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The idea of Clara not being alive anymore actually makes my chest hurt. It’s like my wolf heart has shattered into a million pieces. I don’t think I’ll be able to cope. My God, what the hell is wrong with me? I only met her briefly. I barely know a thing about her. I can’t believe I’m acting in such a crazy way. But at the same time, I can’t switch these fears and feelings off. It’s like Clara shifted something inside me completely and there’s no coming back from that. This whole mess might actually finish me off here. I’m not usually an overdramatic person, but I’ve never experienced an intense agony like this before. I don’t know how to deal with it. I don’t know how to cope, but I’m going to keep running until I have something figured out because I cannot return like this. No way.
8
SLEDGE
What the fuck is going on?
Since I have known Adam, I have never seen him act like a crazy person like this before. It isn’t in his nature. He might be more in touch with his emotions than the rest of us, but he never overreacts like this. I can’t believe what I’m looking at as he staggers away from me. The man looks like he’s seen a ghost, and he isn’t answering me as I beg him to let me know what’s going on. It’s like he can’t even hear me as I cry out.
As he shifts and races off, I take one more hopeless glance behind me, but the alpha ceremony seems to be coming to an end now anyway and I can’t particularly pick anyone out to target, so I make what I’m sure will be a choice that I will come to regret later on, and I take off after my friend. Adam clearly needs me, and I’m hoping that we can dress this up well to Mason later on in a way that he doesn’t kick us both to the curb.
I know Adam needs this pack just as much as I do. I don’t know what either of us would do without our military buddies. There’s a reason that we have always been in each other’s lives, and that’s the way I very much want it to stay.
So I take off after Adam, hoping we can resolve whatever the hell is happening here. He’s running fast, though, and while I’m quick on my feet, especially in my wolf form, but even I’m struggling to keep up with him. I don’t know when he’ll run out of steam, but I know I’m going to keep going until he does.
Finally, he comes to a halt, right in the middle of the woodlands, in the middle of nowhere, and he just kind of falls. He tumbles into a heap, pretty much collapsing. Fucking hell, what is with him? I’m going to have to sort him out here and now. If Mason sees him this way, then he won’t be impressed. He’ll lose his freaking shit over this.
“Adam,” I cry out as soon as I shift back into my human form. “Come on, Adam, shift back. I need to talk to you. I need to know what the hell is going on here.” He doesn’t. He lies on the floor for a little while longer, just trying to catch his breath. “Adam, you know you can talk to me about anything, right? That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’ve followed you, because I need to know what’s going on. This is weird. This isn’t like you at all.”
Slowly he shifts back into his human form, but he doesn’t get up. Adam is pretty much in the fetal position on the floor, looking like he could be sobbing. What is happening? I don’t know if I have the mental capacity to be able to cope with this. I want to help him in any way that I can, obviously or I wouldn’t be here, but what if I can’t do it?
“It’s Clara,” Adam finally pants out, his voice raspy and full of pain. “The alpha of the pack. That woman, it’s Clara. That’s why we can’t kill her.”
“Clara?” I’m confused. “Who the hell is that? Just because the alpha is a woman doesn’t mean we can’t kill her. You know Mason has ordered this, right? I think it might be better for us to go back and finish off the job.”
If we can just go back, then Mason doesn’t even need to know about this mini meltdown. We have to keep killing off the alphas until the pack either leaves Chicago or preferably comes to join us to increase our numbers. This whole meltdown is irrelevant.
But Adam continues to shake his head. “No, you don’t understand. This is Clara. This woman is important. She’s important to Mason. He’s been spending time with her.”
I just about manage to resist the urge to roll my eyes. “You know what Mason is like. There is always a woman in his bed. I don’t think he’ll be interested in her if he knows who she is. He wants the alpha gone, no matter who she is…”
“Clara is different,” Adam insists. “You don’t understand. Mason really cares for her. He calls her his mate. We can’t act rashly on this one. We have to communicate this with Mason first. We have to know what he wants…”
“Adam, doyouhave feelings for Clara? Because this seems like a lot…”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with me,” he promises. I don’t know if I believe him, though. I don’t think he would be lying on the floor in a heap if this was something he wasn’t heavily invested in. Sure, we all want Mason to find his mate—he’ll be much more settled than the life he’s living right now—but no one would weep over this. “This is to do with Mason. I know he’s going to freak out about this.”
“Right, well, I guess we’re going to have to tell Mason,” I shoot back with a sharp nod. “He needs to know what’s going on here. We have to tell Mason and allow him to decide on this woman. If he wants her killed or not.”
I don’t know if Clara really does mean as much to Mason as Adam is making out, or if he just wants her to remain alive because he likes her, but we’re going to have to find out. There’s nothing we can do in the middle of the woods here.
“I can’t tell Mason,” Adam replies sadly. “I can’t be the one to tell him all about Clara. I don’t want to see him freaking out about this. It’s too much.”
I guess that leaves me in charge of passing on the bad news. I guess that’s okay, I do know how to manage Mason well and make sure he doesn’t freak out about things. Although, I’m a little concerned that this might be a little too much. If there really is something here between Mason and this Clara, like Adam is suggesting, then it might prove a little harder, but there’s nothing I can do but try. We can’t remain here in the woods. This is crazy.
“Come on,” I say as I reach down to pull Adam to his feet. He might not be in the best head space, but that doesn’t matter. Wehaveto get back. “Let’s go to Mason’s place, and see if we can find him. The sooner I can report this to him, the better. Then he can make a decision one way or another that we need to do moving forward. This is… messy now.”
Adam trudges to his feet in a dejected manner. “I don’t know how this is going to go, but I’m definitely going to need a drink. Can we go to the bar?”
I nod along, knowing I will let Adam do whatever he needs to. It seems like he will be drinking his feelings today because none of this ends well for him. If we have to kill Clara, which I really think we’re going to have to do, then it’ll crush his spirit. I don’t know if he will ever be able to recover from that. But if we don’t kill her, then it’ll be because Mason really does see Clara as his mate. In which case, he’s going to have to watch his alpha marry the woman that he’s head over heels with.
I feel sorry for Adam. I don’t know how I can make this right for him. I wish I was much more experienced in this aspect of life, but I’m not. I haven’t had any serious relationships in my life. I’ve had a couple of short-term flings, but my heart hasn’t ever been in it. I don’t know what it’s like to have my heart broken and to be left feeling like this.
“Yes,” I tell him, holding him upright. “We can go to the bar. After the morning we’ve had, I think both of us could use a little something to drink.”
Adam really leans into me, needing me to hold him upright. What started as quite a simple and straightforward morning has become much more complicated. Adam’s feelings are a mess. The other pack has become way more of a problem. I don’t know how to hack this. I don’t like having this all resting on my back, pressing down on my shoulders, but as the second in command, that’s what I need to do. Always.
* * *
