A/N:
Once more thanks for my amazing editors Lunarosa and MythOFreak for their help.
CHAPTER FIVE
Stunned and a little bit shaken, Alex sat in her car. She couldn't believe what Troy had just told her: A shifter stalker had watched her from the mansion and followed her to her home.
She watched as Luc rounded the side yard and disappeared behind the house. A few anxious minutes ensued as she and Troy waited for him to reappear. To Alex, it seemed like hours before Luc came back to the car, and his taut and tense appearance kept Alex from fully relaxing when he did. Approaching Troy, Luc nodded enigmatically at his twin. They shared a look that Alex was pretty sure meant they were conversing mentally.
Alex saw the instant that Troy's visage changed. He seemed to be the more volatile twin. He looked more grim and appeared to almost be on the verge of violence. He was clenching his fists at his sides and was getting hairier by the second.
"Alex."
Rance's voice suddenly in her head startled her and made her yelp in surprise. "What?!" she answered, aloud.
The twins looked questioningly at Alex. She shook her head at them and concentrated on Rance's mental summons. "
Yeah, I'm here,"
she replied,
"why can reach me now? I thought I closed off our link."
"Little one, you blasted it open a couple of minutes ago. I think that was about the time when the twins told you to stay in your car,"
Rance replied. "
Please keep it open," he urged. "I want to make sure you're alright."
"Aren't you talking to the twins? Of course I'm alright. I couldn't be more protected with one hairy twin holding my door closed and the other prowling around my yard,"
Alex responded sarcastically.
"Not that I'm not grateful, mind you. I just want to be in the loop. These two guard dogs you've assigned to me are purposely being close-lipped about the situation."
She eyed the twins as they moved away from her car and held a quiet discussion.
She strained her hearing, trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. She could only hear snippets of it. "....mess...broke in....message...pissed off," Luc rumbled.
"I want you to come and stay with me in the mansion. I know you need more time. But Alex, I couldn't give you that anymore,"
Rance tried to explain.
"I want you protected...No. I need you protected,"
he fervently exclaimed.
"Please, let the twins escort you back here. You are in grave danger if you continue to stay there."
"Grave danger? Somebody wants to kill me? I haven't done anything to anybody that could warrant that reaction."
She frowned in consternation. Feeling like everything in her life was suddenly out of her control. She knew that this invasion of her house happened because she was now mated to Rance. She didn't understand the whys of it yet, but she was certain that she was not being targeted because of something she did, but because of who she now was in Rance's life.
"I'm sorry little one. But someone crazy has targeted you. According to Luc's report, the message left at your home is especially sinister
," Rance answered as calmly as he could. She knew he was trying to sound unruffled for her benefit. He probably did not want to alarm her further, but Rance could not fully mask the intense dread that was seeping, unbeknownst to him, through their mate link.
"What message did this ass leave behind in my house?" Alex asked aloud to be heard by the twins. She was truly infuriated. The pack did not have the right to keep her in the dark. This was her house, her property. She worked her ass off so she could put a down payment on this small house. It was not much, but it was hers. She would not let anyone violate her private sanctuary.
No one, man or shifter, would get away with messing with what was hers; neither would she stand around while others deal with her problem. She wouldn't be kept in the dark. She told Rance to be quiet while she dealt with the twins.
Shoving the car door open, she approached Luc and Troy determinedly. Her face was scrunched in a belligerent glare that spelled trouble to the two shifters warily eyeing their
Regina
.
"Tell me what did that sick shifter did in my house," she demandingly asked Luc. "If you don't tell me now, I am going in there and finding out for myself. I don't care if he is stronger than me. No one violates my private space without any retribution. I'm telling you now that I will exact it no matter how long it takes, no matter what," she said starkly.
Both Luc and Troy were taken aback at her vehemence. They were highly impressed at their
Regina's
display of temper. She was truly a worthy mate to their alpha. Her fierceness would serve her well, reigning beside Rance.
With a repentant smile on his face, Luc shallowly bowed his head in deference to Alex. "Forgive us.
Reg
- uh- Alex, we meant no disrespect. We were just conferring about how to proceed with this situation before us." Luc kept his eyes downcast to further reassure his
Regina
.
"Alright then, so spill. What happened in my house? I want to go inside and see for myself the damage done. Rance told me there was a message?" She waited for them to enlighten her, but the two remained mute and refused to directly look at her.
