Pregnant With Four Alphas' Babies: A Reverse Harem Romance Chapter 145: Stabbed in the Back

*Tristan*

Reece, Cora, and I have all shifted and are running toward Stephen’s pack lands to get closer to where Eli was taken when Randall, one of my top warriors supervising the Kane army front, pops up in my head. ‘Alpha Tristan, we have an issue,’ he’s saying.

I have a lot of issues right now, and the first one I’m trying to take care of is finding Alpha Eli. We’re not getting any signals from him at all, which means he is either unconscious, too far away, or… dead. I’m afraid to even admit that the latter is a possibility because I don’t think that Rose would ever recover from losing him. And I’m not sure that I would, either. He’s part of our family.

‘What is it?’ I ask Randall reluctantly.

‘Alpha Morris, sir,’ he says, and he just stops there.

Dread washes over me as I imagine what he’s done now. I was adamant that he and his people were to stay in the back of the line and assist injured and hungry warriors as they took breaks from fighting. I knew I shouldn’t trust him to just do what he’s supposed to do.

Still, I didn’t have all the details yet, so maybe I was jumping to conclusions. Maybe he was just annoying the hell out of the troops with stupid stories about Emily’s boobs.

‘What about Morris?’ I ask.

‘Sir, he charged forward inexplicably and… and he’s been killed in battle, sir.’ Randall spits out the last part like he’s afraid I’m going to blame him. I’m not. It’s my fault for ever sending him to the front in the first place. I thought I was helping him by making him feel important and needed.

I slow down my running, and Reece and Cora follow suit, and soon we’re stopped. ‘Why the hell would he charge forward?’ I ask Randall.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ says Randall. ‘The people who were around him said he looked like he was going after Stephanie, who was also killed in battle.’

I rack my brain trying to think of whether I know anyone named Stephanie, but Randall continued before I could ask, telling me, ‘She’s a warrior from Alpha Eli’s pack.’

I nod, and Reece looks at me with a combination of confusion and dread in his eyes. ‘What is it?’ Reece asks in a separate mind-link. ‘Is it… Eli?’

“No,’ I say quickly, knowing how much pain it will cause him thinking Eli is dead. ‘It’s Morris. He did something stupid.’

‘Of course, he did,’ he says. ‘Anyone stupid enough to take on the job of hurting Rose is going to be stupid enough to get himself killed.’

I have to agree, but I’ve been feeling sorry for the guy and really didn’t want to see him hurt.

‘What should we do with the body?’ asks Randall.

I turn my attention back to him. ‘His Beta will be in charge of that,’ I say. I can’t remember his Beta’s name, but I’m hoping someone there in Morris’s pack will know. ‘Please convey my condolences for their loss.’

‘Will do, Alpha,’ Randall says.

‘Apparently, one of Eli’s warriors was killed as well,’ I tell Reece. ‘I’ll talk to Trevor.’

I engage the mind-link again, and this time I include Reece. ‘Trevor,’ I call out.

‘Alpha Tristan?’ Trevor answers. ‘It’s a bit rough out here.’

‘I’ve heard, and I’m sorry for the loss of your warrior Stephanie,’ I say.

‘Thank you,’ says Trevor. ‘Alpha Eli is going to be upset when he hears about this. I’ve talked to the people who were around, and they swear they saw Stephanie and Morris acting funny just before Stephanie was called into battle. She’s usually very cautious, but we think she was distracted.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ says Reece.

‘Alpha Reece,’ Trevor says. ‘Since you’re both on, we could use your help just as soon as you can get here.’

‘We’ll get there as soon as we find your Alpha,’ I say. ‘Then he can join us as well.’

‘Is Cora there assisting you?’ Trevor asks.

Reece and I exchange a look. ‘She’s here,’ I say. ‘But I’m afraid she’s not to be trusted.’

‘Not trusted?’ asked Trevor.

