Bound to My Mate Ch. 13

"Thank you Alpha Latro. You know, Madam Alpha, maybe next time you won't go running after the attackers yourself, but I doubt it," Sarah smiled putting her tools away. She didn't notice the dark look on Joel's face or she probably would have stopped talking. "The mothers downstairs all think you are their new hero. All the work to help poor Emily, going after Leidy and Sarah when you saw them with the rogues. They can't stop singing your praises," she laughed.

Nate approached cautiously from the side, correctly interpreting Joel's body language.

"They are ready when you are, sir," Nate said formally, taking several steps back after he spoke.

Joel seemed to compose himself before shifting back into his wolf form. The conversation about to happen would be Joel's strategy. He didn't want his game plan broadcast to anyone hiding in the woods.

I stood next to Joel and slipped back into the wolf form. Opening my mind to Joel, I listened intently.

The orders my mate handed out were succinct, he had obviously done this before. Joel discussed patrols and search patterns. He wanted the men doing the new technical security to get that operational as soon as possible. Joel wasn't letting the pack out of the basement before he was sure they would be safe.

Once he was done we walked back toward the security center. Joel took me inside an office inside the complex and closed the door.

'Shift,' he commanded.

I fell back into my human form rapidly. It seemed like the animal in me was retreating. It was obvious what was coming, a reprimand about not listening. My wolf half had nothing to do with that and was more than willing to let the human half take the heat.

Joel stood in front of me and slipped on a pair of jeans from a drawer in the room. He handed me a tee shirt and a pair of sweat pants. I slid them on and watched him watching me.

"Do you know what a pack is?" he asked me simply.

"It's your family that all live here in the den together," I answered.

That was a weird question.

"It is a living, breathing network," Joel said slowly and carefully. "Everyone does their part and the whole benefits. Every member must think and act cohesively. I know you were raised in a small, disconnected family. At work, Will told me you had difficulty delegating and did most things yourself."

I didn't know Will had talked to Joel about me at work. My surprise must have showed, because Joel held up a hand and continued to speak.

"I asked Will to talk to me about your habits away from the pack. I wanted to understand if your constant need to assert your independence was limited to me. Apparently, it was not. You have difficulty sitting at the helm and allowing others to complete tasks."

"That's not fair and hardly the point," I argued. "If I didn't do most of the stuff at work it didn't get done right and then I got blamed. I was responsible for my patients, the other people at work were not. They would always half do the job or not do it at all."

I knew I was getting defensive. It wasn't the first time I'd been told I wasn't good at teamwork.

Joel continued to talk quietly, "It is the point. Things are different here, but your reactions are the same. You are not modifying your behavior to the situation. If every member of this pack did what you did today, I would have lost family members. We work as a team."

"The Omegas and our women got out of the way. The trackers found the vans, the warriors followed the trails of the escaping rogues, and everyone waited on my signal. Once we had it all organized, we took the entire operation down at one time. They were separated and had no chance of overpowering the wolves I sent after them," Joel said continuing to watch me.

I sat down on the desk behind me. The wolves were stronger as a team, because they worked together. Joel managed the team so the best abilities of everyone was at the forefront. Deep down I knew that, I just wasn't used to it.

"I apologize. I only wanted to help. I didn't like being left downstairs with the weak," I told Joel honestly.

"You are right. I still fear for your safety, though, it will be a hard habit to break. We should be side by side supporting one another in a time of crisis, but I don't think you understood what happened today. I knew you would be of no interest to the rogues, but I didn't want you anywhere near them," he said shaking his head.

"No, I guess I didn't really know what they wanted until Nate told me," I contemplated. "Not that I want to be of interest to creeps like that, but why wouldn't I have interested them?"

"You have a mate, my scent saturates you. They would be looking for females without a mate. If they took you, I would never stop looking and they know that. Their goal is to take and forcibly mate young females. In the old days the females, once mated, may not have been accepted back into their own packs," Joel said.

"What if they were hurting them?" I asked alarmed.

"In this day and age, we take the females back. None of us will let our females be taken to help form new packs," Joel said. "However, that is not the part of your education I am interested in. My concern is that you do not know how to function as a member of the pack. I love you, but I cannot allow you to be disruptive. We have a system and it works; you have to trust your fellow pack members to do their jobs."

