Revolting

Shane's POV

I knew the moment that she left. Everyone in the pack felt it when the Luna severed her connection, but I thought that it was even more severe for me, because I was losing much more than just my Luna. I staggered out into the hallway, holding my aching head, just as Nolan erupted from his room with a primal roar. "WHERE IS SHE?" He yelled to no one in particular in the hallway.

That stupid red-headed twit tried to wrap her arms around him. "Never mind that stupid girl, Alpha. You don't need her."

"You!" Nolan turned his rage on the half-dressed woman who was clinging to him like a tick. "This is all your fault."

"My fault!" She tossed her hair back indignantly. "How is it my fault? You called ME, remember?"

Nolan pushed her away, and pushed her hard enough that she tipped over backwards and landed on her ass. A part of me wanted to come to her rescue, because she was a woman, and Nolan could be so brutal. But I could not forget the fact that this whore had caused Nina so much pain and suffering. So I turned a blind eye and crossed my arms over my chest. "Where is she??" Nolan roared again, and kicked open her bedroom door.

"She's gone, you idiot. You aren't going to find her in there."

"What do you mean she's gone? She can't just be gone!" He flipped over the bed, as if he was going to find his wife underneath it.

"You are such a fucking moron, Pierceson." I growled.

He ripped all the drawers out of the dresser and dumped the clothes on the floor. "Her clothes are still here," he said, his voice almost hopeful. He yanked open the closet doors. "More clothes. And her suitcases. See, she can't be gone." He looked at me like he desperately wanted me to reassure him that Nina was just around somewhere. My eyes fell on the bedside drawer, with a feeling of dread in my stomach. Nolan's eyes followed mine. With a grunt he jumped over the ruined bed and yanked open the drawer. Inside was a simple white envelope. He swore softly and picked it up.

He flipped it over and dumped out the contents. Her wedding ring, a debit card, and a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Nolan snatched up the paper, read it once quickly, then a second time more slowly, before he crumpled it up and let out a mournful howl.

I felt like punching him. "How can you even pretend to be sad that she's gone?" I asked caustically. "You treated her like shit while she was here. What did you expect her to do? Just keep on taking it from you??"

"Shut up!" he barked at me, throwing the note to the floor. "We have to mobilize a search team, find her, and bring her back." He pushed past me and out into the hall. I sighed sadly and leaned down to pick up the ring, the card, and the crumpled note. I opened the note and glanced over the letter that was addressed to Caydence. I put the things back in the envelope and carried them down to the former Luna. "Auntie Caydence," I said respectfully, as I handed her the envelope.

Her eyes immediately welled up with tears. "She's left us."

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I hunched my shoulders and pushed my hands into the pockets of my jeans. She didn't just leave Nolan. She left the family. She left the pack. She left me. I squeezed my eyes shut tight. She left me. But of course she left me, because I had been fucking helpless to do anything about the bond between us. God knows I wanted to make her mine, but she already belonged to the Alpha. I'd known it was a full fledged disaster the first time I'd laid eyes on her at the alpha's family table. She was so beautiful, with her long chocolote-brown hair, and her big golden-brown eyes. When she smiled, my heart melted... and she was a woman who smiled frequently.

Once I had cornered Nolan and asked him, "Why do you hate her so much? Is she so terrible?"

"I didn't choose her, and I'm not going to have some random woman foisted off on me by my parents. Am I a puppet for them to play with?" "Forget your parents, she's your mate."

"What's a mate? Its a fucking weakness, man. I don't care if she's the goddamn lunar goddess herself, I am not going to be tied down to one stupid woman for the rest of my life by some superstitious fairytale. Its nothing man, its just chemistry and bad luck. I'm not going to put my balls on the chopping block for that."

"Having a mate is not a weakness, you dumbass, its a gift."

"Fuck that, I don't want it." He had sneered at me, "What's the matter Shane, you got a hard-on for the Luna?"

I wonder what he would have done if I had told him point-blank. "As a matter of fact, I do." Every time I looked at her, smelled her sweet scent of sage and mint, heard her melodic voice... all I could think about was making love to her, and making her mine. It had taken all of my self-control every day to be around her without grabbing her up in my arms and marking her.

Nolan never marked her. I know, because I checked every day. I thought, as long as he hadn't marked her, as long as he hadn't finished the mating ritual, there was still some hope for me, hope for us. The day he'd almost killed her and sent her to the hospital, I almost killed him. He'd already been fall-down drunk when I dragged him back into the office to get him away from her. It would have been a simple thing to just kill him then, set it up to look like an accident. But I didn't dare. Not because I was afraid of killing Nolan Pierceson. I was afraid that if Nina knew I had killed her first mate, she would hate me forever.

By noon, the whole pack was in an uproar. Half the pack, particularly the women, were mourning her as though she had died. They whispered about how bad Nolan was both as a husband, and as an alpha. The other half of the pack was furious that she had abandoned us, that she had rejected the pack. As Nolan was mobilizing units to go out and search for her, they muttered dark things about what they would do to punish her once they found her and dragged her back. When I heard these plans, my hands fisted, and I wanted to inflict the very same punishments on the imbeciles that were planning them.

Scouts had come back with her phone. Not only her phone, but William's phone, and the little omega Daisy's cell as well. Knowing that his own brother had helped her escape drove Nolan into a frenzy of madness. He threw chairs and punched the wall, not once, but three times. He even went so far as to threaten his own mother, before Bernhard stepped in and flattened him. "You will NEVER speak to your mother that way," Bernhard had said coldly, as he stood over Nolan's prone body. "You brought this on yourself." Nolan growled from the floor, but no matter, he was no match for his father in brute strength.

Nolan peeled himself off the floor and grabbed my arm. "Let's go," he said dragging me toward the door.

"Go where?" I resisted. I had no intention of helping him search for Nina. As much as it hurt my heart that she left, I knew that she would never be safe in this house with Nolan.

"We are going to her father's pack. Where else would she go?" Now that gave me pause. I very much wanted to meet her family, to see the home that she had grown up in. So I stopped resisting and let him pull me out toward the garage. I already knew that we wouldn't find Nina at her father's house. She was much too smart for that.