Almost at the end of her patience, she snapped her fingers in front of them "Tell me now or so help me - I will start kicking you both where it will hurt the most." She looked pointedly at their groins. Apparently Rance was listening, as she heard his laughter reverberate through their mate link. Instead of being intimidated, the two wolves sported shit-eating grins on their faces and beamed at Alex. They seemed to approve of her penchant for violence.
"
Did you send me two idiotic wolves?"
she asked Rance.
"These two are just standing here and grinning at me....now they are outright laughing!"
What Alex didn't know was that Rance, Damian, and the twins were all communicating mentally. The twins had started laughing when, after Rance proudly extolled Alex's fierceness, Damian reminded Rance that his mate would kick him in the nuts when he angered her, too.
"
My sweet Alex
," Rance soothingly crooned.
"They are not laughing because of you. Let me deal with them
." Rance purposely kept the link open to his mate so she could listen in to the mental link he had with his betas. She would not be able to maintain a multiple link as a speaker, not just a listener, until she had finally shifted.
"Enough. We are facing a serious breach to my mate's privacy and security. Luc and Troy, I want you to make every effort to sniff out the perpetrator. Once you have brought your Regina here to the mansion, I want both of you to further investigate this incursion into her house."
"Yes Alpha."
Both Luc and Troy answered, attempting to hold in their mirth.
Alex had heard enough. She turned her back on them and walked briskly to her front door. Trying the knob, she found it unlocked and opened the door wide. She was unprepared for what awaited her inside. Seeing the desecration of her living room, Alex was rooted at the entrance of her house. Her unbelieving eyes took in the destruction inside. She felt the blood leaving her face and knew that she looked pale as a ghost.
A buzzing sound echoed inside her head and her vision became blurry. Dazedly, she took several steps inside, and then abruptly stopped. Looking down, she saw her shoes scuffed something red that was splashed all over her living room carpet...and the walls...and the ceiling.
Her leather sofas were slashed and the cotton stuffing's scattered willy-nilly. The tables and lamps were broken in pieces. Framed pictures of her family and friends, formerly resting on the fireplace mantle had been thrown against the walls, broken and torn up. The sheer hatred permeating the room was suffocating.
She wandered to the rest of the house and found that everything she owned was either damaged or decimated. Most of her worldly possession inside the house had been reduced to junk.
She vaguely heard the twins trailing after her and Rance, hailing her in their link. She ignored all three of them.
A powerful emotion was growing inside of Alex. The devastation of what happened was fueling a fury such as she had never felt before. She felt her blood boiling and her ears starts to ring. Intense heat engulfed her body. All she could think about was vengeance for this injustice. She felt like a dormant volcano suddenly set to erupt, annihilating all in its path. The pressure was too much and about to explode. Panting heavily, severe pain suddenly rolled through her, radiating from her stomach to her extremities. Falling down on her knees, she clutched her midsection in an attempt to contain the pain.
Her mate shouted in her head and it made her instinctively close off their mental link. The molten fire of pain spread fast; swamping her muscles and bones, precisely consuming her, and spitting her out raw and trembling.
The twins watched helplessly as she writhed on the floor.
******
Rance was frantic. He was in his study going through the pack's extensive business interests while talking to Alex. He tried to calm her when he felt the surging emotions raging in her, but to no avail. The initial agonizing pain ravaging his mate zinged through their link, making him drop the documents he was holding and scattering them on the floor. The echoes of pain made him feel like a blowtorch was setting his organs on fire. His muscles and bones felt like they were being pulled like putty. The pain was racking Alex's entire body and Rance was experiencing it with her.
God, she was shifting, alone, without him there to ease her way.
He shoved off his desk. Rance staggered as he ran for the door. The ebb and flow of pain seemed to be subsiding, but Alex was unresponsive to his mental call. Ignoring everyone, he rushed down the hall while telepathically telling Damian to bring his car around. Slamming open the front door, he descended the mansion's steps in a sprint. He was rushing to be there for Alex.
Just as Damian stopped the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 in front of Rance, he heard Troy exclaimed --
"Alpha, you can't believe what's happening!"
the usually calm Luc immediately mind spoke, wildly animated,
"the Alpha Regina is shifting. It's unbelievable!"
"Impossible. The moon, which is not even out yet, is not a full moon,"
