3. Thirty

~ Harper’s POV ~

I didn't look back, I just couldn't. My wolf was going mad and I knew that if I had not forced my wolf to run away, he would have torn apart that filthy rogue, consequences be damned. I closed my eyes, desperately trying to erase the picture of Ethan lying on top of Zara but I couldn't do it. The image was burned in my mind and it was torture like no other. 

I wanted to run away from all my problems, just for a second, and pretend that I was a normal eighteen-year-old teenage guy whose only problem in life was as inconsequential as choosing which girl to take to prom. I huffed as I realized that prom hadn't even been in the deepest recesses of my mind. I had so many responsibilities that the mundane task of going to the prom had been lost to me. 

Maybe if I was a normal eighteen-year-old and not this big white alpha, I wouldn't be feeling this overwhelming pain in my chest. This burning pain made me want to curl up on the forest floor and lament. 

I wondered about different what-ifs as my wolf raced in the forest. What if I was a normal human teenager? I would have no mate then; would I have still fallen in love with Zara? Would I have still slept around like I did now? If it hadn't been for the concept of mates, I probably wouldn't have been as damaged as I am now. 

I wasn't sure what my love life would have been like, but I would not have to think about a whole pack where people depended on me. I wouldn't have to think about rogues encroaching on pack territory. I wouldn't have to think about pack paperwork cremation ceremonies or training sessions. Life would have been so much easier. 

Being responsible for over two hundred people and looking over the administration of a town seemed such a daunting task for an eighteen-year-old. If I hadn't been prepared for this role all my life, I doubt I could have done it without grave errors. 

Choosing between my pack and my mate was one of the hardest decisions I have to make and if I wasn't a werewolf, I wouldn't have had to make the choice. It was a life-altering decision and eighteen-year-olds aren't supposed to make such decisions.

Perhaps, we make life-altering decisions at every age. Choosing to take a candy bar from a stranger when you're five years old can be a life-altering decision. Leaving your spouse after forty years of marriage can be a life-altering decision. 

I huffed and slowed down to a trot. By the position of the sun, I could make out that I had been running for several hours now, but my wolf was far from satisfied. He regarded running in the forest as a cheap alternative to what he wanted to do, tearing Ethan's head off but I couldn't do that. I had signed the paperwork for Ethan to enter my pack's territory, which meant that I had inadvertently put him under my protection. It wouldn't bode well for me if I decided to revoke my order and attack his stupid face.

I ran for some time in the forest and stopped only when the muscles of my legs burned from overuse. I didn't try to take control of my wolf because I knew he needed to vent out his frustrations in the only way he could. Well, the only practical way he could. I let him run for hours when I finally came across the old cabin of my grandparents. 

It was weird how this place always called out to me. It was like a happy place and there were so many happy memories attached to this place, the best of them being mine and Zara's first date and the night of her birthday, when I had finally accepted her as my mate and all the amazing things that followed. 

I sighed and without shifting back into my human form entered the small cabin. I looked around the living room and noticed the repairs it needed. I had planned to live here when I finally became alpha, and not in the pack house. I figured that Zara would appreciate the privacy it provided. 

My wolf slumped on the ground and curled up in a ball. The exhaustion of running for hours was finally catching up to me and without knowing I fell asleep. 

When I woke up, the little sunlight that had been streaming in through the windows had disappeared, which meant that I had been sleeping for hours now. Zara's habit of sleeping away one's problems was running on me and I got to say that I felt really good. I also noticed that sometime in my slumber, I had shifted back to my human form. 

I felt rejuvenated and relaxed even though the image of Ethan on top of Zara still bothered me, I was able to control myself a bit better. 

Stopping my thoughts from venturing in an unpleasant direction, I walked upstairs and shrugged into the clothes I kept stashed here for situations like this one. I locked the door of the cabin as I set out on foot towards the pack house. I figured it would give me time to sort out my thoughts and calm me down. 

It was nearly midnight by the time I reached the pack house and all the lights in the house had gone out, which meant most of the people inhabiting the building were asleep. I didn't want to disturb anyone, so I opened the doors myself and made my way into the kitchen to fix something for myself. 

