His Redemption (Complete His Series)

“We should go now!” I growled.

“Liam, I need time to assemble the warriors and get the pack on board here. Only a select portion knows about what is going on. We should have told everyone days ago!” Damien shouted.

“We know where my mate is!” I argued.

“I want Azalea back just as much as you do!” he countered.

I let out a thunderous roar at his words.

“Alright, maybe not quite as much, but very close. She is my Luna! But we cannot run in there with no plan and no backup!”

I tried to calm myself and Gavin down. Logically, I knew he was right. I didn’t stand a real chance if Warwick did have an army at his command no matter how strong I was alone. But logic wasn’t ruling my actions. I knew where my mate was being held with my daughter. I knew the condition they were being kept in as well. Every fiber of my being was yearning to get to them, to rescue them. I needed Azalea in my arms, safe.

Damien eyed me warily, waiting to see what my next move would be. “Fine,” I growled. “You have until morning. Tell everyone and get them ready to leave.”

“We have reliable information now. We know exactly where they are, and Vlad gave us details about how to get to them. We may not know how many to expect, but we have a much better picture, Liam,” Damien tried to reason. An involuntary growl escaped at the mention of Vlad’s name.

“I know!” I snapped. I couldn’t focus on anything other than getting to Azalea. I needed to get to her; who knows if she and the baby were okay?

“If you aren’t going to talk to the pack or any of the other Alphas, you need to go speak with Maddox. He is a flight risk; he should not have been in that room,” Damien said. Maddox had rushed out of the prison shortly after the interrogation ended. He barely held his composure through the whole thing.

“He had just as much right as the rest of us. Missy is his mate, and Vlad contributed to her disappearance!”

“It isn’t that simple!” Damien sighed, “Look, Liam, I can’t argue with you. If you want to depart by the morning, we will do our best to be ready. But, for Azalea and Missy’s sake, do not run off before we are ready. What do you think will happen to your mate if you get hurt trying to rescue her?”

I turned around and stormed away, not bothering to respond. I was getting her out tomorrow, one way or another. Warwick would not keep my mate from me even if it killed me to get her out.

–

I found Maddox outside the cabin he brought us to the night Missy was taken. The windows on the front were broken out, and the rock in his hand gave me a good idea of how it happened. “Maddox,” I called. He turned around, and I saw my own pain on his face. He was struggling to keep himself together as much as I was. One of the culprits behind his mate’s abduction was right under his nose, and he could do nothing. He hasn’t even been given a proper chance to bond with her yet.

He didn’t say anything as I stepped out of the trees. “Come with me,” I said. He nodded his head slowly. I turned and headed into the woods again, shifting once we were a bit away from the cabin. He followed suit, catching up to me quickly.

“Where are we going?” he asked. I jogged, not pushing either of us too fast.

“You’ll see,” I told him. I led him through the pack and towards the smaller houses towards the west. There were pack members making repairs to buildings that had been damaged in all the fighting days ago.

When we finally arrived at our destination, I sat back on my hind legs in front of the quaint house with boarded-up windows. A layer of dust and dirt covered the porch and house, but the small lawn was still mowed nicely. Maddox sat next to me, looking at the home, both of us remaining in our wolf forms.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“This is Missy’s house,” I told him. His head turned to me, and I could see his confusion.

“She lives in the packhouse,” he said dumbly.

“She didn’t always. I know she told you about her real parents,” I said. He nodded his muzzle. “When her mother passed away, Azalea and I took care of things for Missy and adopted her. We packed up the house and locked it up so she could choose what to do with it later. It wasn’t ours after all, and she wasn’t old enough to live alone yet.”

“So why are you showing me this?”

“Because she has never once asked to come back here. She has known it was here all along, waiting for her. This was her home; then it was the packhouse. Now, it’s you.”

He nodded his head. “And she is my home.”

“Exactly. You both have lost your families, found new ones, and now found each other. We are about to walk into something very dangerous. You will see things and probably do things that will change you forever. But you need to focus on getting back to your home, to your mate.”

We were both quiet for a minute. He finally spoke. “Sir, I love your daughter. I loved her before the mate bond blessed her as mine. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to get her back and keep her safe forever. I know I will have to kill, and I accept that.”

“When it’s time, you need to be ready. There cannot be any hesitation in your heart. You haven’t bonded yet, so things can change for you. If you are serious about your bond, then you stay with me during this. We will get them back,” I told him. I wanted to shield him from the atrocities we were walking into, but I knew I couldn’t.

“I have never been more serious about anything.”

Azalea

I gritted my teeth and counted slowly. 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6…

The clutching pain subsided, and I let out a deep breath only to begin counting again. I felt the first pain about two hours ago. I knew it would come eventually; this had to be contractions, and I didn’t think these were pretend ones. Liam’s timeline just got shorter. With hours between contractions, things weren’t bad yet, but I didn’t know how quickly this would go.

Missy was quiet, and the dim rays of the rising sun were beginning to peek through the window at the top of the wall. “Please let him make it in time,” I prayed to the Moon Goddess. I didn’t want to leave my children alone or abandon my mate.

“Okay, Gavin, Liam, it’s time to find us,” I whispered with a tear escaping my lashes.