"What can I do now that would be non disruptive?" I asked.

Being a control freak was definitely a weakness of mine. I was upset Joel had noticed. What he thought mattered a lot to me and right now he thought I was not helping him. I hung my head in shame.

I heard Joel cross the room and come to stand in front of me. He hugged me tight and I half heartedly hugged him back. This whole day and had been irritating and I had made it worse.

"Relax, my love, you are learning," he said into my hair, "and part of me is glad you did what you did. We may not have found the witch that was involved if you hadn't seen him. None of us would have been looking for a human. If we had found him on pack lands, we may have wrongly assumed he was a lost camper that just happened to be a witch."

That made me feel better, I had helped a little bit. We stood holding each other for a moment before he spoke again.

"I cannot believe you outran five werewolves. If you hadn't stopped to attack, they never would have caught up to you. You are faster than any other wolf in this pack, I'm sure of that," he said sounding a little awed.

"I did need the help once they caught up to me," I said ruefully.

"You took down three before we got there, very skillfully by the look of it, nice clean kills. I'm impressed you've listened to the small amount of training I've been able to give you. Thank you for that, I feel better knowing you are well armed," he said.

"I love you, Joel. I'll trust your instincts from now on," I said looking up at him.

"I love your stubborn independence, but you're learning and so am I. We must learn to work together. During a rogue attack it is typical to hide all the females, but I doubt that will ever be an option you would consider," he smiled.

I shrugged and hugged him. He was right. I wasn't going to be hiding in the basement during any sort of attack.

A knock at the door interrupted our talk. Nate wanted to get on with the interrogations. He was jumping at the chance to go torture the rogues.

I was not as excited about that, at least part of me wasn't. Part of me wanted to go down and tear fingers off the assholes that had attacked my pack. I couldn't decide how I felt about it.

"Would you like me to come?" I asked quietly. I still wasn't decided whether I wanted to see this or not.

Joel's thoughts came into my head as he took my hands. 'No, while I'm sure part of you would love what we are about to do, part of you would find it abhorrent.'

"Or I could just wait up here for you to get done," I said sounding relieved.

Joel kissed my forehead, my nose, and both cheeks before settling his mouth over mine.

"Do not leave the security center, please. If the other Alphas call, talk with them. You may tell them it was a spell that had me incapacitated. Manage things until I get back," he said.

As instructed, I waited in the security room for Joel. Since his orders had been clear, everything ran smoothly in his absence. I had to field calls from several curious Alphas across the country. They were definitely amused a spell could take down a wolf of Joel's strength.

"So you're the one that's had him all hot and bothered at our last meeting," an Alpha named Sebastian Germain laughed. "I'm sorry we pulled him away from you. Not like it was much good to have him present, anyway. All he could think about was getting back to his mate. What'd you do to finally get him away from us?"

I wasn't much for lying, so I told the truth. "I ran into the forest, figured out how to shift, and attacked two pack members that had gone rogue. They were torturing one our females," I told him.

He whistled into the phone, "They were full grown these two?" he asked

"Yes."

"You were lucky to get out alive. You're definitely an Alpha bitch to be reckoned with. You still giving Joel a hard time?" he asked.

"Pretty much every day," I laughed.

"I hope my mate's half as fiery as you when I find her," he sighed. "She's being a little devil and hiding out. Any trackers Joel isn't using, you tell him to send my way. I can't wait to find her."

That was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard, but I just told him I'd tell Joel about it.

"Well, nice to chat with you. I'm sure we'll meet soon. You have Joel call me once he gets done ripping open those rogues," he growled happily on the phone.

I agreed and was glad to get of the line. That guy had seemed a little strange. Who in the world needs trackers to find his mate?

It was late at night when Joel finally finished with the last rogue. The wolf I had been left with, Ryan, told me that the interrogation could last hours to days. Ryan seemed to think it must be a cut and dried plan for them to finish so quickly.

Joel called out to me when they finished. He said he would take a shower and meet me in the security room. I waited for him impatiently, but when he got there I was stunned.

Joel looked clean but he didn't smell like anything. I didn't like it that his scent wasn't there. The beast in me eyed him warily and I inadvertently growled when he came close.

