2. Nineteen

~ Harper’s POV ~

I kept my eyes on the phone that continued ringing, Zara's name flashing on the bright screen. The room was silent save for the ringing and vibration of the phone. 

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the phone. My father had just advised me to give my mate some space and right now seemed like everything was a test. My wolf was going crazy in my head. He couldn't believe the fact that I would just have to swipe the screen and I would be able to hear my mate's voice, which I hadn't heard in almost two weeks. I clenched my fists to stop myself from grabbing the phone and talking to my mate.

But I didn’t budge. If this was my redemption, then I would go through it. My eyes stayed on the phone as it kept ringing, my father standing in front of him, checking on me.

My gaze finally moved to my father when the phone finally stopped ringing. His green eyes were assessing me with a blank look and then it finally struck me.

I gaped at my father in disbelief. "You went somewhere two weeks ago."

His eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "I did."

"And that's the same time Zara left the town. Left me." Wheels turned in my head as I kept gazing at my father who kept giving me a blank look, not letting any emotion seep through his facade. 

I have no idea how I didn't see it before.

"You helped Zara escape!" I gaped at him with my body stiff in betrayal. Five minutes ago, he was advising me to give her space because he gave me no other fucking choice. 

"You got rid of her. You never wanted her as my mate. You never wanted her as the packs' Luna." I ran a frustrated hand through my hair, my heart clenching in pain.

I took in my father as he casually put his hands in his pockets and continued regarding me with a blank stare, not confirming my thought process. But at the same time, not denying it.

"You fed some bullshit to Zara and she listened to you. She must have thought you were on her side and she let you ship her off to some place. Away from me."

I looked into his green eyes, willing him to send my accusations.

"With Zara gone, any other she-wolf could take her place. Be the packs' Luna. She trusted you and believed you."

He has been playing me all this time and I thought that he would, for once, think of me like a son. I had hoped that for once he would make my needs, and his son's needs his priority. I had believed that he had prioritized me before the pack. I thought he prioritized Zara before the pack.

He played me! He played Zara!

My eyes frantically moved around his office as if the little trinkets he had strategically placed around his office would tell me that this was all in my head. I was grasping at straws here. The evidence was right in front of me and I would be a fool if I didn't open my eyes now.

"Was Mom in on it too?" I asked, my voice coming out hoarse. I looked at him, my alpha senses on full throttle as I waited to detect a muscle twitch to tell me that I was all in my head.

He didn't move an inch. He just kept looking into my eyes as if everything I was saying was falling on deaf ears but I knew he heard them. Wasn't he going to man up and wake up to the choice he had made?

I shook my head in disbelief as I took his silence as a confirmation of my mom's participation in this wicked plan of his. Zara trusted my mom and if she had been there the day my dad convinced her to go somewhere, she wouldn't have thought twice about it.

Hell, I thought my mom liked Zara.

They were some pretty good actors; I would say because they even had me fooled.

Who knew my pregnant helpless mother could trick me and my mate?

My wolf growled at the depth of the betrayal I went through because of my parents. Aren't parents supposed to put the needs of their children before anything else? The one time I needed them, they tricked me and sent the girl I love away from me. 

They stole my chance to make it up to her.

I growled at the disrespect and lunged at my father. I must have caught him by surprise because his head whipped to the side and he fell to the floor when my fist connected with his jaw. 

I was a little dissatisfied that I didn't hear the sound of bone crunching but I reveled in the sight of my father lying on his office floor, clutching his bruised jaw. I would love to see it bruised.

But sadly, I won't be here to see it because I made up my mind in an instant. If my father had been bullshitting me all along, then his speech about giving some time to Zara was the biggest one of them all. 

I was done with everything. I would go after Zara, follow the path the mate bond makes me go, and make it up to her. Apologize to he and convince her to come back to me and sort everything out.

I turn around and storm down the stairs as fast as my legs can carry me. My wolf has felt alive for the first time in weeks at the thought of going after our mate and seeing her again. The both of us missed holding her and having her wonderful scent of chocolates and pines all around us. My wolf was already planning to give Zara as many chocolates as I could buy. I laughed as I imagined how her expression would be after looking at a huge mountain of chocolates.

I shift into my white wolf mid-jump and howl into the night. I block all the people trying to mind-link me and turn in the direction of the oath I knew Zara took to drive out of Arada.

I sprinted as fast as I could, adrenaline and the need to see my mate fueling my muscles and increasing my speed to amazing measures.

I kept off the roads and sprinted through the woods. Traveling in wolf form wasn't going to be any problem to me because woods were stretching till miles of Arada and I knew that Zara couldn't have gone far because of the pull of the mate bond.

I shut my mind to stop thinking of my father lying on his office floor because of the way I punched him. I went over the whole exchange in my mind to confirm that my suspicions were correct.

I mean wouldn't he have at least defended himself if I was shooting blank, right? He wouldn't have let me hit him, right? His alpha pride wouldn't have allowed that. Then why was I feeling so shitty over the way I swung at him?

Were my suspicions correct or were my brains molding every single thing just to make everything justified for me to go to my mate? Was I right or was I wrong?

I shook my head to get rid of these thoughts and focused on the direction of my run. My wolf yipped in joy as the bend of the road where Zara drove out of the pack boundary came into sight. If I crossed this turn, I would be out of the pack boundary too, and closer to my mate, closer to Zara.

I felt my father trying to reach me through the mind link but my wolf was too ecstatic to care about his groveling and any explanations. 

I felt a snap in my chest as I crossed the pack borders but my wolf didn't acknowledge the twinge in my chest. If he wasn't running away for his mate, I would be in so much pain for abandoning my pack.

The realization struck me after a second. I was abandoning my pack. My wolf reminded me that the pack still had a very capable alpha looking after them and I wouldn't be an alpha if I didn't have a mate and that's what I was going to do. Get back, my mate.

I pushed my legs to go faster when, out of nowhere I saw a whoosh of black fur in my peripheral movement. My wolf hadn't detected any other presence, so where this this come from?

I felt the air slam out of my lungs as a huge black wolf slammed into my body at full speed. I was already in a sprint which resulted me in flying across the woods for a few seconds. My back hit the bark of a tree which splintered and broke like a twig because of my wolf's body weight and I slammed into another tree behind the one I just broke. Splinters from the broken tree lodged deep into my muscles and I could see patches of red in my white fur.

Inertia hurts.

I must have hit my head pretty hard too because I couldn't open my eyes and a wave of dizziness washed over me. Did a rogue just attack me?

I mustered the courage to open my eyes and watched as the air whooshed around my head. What the hell just happened? 

I frown as a piercing pain starts in my left shoulder out of nowhere. I look to my left to see an arrow poking out of my body. Blood leaked rapidly from the wound and pooled around my body.

What the fuck happened in the last five seconds? Someone shot me in my left shoulder with an arrow.

Another wave of dizziness hit me and the next second my legs gave out and I lay in my pool of blood. Bleeding out into the forest.