Damien

Soft murmurs filled the air as the pack assembled on the back lawn of the packhouse; everyone buzzed with nervous anticipation of what I had to say. I looked out at all the people I loved and was now tasked with protecting, knowing that some of them could die before the sun set tomorrow. I stepped forward, clearing my throat. The pack quickly silenced themselves, all turning towards me. You could have heard a pin drop, and the expectation was palpable as they waited for me to say something.

“You all know our Luna has been taken from us, but most of you don’t know why or by whom. Our Luna, our Alpha’s oldest Missy, and many of our other pack members have been taken by vampires who are set on the destruction of not only our pack but all wolves.”

An immediate explosion of indignation and bewilderment rang out, making it hard to continue. I waited a moment to allow them to vent the anger and confusion that we’d already been feeling since the beginning. I held up my hand to quiet the pack and waited a moment for them to do so. The crowd was no longer loudly interrupting me, but they were a multitude of emotions.

“Vampires threatened us long ago, and now they have returned. These vampires have laid in wait for years, creating their opportunity to strike. They’ve threatened naive wolves within our pack into helping them, and they will stop at nothing to wipe us from this Earth.”

I paused, looking around the yard. It didn’t seem like I would have to do much convincing for them to agree to go to war. Everyone clearly understood the gravity of what I was saying. This could mean extinction. Liam was good to our people; I knew everyone would stand with him.

“I am not truly your Alpha, but I have been asked to fulfill that role, for now, to make sure your best interests are protected while Alpha Liam is focused on saving his mate, our Luna. In that regard, I ask you now. Will you allow this invasion of our pack to go unanswered?”

A loud roar of dissent followed.

“You can go home to your beds tonight and wait for this threat to find you and your family at your doorstep, or you can stay and fight with me. Fight to save our Luna. Fight to save our pack. I am asking each of you to consider this carefully.”

“I will fight with you!” came a call from somewhere in the crowd. This call was repeated around the crowd until it filled the space with a unified, vociferous sound. The sentiment was shared among all the wolves, even those not trained to be warriors in our ranks.

I found myself yelling above the crowd, swept up in their fervor for battle, “We move at dawn!” Preparations began at a dizzying speed as everyone was ready to get our packmates back and end the threat once and for all.

While disseminating the plans we’d made to breach the vampire’s stronghold, Liam’s Uncle Ron approached me. The look of apprehension on his face wasn’t unexpected.

“Beta,” he greeted me.

“Doctor,” I replied.

“I don’t think I need to voice my concerns here,” he said. I nodded. Azalea primarily would need immediate medical attention when we got to her, but that couldn’t happen on a battlefield. Then there were the other captive pack members and anyone injured in the fighting.

“What do you need?”

“If it is not the worst case, I will need to get the baby out as soon as possible. I may need to take it by cesarean,” he said.

“And worst case?” I asked, not wanting but still needing the answer.

“Worst case, I will not be able to do anything.” His tone was grave, and I understood the implication.

“The other packs have doctors and wolves prepared to help with field treatment. Whatever you need, it is yours.”

“I will need to set up an area to operate. So much risk will come with this. Does my nephew understand the seriousness of Azalea’s condition? Does he understand that I may not be able to save them both?”

“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “But we have to try.”

–

I stood with the other Alphas at the forefront of a massive group of warriors. Dawn had come and gone, and we’d made the trek to the vampire’s estate in only about twelve hours. Dusk was approaching, and we intended to begin the attack once the moon was overhead. We would need all the advantages we could muster. By all accounts, it seemed we had about one thousand wolves representing five different packs, but we wanted to make sure the odds were as stacked as possible in our favor before we continued.

The natural peace of the forest surrounding the estate felt wrong as I readied myself and the rest of our force to bathe it with the b***d of our enemies. I noticed it had grown silent as we gathered as if the birds and other animals could feel something was wrong. Liam was pacing near the other Alphas; his eyes were transfixed on where he knew Azalea and Missy were being held. He looked like a cross between a rabid animal and a race horse waiting to be let out of the gate. His single-minded focus seemed to be making the other Alphas nervous, but I don’t think he could hear anything they were saying anyway. He was too far gone, and all he cared about was his mate. Maddox stood quietly, just as fixated as Liam, but he was looking between the house, Liam, and me waiting for someone to give him a cue that he could go. I looked over our combined packs, werewolves spilling into every available space within the forest and then across the clearing that stretched between the forest and the vast plantation house we were about to converge on. The other Alphas stepped towards me, and Langston pointed to his watch, “It’s time.”

I nodded, then shifted, not bothering to undress. I looked to the sky and howled, the signal to begin our assault. Each Alpha howled in return, and the sound of wolves shifting as they ran towards the house filled the air. Liam was off like a streak of lightning, bolting across the field with Maddox close behind. Vampires began pouring out of the house from all directions, so many that I don’t know how they all fit. The initial wave of vampires looked like it would swallow Liam whole, but instead, he leapt over them and disappeared. As I rushed to catch up to him, I saw the first line of wolves meet the deluge of vampires with a resounding crash. This wasn’t a surprise. They were ready for us.