Omega Bound Chapter 172

Thane

The panic attack I just witnessed was probably the worst one Little Wolf has had. I couldn’t get her to feel any emotions I was trying to push through the bond, and I couldn’t reason with her. She didn’t see me. She didn’t see Cyrus and Raven.

She heard voices that she had long buried rise back up within her.

She was worried about her dead friend.

She was worried about a younger version of me.

She was worried about my sister.

I watch her rest in her nest from across the room on the floor, wiping my stray tears away. I haven’t cried this much since I lost my family. The pain Ayla was in lanced through the bond, amplifying my own emotions.  Not that it mattered. Seeing her like that broke me.

I sit against the wall going over the last few hours. Daylight will be here soon, and I need to address the pack. I need to talk with the families again.

But I need to be here with Ayla.

The fear in her eyes, and in her words are something I never wish to hear or see again. The amount of fear I felt during her attack was worse than the blast itself. I never want to feel that way again. Absolutely helpless. Thankfully, I was able to lull her asleep by purring. She is now worn out and will probably sleep for hours.

I listen intently to the heartbeat of my pup. The one thing that is keeping me sane right now. I mind-linked Eric to sedate her, but I didn’t want to risk my pup, and I didn’t want to pull him away from the clinic where he is tending to the wounded.

I need to meet with my team members for updates on each of their assigned tasks today. Maybe one of them will come up with an answer. A name to identify the shifter responsible.

Their death will not be easy or quick. Not just for the pack lives lost, but for the torment they put my mate and pup through tonight. For trying to take them from me. I can’t think of one name that I would consider a likely culprit other than Della, but her death makes that impossible.

I close my eyes, resting my head against the wall, thinking about Ayla’s words tonight. I haven’t said her name in years. Hadn’t heard it in just as many. “Tessa didn’t cry, she fought the whole way,” I don’t ever think I have heard a truer sentence. Tessa was a fighter. She fought with me every chance she could. She knew it all. Confident and sassy, which she picked up from adopted big brother Cyrus. Tessa was beautiful with black hair and my mother’s green eyes. She had the ability to make any shifter comfortable. Tessa could strike a conversation with anyone in any situation. She was fearless and strong.

Tessa was also always bitching about me being too serious and her clothing. The girl had a shopping addiction, and my father never said a word because she was daddy’s little girl, and I was always stuck carrying her bags of shit into the house.

“Teenage she-wolves of an alpha are princesses, and they can’t carry their own stuff, Thane. It is like, not proper or whatever.” She tried to shoo me away with her hand, but I ended up putting her in a headlock after that. She screamed about my armpit hair in her face and cried for Mom.

I would do anything to carry those bags into the house now. I haven’t been to my parent’s house since I lost them. I should go some time, but the right time never shows itself.

I never got rid of a single item. The house remains the same as it was on the day my life changed forever. My mom loved her home and garden so much, she was always outside. That helped matters in the cleaning department so to speak.

The table probably still has papers on it. My mom wouldn’t allow a house maid. The cupboards have dusty dishes, and their rooms remain untouched. I have no idea what to do with the house or their stuff. I have never talked with anybody about it. I just keep it tucked away. Sure, every shifter here knows I haven’t dealt with it, but they say nothing.

I’m glad she didn’t cry. But I find myself wondering if that is the real reason Ayla quit. She lost her only friend and did the only thing she could do about it. Stop her tears just as my sister had.

It’s weird but I am extremely proud of Tessa for fighting to her death. She never gave up and I would expect nothing less, but the fact remains we all failed her. We still don’t know how she was abducted. I believe the ring was tied to my father’s old beta. The one I murdered that thought she-wolves were in a lesser class and deserved to be beaten into submission. Why my father kept him around as a beta, I will never know. I can only think he believed in his childhood friend since they were pups and had hoped he would change him for the better, but he never got the chance.

She was a bright light taken too soon. Fiercely independent, when she wanted to be and a lover of all.  I let out a sigh as I run my fingers through my hair. These memories aren’t helping but they are replaying in my mind like a movie, and I’m afraid they will stop and I won’t see them anymore.

My family would have loved Ayla. That is certain. The fact my own sister was talking to Ayla when they were captive about her older brother, she was going to hook her up with solidifies that. I wonder laugh to myself a little thinking about all the stories Tessa probably told Ayla about me since she never knew how to be quiet.

Did she tell her about my awkward first kiss that she watched from the living room window while making faces as a youngster and pressing her nose against the glass like a damn pig, stealing my thunder and embarrassing me to no end?

I want to hear them all, share them all with Ayla, but I don’t know if she can take it.

I don’t know how to move forward from this. I don’t want her to wake up full of self-doubt. I don’t want her to wake up without remembering and must be told all over again that Monica’s gone.

I don’t want her to enter a depression she may not claw back from.

All I can do is wait for her to wake up because, I’m not leaving this room until she does.