The Secrets of the Panther

ALICE

Blake is throwing things about in his room.

I can’t believe what I am seeing.

“Guards hold him, I need to sedate him,” shouts the pack doctor.

Five guards have gotten Blake down on the ground, which they had to do with great force and all at the same time. Dale is glaring at him. He punches Blake in the face once the guards have a good hold but before Blake can react the doctor sticks a needle into his arm. Blake’s eyes close and he falls asleep, the guards pick him up and place him on his bed. The doctor draws some blood.

“I will find out what’s in his system,” he says and turns to leave with his assistant following him right behind him.

Alpha Derek slumps in the chair by the window. “How the hell did this happen?” He asks. “How did that slut manage to drug him and seduce him?”

“She must have poured it into his beer,” says Paul, he pulls me into him, wrapping his arms around me. I can tell he is pissed. He sniffs my neck, and I can feel him relax against me.

“Why would she do such a thing?” Asks Luna Lauren, she is seething, her anger for what happened to her son, but it seems to be more than that.

She looks at me, and I smile, but she looks away. “I best go and make sure that Graham is alright. Derek, dear, you should come too.”

Alpha Derek looks at Luna Lauren and then back to his son. He nods to her. Both of them take their leave.

I look around, Dale takes the chair that the alpha just left. Paul is still holding me. Kacey is standing in the corner, glaring at Dale.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Blake has a mate. Who is she?” She asked.

“I made a promise with Blake not to say anything to anyone about her, it’s complicated,” he said.

“How the hell is it complicated?” She shouts.

I’m starting to lose it with them now. My panther is growling loud in my head.

Dale doesn’t say anything, he just stares at his friend.

“Dale, don’t ignore me,” she shouts.

“It is Izzy,” I say through gritted teeth.

All three of them are staring back at me.

“Is it true?” Kacey asks Dale, which grips my shit more as if she doesn’t believe me.

“You can’t take my word for it,” I say to her.

I turn to look at her. “I was in the café when he found out, Izzy doesn’t want a mate. And after what just happened, she will never want him.”

“Alice,” says Dale. I turn to look at him. His face is blank but I have a funny feeling about what he is going to say. “What do you mean by what just happened? Izzy doesn’t need to know about this” he says. Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FindNʘᴠᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

I growl.

“Well, for your information, Izzy felt every single thing that he did with that slut,” I shouted. Paul tenses behind me.

I know he is trying to calm me down but I can’t, not when it comes to Izzy.

Dale and Kacey are shocked by what I just said.

“How?” Kacey starts to say. “How is that even possible?” she looks like someone has slapped her, she seems so confused.

I look back at them, I am not telling them.

Dale looks at me, he seems to be in deep thought but soon comes out of it when Kacey slaps him across the head. “Wake up bro, what the hell! Izzy is his mate and she can feel everything he does,” she says. He takes a few seconds to come around from the slap and looks at me. “The power I felt in the café, it came off Izzy, didn’t it?” He says.

I look between them both, and I feel Paul’s hand tighten around my waist. He knows about Izzy’s power as I had to explain a few things about my family to him when we met. He hasn’t felt her power, it radiates off her emotions but I think there is more to her power. She seems to have no memories of certain parts, especially when I was in them. I have asked my mother about it. She said, “They are stored out of reach as she can take down an army in the blink of an eye.” I never knew what she meant by that.

I shuddered at the thought, which caused Paul to come through the mind link. “Alice, are you ok?” He asks. I look over at him, I can see his blue eyes staring back at me with an intense feeling, “You need to tell them what you told me.”

I know he is right.

I sigh and look back at the siblings who have been staring at me the whole time. Paul squeezes my waist.

“I have to tell you something but it must never leave this room. Can anyone listen in on us?” I ask them, but Kacey is quick to reply. “We all have soundproof bedrooms, can you manage to hear everyone fucking their mates.”

She had a point.

I moved away from Paul, even though I didn’t want to but I can’t stand the eyes looking at me. I walk over to the window to look out. “Dale, what you felt at the café was Izzy. She has some sort of power”

“I knew it,” he says and looks at me as I turn to him.

“I have so many questions,” he says.

“So do we all,” I say to him.

