Pregnant With Four Alphas' Babies: A Reverse Harem Romance Chapter 179: Suffering a Loss

*Kelly*

We certainly don’t have time to waste, but there’s nothing else to do but try to get the van fixed so we can get on our way. It seems to be the only vehicle these people have, and our utility vehicles were pretty smashed up in the crash.

Especially the one with Ben and Liam.

I know Liam’s wife well, and I’ve hung around with Ben’s wife on all the pack’s special occasions. Both couples were clearly fated mates, so they’re going to be devastated. One look at Pete, and I can imagine what their lives will be like when they find out their mates are gone. He’s completely lost, staring out the window like he thinks his mate will appear there magically. It’s a horrible fate.

Eli just left with Brent and Sean to work on the van, and Trevor stayed back with me. I’m pretty sure Eli ordered him to do so to protect me, though he must have done so in the mind-link. I can hold my own, and Eli should know that. Sometimes brothers can be such a pain in the ass.

But I stayed behind on purpose to talk to Heather. I’m intrigued with her, and with this place, and I want to know more.

“Tell me about your pack,” I say. I know they’re not a pack because they’re clearly rogues who have attached themselves to a leader who’s not an Alpha, but I feel like I should respect Heather by calling them what she’s known them to be for as long as she can remember.

She’s been staring at Pete like she’s hoping he’ll snap out of it, but she gives up and turns to me. “You never heard of us, the Stone Creek pack?”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry, no,” I say. She looks sad so I add, “Our pack lands are pretty far from here, so we don’t travel this way often.” I hope she’s not offended.

“Oh,” she says. “Well, I s’pose since I never heard of y’all either, that makes sense.”

I smile.

“Stone Creek is a great place,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “We live here in a genuine hotel. Pete says lots o’ rich people used to come here and pay good money to be here.”

“I bet they did,” I say. “It looks like it’s a great place.”

She nods, but some of the sparkle disappears from her eyes. “Well, the pack was the best till Betsy died.”

“Betsy?”

She nods over to Pete, who seems to flinch at the mention of the name but keeps staring out the window, not moving from his spot.

“Pete’s mate,” she says.

“I see,” I say.

“I weren’t very old at the time,” she says, and now she’s looking out the window with a faraway look, too. “But I ‘member it all real clear. It used to be a lotta fun here. The whole place had lots of stuff, and we never ran outta anything. My brother and me, we’d run the hallways collectin’ stuff.”

I nod, and she looks over at Pete. I hear a creak in the floor and sense that Trevor is making himself comfortable in one of the rickety chairs.

“Ever ‘thing was old and rundown,” Heather continues. “But there was still so much stuff. It’s like the people just ran out. Some of the elders… I remember them talking ‘bout fixin’ the place up, ‘bout repaintin’ and stuff like that. Pete was happy then. He said we’d do all of it. He said we’d make this place just as special as it were when rich people came here.”

She stops talking for a few minutes, then continues, “Then one day, Betsy was at the river. Men came, scary ones, and they grabbed her. Pete and a few other elders, they tried n’ stop ‘em. Well, they did stop ‘em from takin’ her but….”

She stops there, and I put my hand on hers. I look over at Pete and see a tear running down his face. He doesn’t move to wipe it off.

“Pete didn’t never wanna do nothin’ again after that,” Heather says. “Then we started runnin’ outta stuff, and he started to make rules. Rules like who could hunt, who could do the washin’, who could get married. Pete didn’t want no one havin’ no mates no more.”

She stops talking now, but I get the picture. I’m amazed that an entire group of shifters could fall into shambles due to the devastating grief of one man, especially since he isn’t their Alpha. I don’t know a lot about rogues, but I know they do tend to band together. That primal need for a pack never leaves a wolf, even if we leave a real pack. I guess they just needed an Alpha so bad that they clung to Pete no matter what.

“Well, we’re here to help now,” I say. “We can’t stay here now because we need to rescue my friend, Alpha Eli’s mate. But I promise we’re going to help you.”

“You’re a nice lady,” she says.

I smile and pat her hand, then I look over at Trevor, who has an unreadable expression on his face. Well, I might as well start helping now. “The first thing we need to deal with is these rules….”

* * *

*Adam*

Shelby and I have searched everywhere we can find in this labyrinth of secret passageways, and we’ve yet to find this mysterious unlocked door we heard Barbara talking about. Maybe she’s just bullshitting.

I’m thrilled that there aren’t any of Kane’s warriors to be found anywhere. I am sure Shelby and I are headed to our deaths investigating the tunnels.

Finally, we end up pretty much back where we’d started, finding nothing.

“Well, there’s nothing down here,” says Shelby. “So where the hell is this door she’s talking about?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But maybe we should go back upstairs and see if Barbara is still in her room. We might overhear her talking to someone or something.”

Shelby nods, and we head out the nearest secret door, which leads to a hallway. Since there are so many hallways in here, and they all look the same after a while, it takes some time for me to get my bearings and figure out that we’re close to the library. I remember the plans that the Alphas took, so I head in, gesturing for Shelby to follow, figuring that I’d better clean up things in case Kane’s people do infiltrate the castle. The library is empty, and I straighten up the section the Alphas had been working with earlier.

“Odd how there’s a door that leads into this room, then another that leads just outside,” Shelby says.

I shrug. “Who knows who even built those or what they were for?” I say.

We head out and over to Barbara’s room, where we find the door open. The guard is inside, but Barbara doesn’t seem to be. The guard looks at me, frightened. “I stopped hearing her inside, and like you said, I came in,” he says. “But she’s not here. What the hell kind of witch is this woman?”

Shelby chuckles a little. “The worst kind,” she says.

I don’t want this guard to know about the secret passage, so I excuse him and close the door behind me, then Shelby and I examine all the walls and corners of the room. Sure enough, there’s a secret passageway door. Weird that we didn’t see Barbara down there a few minutes ago. She must have been sneaky or went a different way.

We follow the hallway in the passageway for a while until we see light, and opening that door, we’re out into a hallway again. This one is by the sewing room, so I look inside, hearing a commotion.

And there’s Barbara, shouting at the seamstress. I have this weird sense of relief that I found her mixed with the horror of having actually found her, and my brain can’t get a handle on those emotions right now, so I don’t say a word.

But Shelby does.

“Where the hell have you been?!” she asks her in a sharp tone.

Barbara puts her hand on her hip like she’s never been so insulted in her entire life. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life,” she says.

Guess I nailed that one.

‘She’s not supposed to know we’re keeping an eye on her,’ I tell Shelby in the mind-link. ‘Tell her you were expecting her to measure for clothes.’

“Well, I was expecting you to measure for your new clothes,” Shelby says quickly.

I’m impressed because that was really smooth. “You’ve had us waiting here for a while,” Shelby adds.

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about because I’ve been right here since he brought me here,” she says, pointing at me. Of course, that’s a lie, because I brought her close to here, but then she was gone, and she didn’t come in here then. And we overheard her talking to King Gene.

Regardless, we know where she’s at now, so I report in with the Alphas. ‘Nothing much happening with Barbara,’ I say, happy to have at least one thing to honestly report.

Alpha Tristan answers me. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘But we’re a little busy right now. Keep up the good work and give a shout if anything major happens.’

Shelby looks at me funny, and I realize that I’m smiling since the Alpha said I’d done a good job. At least, I think he’d said that.

Barbara looks at me with a knitted brow and goes back to yelling at the seamstress, something about yellow thread. There’s not enough room in my brain to waste any of it thinking about what the hell she’s talking about, so I take Shelby’s hand and lead her outside.

We’ll just keep an eye on Barbara from afar.