‘We heard that she represented herself as a member of my pack, and I’ve never seen this woman in my life,’ I explain to him. ‘I think she’s up to something, and we’re going to find out what it is. She might even be behind the attack on Alpha Eli.’

Trevor practically growls in our minds, and for a moment, I’m afraid he’ll say something to Cora. ‘For now, please keep this to yourself,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s better right now that Cora doesn’t suspect that we know.’

‘All right,’ Trevor says with a very reluctant tone. ‘But I want a crack at her when this is over.’

‘I’m sure you’ll be first in line… well, right after your Alpha,’ I say.

He’s quiet, and I know he’s steaming mad and trying to keep his emotions under control. And that’s what I want him to do since for the moment, he is the closest thing we have to an Alpha out of the battlefield against Kane.

‘Just keep rotating those troops,’ I tell him. ‘Continue to use Alpha Morris’s people to help with food and medical supplies. I’m sure they need a purpose right now with their Alpha gone.’

‘His Beta, Sean, has already ordered them all to continue helping,’ Trevor says. Ah, Sean was his name. That’s right. ‘And I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. Just please… find my Alpha soon.’

‘We will,’ I say confidently, although since I haven’t heard from Eli in so long, it’s hard to be confident.

Reece says his farewell, and we resume running without saying anything to Cora, and even in her wolf form, she looks nervous. We’ve been asserting our Alpha power over her and have her well under control; being in close proximity to two such powerful Alphas has made her very submissive, so she runs at our side without questioning us.

Eventually, we’ll get the truth out of her.

Finally, we reach the spot that we estimate to be about halfway between the castle and Stephen’s pack lands, where Eli was kidnapped, so we slow down. Both Reece and I engage our mind links and neither of us can reach him. For now, I’m going to hold onto the belief that he’s alive, and whomever these rogues are, they’ve carried him far away so we can’t find him before they get their money for him, or whatever they’re after.

Seeing something odd, we slow more and come to a stop, then shift back to human forms, not even bothering to dress in the clothes that are in the backpack Cora is carrying. As warriors, we’re all accustomed to nudity and just ignore it, and we know we’ll be shifting back soon.

Even in her human form, Cora is quiet.

“I see tracks here,” says Reece, pointing to a place by some bushes that look like a scuffle happened there.

We’re lucky that we stopped just in the right place, and this certainly looks like the spot where Eli got captured. He’s a smart, powerful Alpha, so they must have surrounded him or maybe somehow drugged him by surprise. Either way, we can see by the landscape here that he put up quite a fight.

“It leads off to the south,” I say. “So, let’s start by following this trail.”

We all shift quickly and start following Eli’s scent, which we can pick up now in our wolf forms. It’s a bit faint, but it’s still strong enough for us to run quickly. I’m hoping that we find Eli at the end of this trail, and we can get him home to Rose. I hate that she has to be so worried about him when all she should be worried about right now is staying healthy for our babies.

It takes a while, but eventually, we find a shed among some trees that looks like it was recently occupied judging by the disturbance of the ground all around it. We all shift back to our human forms and dress, hanging back for a bit behind some shrubbery so we can see if anyone is coming and going out of the shed.

Cora looks like she’s about to have a heart attack, and I can sense her terror. She must know she’s about to be found out—unless she’s smarter than I think she is and already understands that we’re onto her.

After a few minutes, with no one around the shed, we make our move and approach. Before we do, Reece and I send quick messages back to our respective Betas so that they know where we are and what we’re doing, just in case we need backup. I don’t want to pull anyone away from the front line in the Kane battle, so hopefully, we just take care of all this ourselves.

It’s just a bunch of rogues, after all.

Hearing nothing from inside, we decide to take the aggressive route and just kick the door in. I’m more than ready to release some frustration, so I tell Reece that I’ll handle it.

The door easily flies off the hinges and practically slams into the opposite wall of the tiny room. There’s no one inside.

Reece and I turn to Cora, whose face reveals a combination of shock, confusion, and sheer horror.

“All right, Cora,” I say. “It’s time for you to talk.”