.

If he pisses me off today, I may just end up sleeping in the bed with them tomorrow just to see how far I can push his buttons.

The smile that spread across my face was a genuine one and honestly felt a little foreign to me, but I felt Gage chuckle in my head and knew that he liked that idea.

Walking to the door, I focused on the voices that were coming from the other side and now that I was giving it my full attention, I could pick out the familiar voices and knew who they were.

Tristan, which wasn't surprising in the least since he's always within so many feet of wherever Dylan was if he could help it. The other voice was just as familiar but irked me for some reason.

There was something about Roane Winters that Gage and I still found unsettling, and we felt like we needed to keep our guard up around him.

I was standing right beside the door now and I could pick up what they were saying easily. Too bad the longer that I stood there, the more that I heard, and the more worked up I got.

While I didn't know what time it was, I knew that I had not slept for long. So, for things to have happened this quickly annoyed me.

Not because we hadn't anticipated something like this happening, but because they were trying to deal with it without including the three of us. 

Even though I was young, I was still a warrior, a fighter who would do anything and everything in my power to protect the ones that I love, and I didn't want to be left on the side lines because they thought I was too young.

When we had met with Noel, I had wanted to ask him so many questions, but it was obvious that we didn't have much time, and that he only knew so much. 

The plan that they had come up with before Noel had left the residential compound, or whatever it was that they called this private apartment building, was simple.

Nothing besides knowing exactly where Dylan was would get him to leave the pack lands after finding out that there were traitors among his wolves and that is what we would need to happen to get into Blood Mist.

The thing is that when they had proposed the idea of Noel telling them that he had found, Dylan hadn't gone over well with anyone.

It was Lecia who came up with a different idea. "What if you report that you found my scent, or our scent, mine and Nico," she had corrected when I had let out a soft grunt.

"Alpha Rogan knows that Dylan and I are close, so if you tell him that you picked up a trace of my scent, he will assume that we are together and will end up coming to look for her himself."

When she had thrown out the idea, everyone else in the room had stayed quiet as they thought it over, but I knew that she was not only right, but that would also probably be the only way to get him to come himself.

Lecia had always had this way of not necessarily knowing things that were gonna happen per se, but she had a knack for reading people and she could just sense things.

It was nice that her annoying little habit was coming in handy instead of just using it to catch me and Cruz when we were doing stupid things when we were younger.

 Tristan had, of course, been against any idea that brought Dylan anywhere near Rogan, but when Dylan had spoken up about the idea no one, not even the twin alphas, said anything against her.

Gage and I had been intending to talk to Tristan sometime today to see if he would mind answering some questions that had been nagging at us, but I was still a bit nervous to ask him,

Especially since what I wanted to know had not only to do with Dylan, but with his past and his previous pack.

From the time we are little, we are taught about what it means to be a wolf in a pack and the bonds between them.

In school we are taught that our wolves are gifts from the gods to their beloved children and that we are blessed with the soul of a wolf when we come of age. That is when the bonds with our wolves' form and we bond with our pack.

The stories that we heard at home were similar, but my mother had always told us that it was more than just a blessing and a bond.

She told of how the god of the moon and the goddess of the night had fallen in love and eventually created the shifters as their beloved children. They hated that humans only slept at night and blessed them with the ability to shift so that their wolves could run and play while they were both out watching high in the sky.

It was them who bestowed our destined wolves to each of us and, along with our wolves, we received our destined fates intertwined in each separate soul.

Our wolves were a second soul that lived inside of our body and while they were decided at birth, the gods would sometimes send the souls of the first wolves to those who were destined to do great things.

The bonds that she talked to us about were not just bonds of man and beast, but the bonds that bind our souls to each other, whether they be our families, our packs, or our mates.

Listening to those stories when we were children was amazing, but as we got older, I had a harder time believing them.

It wasn't until I met Dylan that I started to think that just maybe there was truth to some of those stories after all.

Dylan and Tristan were from a completely different pack then Lecia and I and even than the twin alphas. With different packs come different variations of their origins and their histories.

Just like any story, it can change depending on how many times it has been retold and I just wasn't sure how Tristan would handle me coming out and asking for things he may only wish to share with Dylan.

When we were all together last night, I heard what Noel had called Dylan and I noticed right away the reactions of some of the people in the room and outside of it.

Sharp intakes of breath, shocked expressions, even a glare of warning, but no one denied the title he bestowed on her, and I was so curious to know why.

Lecia had been friends with Dylan for a few months before all of this happened. When she had first started talking to our parents about her, they seemed hesitant for them to build a relationship, but ended up giving in because of her persistence.

That is probably when Cruz and I had begun to become interested in finding out more about her too. 

We had followed Lecia to Dylan's house a few times, then we kind of forced ourselves in to eat with them and get to meet Lecia's new obsession.

It wasn't that we hadn't seen her around school before, but when I had walked into that house and met her, actually spoken to her, it was like meeting a completely different person.