He looks at me confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well, from a young age Izzy had these abilities. She could control everyone’s emotions, but when her emotions got the better of her, they would magnify hers to the point, we could feel them. She could tell when we were lying and some other things,” I say. “The thing is, we don’t know how or why she got these powers. Over the years, Izzy has been losing some memories. Memories such as what happened the night Graham came...” I stop to look at the siblings, they both grunt.

They look hurt and pained by the whole thing.

“She lost her memories, how?” Asked Paul.

I sigh. “I don’t know, I think it might have happened when she went traveling around with my father. They stayed in a pack for a year.” I said. “She came home every time she moved, she would lose some memory, as something had taken it.”

They look at me, trying to piece the pieces together, as I have over the years.

“Why did she move around a lot?” Asks Kacey.

I look at her. “She had to. She was being hunted by hunters.”

They look horrified. “What do you mean hunted by hunters?” Dale asks.

I turn to look back outside the window. “You see before Izzy came to live with my family. I was in a little pack full of panther shifters, not many, about twenty or so. No one knew about us. We lived in peace and stayed out of everyone’s way. Then one night we were all attacked. I wasn’t there as my parents and I were on the road to collect Izzy and aunt Lucy but we got word from a friend that hunters were after us. They kept coming over the years. We kept hiding, we didn’t know what to do. We even stayed in a human town for a full year. But we were always followed. We never knew why but they became interested in Izzy. They knew about her power. But we didn’t know who to trust,” I say.

I look back at all of them. “We decided to split up but they all followed her. She couldn’t get away from them. She even started to kill them if they spotted her. She has even been captured three times in the past. She got some scars on her back due to them,” I say.

They stare at me, trying to make sense of the information I just told them.

“She has no memory of that, my father said she was there,” says Dale, quietly. I can’t help the growl slip through. “I know you want to get to know her but you need not bring him up. I don’t like him for what he did to my auntie over the years, leaving her to feel everything that he was doing with your mother,” I say through gritted teeth. “Do you know what that feels like, actually have you ever seen the person you love dearly live in pain constantly.”

They look hurt and ashamed. “Both Izzy and I had to watch it happen, Izzy had to watch her mother roll around in pain. Guess what, I had to listen to Izzy on the phone doing the exact thing,” I say to them, my panther is up on all paws, ready to come forward. Paul sensed this but didn’t move.

“I don’t know how Izzy felt everything that Blake did with that slut. It could be to do with him being an alpha, it could be to do with the power that Izzy possesses or it could even be both but I will state this, she will and I mean this, she will not have him as a mate,” I say, my final words hit home within seconds.

“We need to find out why Kelly spiked Blake’s drink,” Dales says and he jumps up out of the chair.

I look out the window but it’s the guards running toward the pack house that catches my eye. They are covered in blood.

I turn and sprint out the door, leaving everyone behind but they follow me. We ran down the stairs to come to a halt where the guards were.

“Alpha, we don’t know how but she is dead,” one says.

“You left the door unguarded?” Alpha Derek shouts. “Show me.”

Both guards turn and leave with Alpha Derek and all four of us follow. We head straight to the cells. Something doesn’t feel right. The stench of blood fills our noses.

We head to the cell that Kelly was in but what we see is a horrible mess. Kelly’s claws are out, soaked in blood. Her neck has been ripped apart. She killed herself.

I open the door, Alpha Derek looks around. I step in behind him.

The only scent here is Kelly’s but something else was here. I can feel it.

I look towards the wall and see some specks of blood that shouldn’t belong there, it was covered with the mattress.

I move it out of the way and there in the blood are her last words, “I didn’t do this.”

I look over to alpha Derek who has gone white.

He looks at the message and frowns. “What the hell does that mean? If she didn’t do anything then why kill herself.”

“I don’t think she was alone in here,” I say as I look closer at the mattress. Something shiny catches my eye. I pull it out and there in the palm of my hand is a cufflink.

Alpha Derek growls. “We have a traitor amongst us.”

I think they have more than a traitor, something is off. I need to talk to my mum about what happened. I take my phone out and take a quick photo of the message.

Paul comes over to me and places his arm around me but mind links me. “What are you doing?” He asks. I turn and hug him. His scent is reassuring, it makes me want him all the time.

“I am going to show my mum. She wanted me to talk to Kelly about what happened,” I say. “I shouldn't be too long. Besides, I want to know how Izzy is.”

He nods.

I walk passed everyone. No one paid attention to me as I walked out of the cells and straight out.