Every day the resident cook made huge proportions of food for everyone staying at the pack house and the wolves eat it all. As expected, there were no leftovers so I quickly made up a sandwich and scarfed it down. 

I climbed up the staircase and walked into my office. I massaged my neck to get rid of a knot to get ready for the immense amount of paperwork I was going to tackle now. 

I slouched in my chair and took out my phone from the desk drawer. I had put it here before going downstairs to watch Zara train because I knew there would be a possibility of me shifting into my wolf and I didn't want to break my phone. It was dead, so I plugged it into the charger. 

I focused my attention on a few papers and after a few minutes turned on my phone. My eyebrows raised in surprise as I noticed that there were a lot of missed calls from Zara. There were a lot of messages too in which she just asked me to call her back. "What the hell?"

I immediately called her back and groaned in frustration as I reached her voicemail. One thing I noticed was that most of the time, me and Zara weren't able to communicate because of our timing. If Zara had picked up her phone when I was calling her before the alpha ceremony, maybe she would have been the Luna right now. And if I had checked my phone earlier, I would have been able to talk to her. 

My door burst open and my eyes snapped open to watch as Ethan stormed into my office. I have got to say, this rogue had some balls on him! He knew that I attacked him a few hours ago and forced him to submit to me and still, he had the gall to turn up here like he owned the damn place. 

"What are you doing here?" I snarled at him, my wolf urging me to make a life-threatening swipe at him. 

"Did Zara come to see you?" He gasped and my eyebrows furrowed in irritation. 

"I haven't been here for hours. If she did, I don't know." I stated, waiting for him to get the message and leave already. 

"You don't understand. She came here looking for you." He was exasperated and his words caught my attention. Zara came looking for me? Why? "And she is not picking up her phone now." 

"What? Are you sure she came here?" I asked and in a desperate attempt to not panic, dialed Zara's number again. A dark out of worry opened in my stomach as I reached her voicemail. 

"She's not picking up her phone," I whispered and Ethan ran a hand through his hair in frustration. 

"Have you any idea where she might be? Maybe she is asleep somewhere and isn't picking up her phone, because her phone is on silent." Ethan was grasping at straws now and was desperately trying to make sense of the situation. 

"We can check the pack house to make sure that she isn't here," I answered him dazedly, feeling a sort of numbness sweep over me. It was my brain's way of placating me at the moment. 

My wolf was urging me to get up and go to my room. I got up from the chair and mind-linked everyone in the pack house to check if they could find Zara anywhere. I also mind-linked the staff at the hospital to look for Zara. 

Somehow, I was keeping the panic at bay. My feet were moving subconsciously towards my room while I registered in some part of my brain that Ethan was following me. The possibility that Zara could be in some sort of danger seemed so unrealistic to me that it felt like an out-of-body experience. 

I reached my room in the alpha suite and pulled open the doors. I figured that Zara could be here too. She had the unspoken authority to enter the alpha's suite and she had been in my room before. 

I stepped inside my room to find it just like I had left it. Well, almost just like I had left it. I didn't know how but there was a different vibe to my room at the moment, as if everything wasn't right, as if something was amiss. 

I felt uneasy in my room and felt like an outsider, which had never happened before. My sharp werewolf senses noticed a few items that felt out of place as if they were not in their designated spot which made my unease grow. 

I stood in my room, barely moving while Ethan walked past me and checked the en suite bathroom. A strange awareness prickled my senses and I took a deep breath. My eyes widened as I recognized the faint trace of chocolate and pines mixed with something unpleasant. Zara had been in this room a few hours ago. I could smell her scent in the room, so faint only a mate could sense. 

"Well, Zara has been here." My eyes snapped open at Ethan's voice. He was standing near the window of my room and bent down to pick something up. He turned around to look at me and held up his hand to make me look at what he had picked up. A silver bracelet glinted in the moonlight and I immediately recognized it as the one Zara always wore as a precaution to weaken the effects of the mate bond. 

She would never have tossed it aside carelessly and that was when the panic set in.