Chapter 5

ELIOT

“What do you mean?” I couldn’t help but frown at her words. Why did she suddenly call off the plan that she made herself?

“Don’t you understand? I want to cancel our plan.”

I knew that. But why?

“I’m already here.”

“Then go home. You don’t need to be here anymore.” She said it without looking at me as if I wasn’t in this room. My hands coiled into fists as annoyance surged out of me.

“No. I’ll stay here.” I insisted. There was no way I would miss this opportunity to smell her. I needed to know if she was my mate so I could proceed with my plan. If she turned out not to be my fated mate, I would still choose her as my chosen one.

That was my plan.

“Whatever.”

My heart ached at that. Why was Hannah acting like this? Did something happen to her? What was it? Why didn’t she tell me?

Hannah and I had been friends for as long as I could remember about her. She was three years younger, but it couldn’t distance us from each other. I didn’t know precisely when I had her lingering in my head. Kai, too, agreed that we should mark her as ours. Even though she might not have her wolf and people were talking about her being unable to shift, though the time had come, it didn’t bother me. In fact, I didn’t care at all.

They could say that I was blind by love. Yeah, yeah. I loved her and only wanted her as my Luna. I thought she was perfect despite the imperfections she had.

We were silent for the rest of the breakfast. I was mustering all plausible reasons for her sudden change. She wasn’t like this when we said goodbye through a phone call last night. She sounded thrilled, one-eighty-degree from this.

My mind snapped back in place when I heard screeching as she stood up from her chair. She still didn’t want to look at me, which confused me more. What happened to her?

“Where are you going?” I grabbed her hand, stopping her in her tracks.

Hannah swung her hand to let go of my grip. “None of your business.”

I grabbed her hand again before she took a step away. This time, I pulled her, which made her turn around and face me. Finally, I could see her beautiful cerulean eyes. “Tell me what happened to you?”

She tried to release herself, but I didn’t budge. “Let me go.”

“I won’t before you tell me everything.”

She still tried but surrendered after knowing that her effort was useless. “Which one of my words you don’t understand? I don’t want you.”

I gritted my teeth as Kai wanted to take control of me. My wolf was raging in my head. “I want to know why. There must be a reason.”

“No. Nothing.” She replied almost immediately. “I just simply want a new life. Completely new without you or anyone.”

I raised one brow, doubting her statement. “Are you going to ditch your own family?”

She took a moment to think before speaking her rebuttal. “No. But I will leave this pack to start a new life.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know yet, but definitely not your pack.” She answered with eyes glaring at me as if confronting me. “Better in the human world than yours.”

My grip on her hand tightened. I didn’t like her choice of place.

“This is the reason I don’t choose you. You always hurt me.”

And her words managed to bring me back. I instantly released her hand.

However, I couldn’t help a frown from forming on my brows at her bizarre words. Always hurt her? When did I do that?

But before I could question her, she took the opportunity to run away from me. And I only sighed at that.

--

I spent the next hours following Danny, the Alpha of this pack and Hannah’s brother, touring the training ground. We were supposed to discuss our plan for training his warriors.

Yes, we only focused on his men because Crescent Pack was a small pack that almost had nothing to defend itself from an attack. They relied on the help of surrounding packs, including mine, as the closest and biggest pack in the South.

So I planned to send my Gamma alongside a few men to teach them soon. And I was thrilled about this plan because I could meet Hannah more often.

“She was also acting weird at me this morning. She threw me out of her room right after she woke up. And she avoided me every time I tried to talk to her.” Casey told me after I didn’t find Hannah in the dining room for lunch. It sank my heart because I wanted to see and talk to her. I wanted this misunderstanding to disappear.

“Did something happen last night?”

Casey shook her head. “Everything went normal, Alpha. She was excited to celebrate her birthday.”

“Maybe something happened while she was sleeping?”

“I don’t know about that. She didn’t tell me.”

If Casey didn’t know, then no one would know.

“Do you know where she is?”

Casey shook her head again.

I guessed I needed to find out by myself.

“She’s in the daycare center now,” Danny said. His eye was back to normal after closing the mind link to his men, looking for Hannah’s whereabouts.

Yes. I took the fastest way by asking her brother. He was an Alpha of this pack and definitely had access to his people. It was only a matter of seconds before someone gave him information.

“Thanks, man. I will go to her now.”

“Eliot.” He called my name, which stopped me from dashing to his door. “Are you sure nothing happened between you two?” I could hear the concern in his voice. He must find his sister acting odd and assumed it was to do with me.

“Have you seen me do harm to her?” I asked him back. I knew he was worried about Hannah. So was I.

Danny shook his head, but it didn’t erase the doubt in his eyes. He was protecting his sister now, so I didn’t have much choice except to calm him down that Hannah would be safe with me.

“I swear I won’t hurt her. You know an Alpha’s words mean truth and pride, right?”

I hoped it could ease his mind, as he knew what my words meant well.