Losing My Pack
Xander POV
Everything feels different. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s a pull, like something is dragging me back to Serafine. It’s becoming harder to ignore, but I have. Still, it lingers, no matter how much I try to pretend like it isn’t there, it is.
It’s been three months since she left. I’ve spent most of my time travelling, trying to find answers.
When I shift, I’m still a Silvermane Hound. I can feel the Guardians and sense them, but there’s no answers. At all.
I’ve searched Threadborn and people look at me like I’m crazy. The car drives into the pack, and I get out. People turn to look at me, but the usual warm greetings they give me as their Alpha isn’t there.
Most turn back to what they are doing, pretending that I don’t exist. Strange.
Pushing it to the back of my mind I walk inside and sit down. Killian follows behind me, muttering about another wasted trip. He’s not wrong, it was wasted.
I
“We’ve got issues,” Garrick says and I groan.
“Can they wait, I literally just got back, I’ve hardly been here for three months.” I don’t like it here, that’s the truth. Serafine’s scent lingers and I hate it. Not only that but the usual mating rituals are like torture.
Even if I wanted to give in and touch another woman, my wolf wouldn’t allow me. He’s punishing me just like I deserve.
“That’s the issue.”
I look up to Garrick confused by his words. “Excuse me?”
“The pack have been discussing you. Many think you should give the Alpha position to someone else, you’re distracted.”
I laugh. “Distracted? I’m sure they would be as fucking well if they were going through what I am!” How dare they. “How dare they do this to me, I ensure their safe, I ensure they have everything so they aren’t living in the shitty cities where they have to work for buttons!”
“Youv’e abandoned your pack, again.” Garrick steps forward and I growl. “First with your obsession to pretend to be a rogue to take down Giddeon which has failed, now to find out the truth about you and Serafine!”
“Stand down!” I shout as I stand up.
“No! Someone needs to tell you Xander, your losing the pack, make your choice. The
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pack or your answers?”
I step closer. “I said, stand down!” I push my wolf forward, using my alpha tone and his body tenses, his head slowly lowering.
“You don’t do that, Xander,” Killian whispers.
He’s not wrong, I never use my alpha tone. I don’t like to force people like that. “This is bullshit! What I am could impact this pack, and you all want me to give it up?”
I begin to pace the room. “Go now, tell them we’re having a pack meeting. Everyone is to be there, children, babies, adults, everyone even the fucking pets!” I growl.
Garrick nods and follows the order without hesitation then again he’s got not choice if I push my Alpha tone.
Killian stays where he is. His arms are folded and he watches me as I pace, he’s looking at me like he’s studying a man on the edge of collapse. Maybe I am?
Maybe I’ve gone through enough in this shitty life that…finally…I’ve had enough?
The past three months haven’t just been broken something inside of me, they’ve shifted the foundation of who I thought I was. I keep searching for answers, chasing shadows and trying to prove there’s something out there that explains what I’ve become, what Serafine is and why the Guardians turned on me to protect her. All I’ve done though is come up empty, time and time again.
“You’re running yourself into the ground,” Killian says finally, his voice quieter now, but more measured. “Even Garrick’s not wrong, and you know how rarely I say that.”
I shoot him a glare, but he doesn’t flinch. I don’t care if Garrick’s not wrong.
“You think I should stop?” I ask. “Just give up entirely? Do you really think that I should forget everything? What? Should I pretend I didn’t shift into a fucking Silvermane Hound? Pretend Serafine didn’t ride one straight out of this pack while the Guardians protected her by ripping through my men like they were nothing?”
He doesn’t answer straight away, and that tells me more than if he had.
“I don’t think you can forget, no one here would expect that of you,” he says eventually. “But maybe you need to ask yourself what you’re hoping to find and will the answers bring you peace or torment you more? You’ve torn through every record, interrogated every pack elder. You even went to the outskirts of the Eastern Ridge in the hopes that some seer to give you answers. And all you’ve got is blood and silence.”
I open my mouth to argue and he continues.
“You’ve also got questions back, people asking what is happening, what a Threadborn is, and why it’s important. You’re drawing attention to this pack. Silence after you ask questions isn’t good.”
“That silence means something.”
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Killian sighs. “Maybe. Or maybe there is no answer. Maybe the only one who could tell you anything real is the one you drove away.”
I stop pacing, my body turns cold,
“I didn’t drive her away,” I snap, but even as I say it, the words taste bitter. I did, I know deep down that I did.
“Oh, so you think she left because she was scared of you?” Killian asks as he steps forward. “No. She left because you made her feel like she wasn’t safe with you. Like you were just using her against her father. You questioned her at every turn. You let her father get into your head, and you planned to use her as a tool in your fight for revenge. Then you acted surprised when she ran.”
My chest tightens, but I don’t argue. Because deep down, everything he said… I know he’s right.
“She told you the truth, didn’t shHe?” Killian asks, softer now.
I nod once.
“And you didn’t believe her.”
“No. But-”
He exhales. “Not but. The truth is, maybe she’s the answer. Not the books, not rituals, . not old legends. Her Serafine. And you won’t get her back by chasing ghosts.”
I drop down into the chair, scrubbing a hand over my face. I’m tired. Bone–deep tired.
“She could be anywhere,” I say. “And even if I found her, what then? You think she’d come back after everything?”
“I think she’s stronger than you gave her credit for,” Killian replies. “And I think if there’s even the smallest chance she might still care, then you should stop chasing theories and start figuring out how to fix what you broke.”
I look at him. “You think I don’t want to?”
“No. I think you’re afraid that you don’t deserve her.”
The silence after that is heavy. He’s not wrong at all, he’s right. I don’t know if I deserve her, I’m still fighting that. And the worst part is, I’m starting to think she might be better off without me. The more time that passes, the more I think she deserves better. Still, the idea of her out there alone, carrying whatever truth she found and carrying the burden of understanding it, with Guardians at her back and no one else to turn to- it sits wrong in my chest. She shouldn’t be alone and she shouldn’t have had to run in the first place because she didn’t feel like she belonged.
“I’ve never cared what people think of me,” I mutter. “But the pack…” That hurts, this pack is everything to me. I don’t care, I never cared how people saw me, as long as my
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pack knew I was a good man.
Now, they know how I treated Serafine, they know everything and I know they see me as the bad guy. Which I guess I am.
“You care what they think because they’re your family,” Killian says. “And you know for a fact that if you want to keep them, you need to remind them of that. This meeting, it can’t just be about proving you’re still Alpha, it can’t be you arguing you need answers. It needs to be about showing them that you’re. still their Alpha. The one who leads from the front, not the one who hides behind obsession. You need to show them you care enough to be here.”
I nod, the weight of it all bearing down on me. “Will you be there?”
“Always,” he says, clapping a hand on my shoulder. It’s strange, I’ve always been close to Garrick, and now he’s distant which shows how far I slipped.
As he turns to leave, I glance out the window, past the stretch of pack land that seems duller now. My bond to her still flickers in the back of my mind. It’s stretched thin but not broken, and it tells me only one thing–she’s far. Too far for me to reach. The only good thing about it is that, it’s not so far that I don’t feel the loss of her every time I breathe. If I felt nothing? My body shakes at the thought. She would never be found.
Maybe Killian’s right. Maybe I need to stop chasing answers and start becoming someone worth finding.
And if she never comes back?
Then guess I will live knowing I lost the only thing that ever truly mattered because I couldn’t see the truth when it was right in front of me. Which means I deserve to lose
- it.
Right now though, I’ll make sure this pack doesn’t pay the price for my blindness.
That’s a start, that’s the first step.
