第10章
Back in his office, he pulled out his phone with trembling fingers.
My chat window still showed no replies. Just his increasingly desperate messages hanging in digital silence.
He tried calling again.
Straight to voicemail.
My voice, warm and professional: “You’ve reached Aria White. I’m unavailable right now, but-”
He hung up before the beep, his heart breaking all over again.
Remembering Logan’s mocking words at least gave him a direction.
If I’d contacted Logan, then Logan would know where I was.
He called his beta subordinates, his voice rough with exhaustion.
“Find her. Use every resource we have. Check hotels, safe houses, anything. I don’t care what it costs.”
“Yes, Alpha. What about the alliance meetings?”
“I’ll handle those myself.”
Meanwhile, he had to salvage what he could of their crumbling partnerships.
He went door-to-door begging their allied packs, swallowing his pride with each humiliating encounter.
At Moonridge Pack, the guards looked him up and down with barely concealed disdain.
“Alpha Morrison isn’t taking meetings today,” one said with false politeness.
“Tell him it’s Grayson Blake. He’ll see me.”
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“I’m sorry, sir. Alpha Morrison specifically said he’s unavailable to Blackwater Pack leadership.”
The rejection hit like a physical blow.
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At Silverpine Pack, he didn’t even make it past the parking lot.
“Alpha Chen’s orders,” their beta assistant said, not even looking up from his paperwork. “No meetings with Blackwater Pack
until further notice.”
“Just give me five minutes-”
“Security will escort you out if necessary.”
When he got to his car, he discovered someone had slashed all four tires.
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Deep cuts, deliberate and thorough.
A message.
He had to shift into wolf form and run to Ironwood Pack across town.
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The sky chose that moment to unleash a torrential downpour, quickly soaking his dark fur. Rain plastered his coat to his body, making him look like a drowned rat.
When he shifted back to human form outside Ironwood’s gates, he was naked, shivering, and desperate.
“Please,” he begged the guards. “I need to speak with Alpha Thompson. Our packs have been allies for eight years.”
The guards exchanged looks.
“Sir, you look… I mean, Alpha Thompson has a no-visitors policy today.”
“I’m an Alpha!”
“A very wet Alpha who looks like he’s been living rough,” one guard said bluntly. “Come back when you’re more… presentable.”
For the first time in his life, Grayson-who’d always been privilege and power personified-experienced true humiliation.
The guards’ dismissive stares. The whispered comments. The complete lack of respect.
Finally, he understood what my life had been like. How many doors had been slammed in my face? How many times had I been
judged, dismissed, found wanting?
How had I endured it all with such grace?
He was on the verge of despair, trudging miserably through the rain in human form, when his phone finally buzzed with good
news.
“Alpha, we found her. She’s in the eastern territories, near the old Morrison boundary. She’s… building something.”
Grayson’s heart jumped into his throat.
“Building what?”
“Looks like she’s clearing land for new hunting grounds. Professional operation, too. She’s got permits, equipment, a full team.”
She was starting over. Without him.
When Grayson finally found me an hour later, his breath caught in his throat.
I was standing in the middle of a freshly cleared field, pointing at surveyor’s maps while talking animatedly with my beta
assistant.
My hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail. I wore work clothes-jeans, boots, a jacket that had seen better days.
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I looked… happy.
More alive than I’d seemed in months.
The sight of me looking so focused and confident made him fall in love all over again.
How long had it been since he’d really looked at his mate? Really seen me?
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d stopped to just watch me work, to appreciate the way my mind worked, the way I
commanded respect through competence rather than fear.
Beauty had always been there, but it was more than that.
I was magnificent.
He just hadn’t paid attention, so he’d never noticed what everyone else could see.
I was born to lead.
As if sensing the weight of his stare, I turned around.
开票
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