Chapter 63

Marcus's POV

I was awoken by the loud sounds of planes taking off. I link Kayden to ask if he knows anything about this yet I get no answer, so I link everyone else. The moment outside the pack house we notice the eerie quiet, our scent tells us that the makeshift tent city was deserted, there were none in sight! To make it weider the amount of people in OUR pack link had been reduced, Alexis, his mate Claire and her large family, among others had left the pack.

I send half the guys to the hangar where the Osupa had their planes while the rest of us search for Kayden.

We follow his scent to a clearing near an edge, I remember once coming here but noticed that Kayden came here to be alone so I never came back. I find him naked and passed out with the branches of a tree holding him up right and strong vines from the ground were keeping him trapped. I try to wake him, yet it's like he is in a spell.

"Guys, let's cut him down!" And I get a link from Adam saying that the last plane took off and I can definitely hear it too loud for my ears... What happened?! When I go to help get Kayden down off the tree I see it, and take a whiff of his new scent... Shit! Avis and I can already imagine what happened.

"He is going to be very grumpy in the coming days." Avis states. I help get him down.

"Maybe more than grumpy..." I think how will he be when he wakes.

Three days latter Kayden wakes up with a panic attack, all the time screaming for his mate. After Dr. Henry (now the only pack doctor since Ruby opted for the respect The Osupa placed on their Omega healers. She linked Henry while the planes were leaving and taking her family of mostly Omega children with her) administered a strong sedative that got him to calm down enough to talk.

"Kayden, you marked and mated with Loiza right?" I ask while pointing at the Mark on his shoulder. No answer, and he closes his eyes and tears start falling... "In the time after she Marked me... I was thinking how much I love her, I was thinking of soundproofing OUR room to enjoy making love to her without inhibitions, I was dreaming of our life, our future... and she was scanning me for lies and secrets... and by her reaction, she found everything." He looks numb while rubbing his right cheek with a dead voice.

"I lost her Marcus... Lydia was right... With everything that happened how could I have fooled myself to think I could keep a woman like that? She is perfect brother... I wouldn't have cared if she was a virgin or not, but she was. I felt like she was the most perfect rose plucked only for me, she was only mine and taken away because you're right, we're cursed and I am an idiot." And another tear left his eye and he didn't care, he let it fall on the sheet.

"Kayden listen to me, you are BOTH Marked and mated, the Bond must have let you know if she rejected you? Can you feel her?" And another tear left his other eye. I'm starting to worry now, I have never seen him this low that he would openly cry. Last time I saw him cry he was 10 and it was because Keaton broke his femur during training.

"She hasn't had a thought about me since yesterday... not one, and just a few in the past days, she isn't hurting. Right before she put me to sleep her brother's witch contacted her... If you say the planes left by the time you found me they must have been prepared for a negative outcome of the information Loiza might find. So I imagine Morgana was ready with a blocking spell... They already suspected us Marcus... She suspected that I was holding valuable information from her and that her mate was a lying sack of shit. And even then she was patient of my ignorance of things I should know, I could feel her disappointment but she didn't give up and started teaching me to be better, she was showing me the beauty of harmony and balance. She gave me the chance to come clean and you were right as usual... I blew it. She even saved me from going crazy from that sword, only for me to go crazy now. It's good I'm sedated, I can go thought every detail of how much she expected of me only to let her down every chance I got." His voice is just a dead whisper now...

I let him go on about how Deacon has gone silent, on how he hated the silence of the pack, now smaller and without the hustle and bustle of The Osupa, his eyes look dead, too... I am going to put him on suicide watch. He closes his eyes and talks about how I was right, that no woman can even come close to a true mate... But his eyes worry me, he isn't giving eye contact, he's merely just looking at at the ceiling, at the plant on the corner, anywhere but at me.

"Brother, I don't know how much this will help, but she left some belongings behind, Henry was thinking it might hurt more but--" He perked up and actually looked at me.

"Henry is an idiot, what did she leave? Where is it?!" And I give him a bag with some books.

"They have her original scent!" And the first book is The Prince, he opens it and its margins are full of her annotations. He sits up and starts reading them. He goes to the next book, The Art of War and when he opens it a lock of her hair falls out and he holds it like he caught a moth and takes it to his nose to it and closes his eyes and takes a deep breath inhaling her, after a while of that he puts it carefully back in the book and sees that it also is full of her notes.

"Marcus look, she even wrote which battles, both human and Supernatural, used the specific tactic and why some failed and others were successful! And these notes look old, like she has been studying them for years." He takes out the last book, it looks very old, yet the leather binding and the pages look well preserved. It has a note saying that's about primal animals and spirits of Supernaturals, but the language is one I have never seen. It only has one annotation... 'The Catacombs.'

"What do you think it means?" Catacombs?

"I'm not sure, but I once read The Osupa do have Catacombs under the original historic part of their Capital... and look, there is an indenture that looks like a smaller book or pamphlet was inside." He traces it in deep thought.

"Do you think she left them on purpose?" His voice was hopeful and I didn't want to add fuel to that, but I didn't want to lie to him either. So I take another bag with the last item left on her desk.

"I don't know Kay, but the first two books were wrapped in this. The other was found on the floor." And I hand him the bag. He takes it like a thirsty person who reaches for water.

"It's her red cloak!" And he takes it to his face and inhales the fabric. "Marcus she left this on purpose!" I can't help but sigh.

"Kayden, she could have left it by accident." I don't want to raise his hopes.

"Then why leave THIS cloak? This is the cloak we mated on, it has mine and her old scent and our new ones after marking." I have to make him snap out of it and now I'm thinking Henry was right.

"Kayden, it could also mean she might have not wanted it. Maybe it gave her pain." And he lay down again and covered himself fully with the blanket.

"Marcus can I have another sedative?" He asks from his cocoon. I go tell Henry who is prepping a liquid to put in a syringe.

"Yes, I just prepared the dose of Hayan that was prepared for his mate's brother... you know, the one who found his mate in the dungeons? Well Daniella taught me how to make it so he can sleep soundly.

"Yeah, he needs to rest his mind for a while." And when we go back in the room, Kayden was looking out the window into the dark night. He puts his mate's belongings on the table next to him except for her cloak which he is holding for dear life and lets Henry inject him. And it works fast enough to knock him out in a few minutes. One last lonesome tear being shed. And now I don't know if I want a mate at all.