"I apologize," I said stiffly, "you smell different. It is really freaking me out. Whatever you showered with, don't use it again."

"I bit one of the rogues several times and made him bleed quite a bit. I got a lot of his blood in my mouth. I must have ingested some of the spell that way," Joel explained carefully.

I inched toward him and pressed my nose to his neck. Nothing. I tried everywhere on him and couldn't get a scent. It was disconcerting to say the very least.

"I can still feel our bond, but the lack of scent is so strange," I told him pressing my face against his chest.

Nate came into the room frowning.

"Everyone says I don't smell right and another Beta attacked Donavan because he didn't recognize him in the dark," he said.

"Is Donavan all right?" I gasp.

"Pissed off, but otherwise fine. What the hell is going on?" Nate asked sniffing his own underarm.

"We must have ingested the spell while we were persuading our friends to talk," Joel told him.

"We attacked a bunch of them this afternoon and we didn't have this issue," Nate argued still trying to catch his own scent off his arm.

Joel raised an eyebrow at Nate's tone, but didn't reprimand him. Lucky for Nate, Joel seemed to find his second's irritability funny.

"The kills this afternoon were quick. I can't imagine any of you lingered or allowed the blood to really sink in. We were much more 'in touch' with the thieves downstairs. When the spell is transferred that way it may take a significant amount of blood," said Joel calmly.

"These witches are really starting to get under my skin," Nate remarked going over to the security monitors. "Almost everything is up, boss. It's only a couple hours to sunrise. If you want, I'll babysit things here and let you get some shut eye."

"Nate, I've had quite a few hours of that already. Go down to Shawna and rest," Joel laughed.

I'd forgotten he did have quite a long, if not involuntary, nap this afternoon. That did make me jealous. I was exhausted, but curious about what he had learned.

"Love, there is a small pull out bed in the office we were in earlier today. Go lay down and rest until sunrise. You'll feel better tomorrow if you do," Joel whispered in my ear.

"Okay, apparently everyone else knows what is going on, but I'm in the dark. What did you learn from them?" I asked.

"You were right, the human was important. He had seen the rogues living in an abandoned motel down Route 301. He approached them and told them about the spells he had, all he wanted was cash in exchange."

"The rogues did the series of big crash and robs in the local papers to get the money for him. His being here today wasn't really part of the deal, but they insisted, extra security and all."

"I sent teams out to investigate the place they said they were living and it looks legit. The teams found the remains of several human females buried behind the motel. Human females couldn't build a pack for them and that was what the rogues wanted," he finished.

"They were hurting humans?" I asked aghast.

"Yes, love, I'm sorry we didn't get there sooner. We found the remains of several human women buried in the back. These rogue packs can be very violent," he told me.

"What if there are more of them around the motel?" I asked starting to pace.

"We've searched the area and believe we did get all of them," he answered stopping me and stroking my face. "Now go to bed."

"No dice, buddy. Where'd the witch get the spells?" I asked.

"They didn't know and considering what we put them through I think it was the truth," he said pointing to the room with the bed.

"One more question, where were they from?" I asked.

"One day I'll sit and explain to you the entire tragedy that was Alpha De Santos. For now, just trust me when I tell you that the mental breakdown of an Alpha is a terrible thing to watch."

Nate agreed and Joel continued to talk, "Alpha De Santos lost his daughter and his mind followed. He lashed out at his pack and ended up breeding some malicious, evil bastards."

"Worse wolves I've ever met," Nate commented as Joel continued.

"By the time everything was exposed, the Alpha was near death. We tried to clean out his pack, but most of the troublemakers splintered off into little rogue groups hiding all over the country. What could be salvaged from his pack was taken in by Alpha Sebastian Germain."

The name rang a bell, the crazy guy that wanted to track his mate. "I know that guy, he called. He doesn't sound like he's all there, either."

"He's a good wolf, but the De Santos tragedy took his mate from him," Joel sighed. "That's another long story. I'll save for a day when you aren't ready to fall over from exhaustion."

I nodded gratefully and headed off. Being awake this time of night was the bane of my existence. Honestly, I'd exhausted my tolerance for it in residency.

I found the little cot in the office and lay down. I was sound asleep before my head hit the pillow.