Dylan had seemed shy at first, but as she became a bit more comfortable with us, I realized how pretty and sweet she was. I also noticed how Cruz's feelings and behavior started to change around her as well.

So, when the three of us started to ask our parents even more questions about Dylan, they were more inclined to tell us all of the things that they had heard and what they knew themselves.

Unfortunately, neither of them had ever mentioned that her parents had been anything but members of the pack. 

Of course, I know now that everything that they had known and heard had been a lie. Her parents hadn't been from Blood Mist and neither had she, but I still knew so little about them.

Regardless, if her parents had been some kind of royalty, wouldn't that meant that Tristan would be some kind of prince or duke or whatever you call them.

I must be still tired if I was letting my thoughts get the better of me and, instead of focusing on the conversation outside the door, sifting through memories that wouldn't help me in this situation.

Practically laying my head on the door was my next option as I tried to get my mind to fully focus on what I was doing.

"Don't be stupid."

"You act as if you have something to lose."

"I do. Don't you remember what he did to me?"

"Yes, of course I do, because he did the same thing to me, just on a much larger scale."

Gage was so fixed on what was being said on the other side of the door that neither of us had realized that we were no longer the only ones awake in this room.

A hand softly touched the one I had leaning against the door and the moment I felt it, my face instantly turned to meet Lecia's dark green eyes.

Her face was so close to me, that I wondered how she had gotten so close without me realizing it.

Looking over her face, I saw that she had her other hand clasped with one finger extended and she had it placed over her lips.

Oh, she was telling me to be quiet. Nodding softly as I realized what she wanted, I leaned my head softly against the door again and watched as she did the same thing.

We were both standing there listening and I realized that I had missed some of the conversation outside because it had shifted to a new topic.

"Plan the f*cking meeting then. I will not be there. He hasn't seen me in years and has no idea what I look like."

"That's not the point. Why can't you listen to me? He didn't ask for you, he asked for her."

"Were you not there last night, we knew he would say that. The goal was to get him here so that we could get in there. As long as she is not anywhere near him, she will be fine."

"Which is why you should be with me and make sure that we keep him here for as long as we can."

I felt Lecia's soft voice in my head and closed my eyes so that I could focus on both her words, and those of Tristan and Roane.

"Do you know what they are talking about?"

Not wanting to admit that I had only gotten a portion of their conversation, I nodded instead of answering her.

"Well, are you gonna get me up to speed, or leave me here wondering like an idiot?"

I couldn't stop the smile that spread across my face. It was nice to know that no matter what happened, Lecia was still Lecia.

"Wait", I replied to her through link, and I felt her little huff of annoyance rush through her mouth, but it only made me smile wider.

Her hand was still placed atop of one of mine and I slid one of my fingers to the side so that her finger could fall in the gap, and I squeezed. 

While I was still a little hurt at what she had said to me yesterday morning, I knew that it didn't come from a place of resentment or malice, but because she herself was hurting.

As I squeezed her finger between mine, I felt her breath come out a bit harder for a few moments, and then she squeezed my hand with her own.

We stayed like that as we both continued to listen, but again we had missed some of what they were saying out there.

"You don't know that she'll do that."

"You're right. I don't know her well enough to know that, but I do know that Lecia thinks she will and that is enough proof for me."

My eyes popped open at Tristan's comment, and I saw that Lecia didn't seem surprised by what he had just said.

I was about to link with her to find out what he meant by that, when I felt another touch on my shoulder.

At first, I thought it was Lecia, but a sweet scent like vanilla and brown sugar hit me suddenly and when I turned, I noticed that it was Dylan who now stood beside us both.

Dylan had one of her hands on each of our shoulders and squeezed softly as if she was asking us to move.

Lecia pulled away from the door first and then she pulled me up with her, but Dylan didn't wait to say anything to us.

She opened the door and swung it wide. The door swung inwards, and Lecia and I were still in the dark shadow of the room, but the light from beyond the door washed over Dylan. I watched as she strode forward with a look of determination on her face.

"I hope you were not planning on doing anything without talking to me first," she said to Tristan and Roane, who were standing right beside the front door.

The looks on their faces were a mixture of surprise and worry. It was clear that Tristan had not wanted to wake Dylan, but Roane didn't seem bothered. 

In fact, the look that crossed his face was a mixture of what I could only describe as wanting, but it flashed in his eyes and across his face so fast that I might have missed it if I hadn't been looking right at him.

Dylan strode to the kitchen and seemed to be pretty comfortable as Lecia and I followed her out and took a seat at the big bar that separated the kitchen from the living area.

Grabbing a coffee cup, she poured the already made coffee and went straight to the fridge to get creamer.

Tristan had moved closer to the kitchen, and just watched as she found a spoon and made her overly light and sweet looking coffee.

When she finally turned around, I noticed that Roane and Tristan were standing a few feet from where Lecia and I stood and we were all staring at Dylan, waiting for what she would say or do next.

And it hit me just now, that maybe, just maybe, what Noel had called her before hadn't been a slip of the tongue or a mistake because in this moment no other word seemed to be more right.