Chapter 87: WHAT HAPPENED TO MY LOVING SISTER
Chapter 88
Ren
I stared at the dead screen for a long moment after Neve hung up, my thumb still hovering over her name like I could somehow undo the call.
I know I should call her back and apologize. I should tell her I hadn’t meant it to come out the way it had.
She was still my sister. Whatever she’d said to Lumi that day, whatever ugliness had come pouring out of her in that house, she was still the only family I had left in this city, and some part of me hated leaving things broken between us.
But I couldn’t do that, I just couldn’t bring myself to. Because I felt that, If anyone was to understand Neve better, it should have been her.
Because she knew Neve more than anyone else in this, including myself.
I get she was pissed but I never expected her to say those things to her enemy, talk more of her friend.
But then I get she’s angry and I do not have any right to tell or teach her how to react to whatever she’s feeling.
It’s still the same way I’m also not faulting Lumi too, because I’m trying to see it from her own perspective.
And surprisingly, I get where both of them are coming from.
But knowing didn’t make it easy because my wolf has a mind of it’s own and it refused to settle this night.
My wolf wouldn’t settle that night.
He has been pacing under my skin the whole evening, restless in a way I hadn’t felt in months, pulling toward something I couldn’t name and didn’t understand.
He wanted out. He wanted to run, to search, to go find her the way he used to want to find anything that belonged to us.
And even if I try to lie to myself, I knew, Lumi belongs to us.
I just sat there fighting him down, thinking I could control it like I’d trained to. But I was mistaken.
I hadn’t shifted in weeks. Longer, maybe. Since I’d taken the pack, I’d made myself a promise that I’d lead them as a man first and a wolf second, that the more human I kept myself, the more human I could keep them, and it had mattered to me, that promise, more than almost anything else I’d built since becoming Alpha.
Tonight it felt like a cage.
I picked up my phone multiple times and dropped it down everytime.
I’d told her I wouldn’t call unless she did. I was Alpha. My word had to mean something, even to myself...especially to myself, or it meant nothing to anyone else either.
So instead I called Darren and buried myself in pack business that wasn’t actually urgent... border patrols, supply logs and a dispute between two betas over territory lines that could easily have waited a week.
Anything to keep my hands and my head busy enough that the wolf couldn’t get a word in.
But it It didn’t work. Nothing did, that night. This was the first time since I was sixteen that I’d... should I say... I’d lost control over my wolf.
I drove out past the treeline behind the house, stripped down in the cold dark, and let him out properly for the first time in months.
He ran until his legs ached, circling the same stretch of woodland over and over like he could scent something on the wind if he just covered enough ground, and he never found whatever he was looking for, and neither did I.
I came back inside near dawn, human again, exhausted in so many ways.
Even though I’d lost control, I still made sure I kept my promise of not calling her. I couldn’t lose on both sides, that’ll be a state of emergency.
The next day dragged at work, every hour longer than the last, and I couldn’t have told anyone what was actually said in half the meetings I sat through.
After, on my way out, I stopped for something to eat and nearly walked straight past a woman calling my name across the car park.
" Alpha Ren?"
I turned. It took a second to place her...cardigan the colour of dull purple, a laminate badge on her chest.
Theo’s school badge.
"Mrs. Agnes." I stopped, and something in my chest went tight before she’d even said another word. "Is everything all right?"
"I hope so." She gave a small, apologetic smile.
"I just wanted to check...Theo wasn’t in today. That’s not like him at all, and Lumi usually messages. But today was quite surprising because we couldn’t reach her." I paused. Lumi would never do that.
"How long has he been out?"
"Just today," she said.
One day is enough to know that something isn’t right.
"Thank you for telling me," I said, keeping my voice level, steady, the voice I used for the pack when I needed them calm. "Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he’s all right."
She nodded, relief washing over her. If only she knew that I was in the dark as much as she was.
I was already walking to my car before she’d finished saying goodbye.
I drove straight to Neve’s building, praying that everything is fine.
But something felt wrong the second I stepped out of the car. I couldn’t feel her.
That stopped me cold on the pavement.
I know I didn’t tell her, but ever since the day we we had sex, I’ve been able to feel her heartbeat whenever she’s close.
At first, I didn’t understand why it was happening. But then I figured that my wolf had chosen her as our mate.
I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to scare her away. I knew she’d have felt it was all so soon, so I’d kept quiet.
Now there was nothing. Just silence where that thread should have been.
I tried to convince myself that maybe because the bond wasn’t strong, it had died.
But a deep part of me knew I was wrong and that she wasn’t anywhere close, she wasn’t inside Neve’s place.
I went up anyway and knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again, waited, called her name low enough that only wolf hearing would have caught it through the wood but nothing.
I was right, she wasn’t here. Then maybe she’d taken Thoe to the company.
I drove to her office next. When I got there, the confusion on her receptionist face, told me all I needed to know.
"She was in yesterday," she said, checking something on her screen. "But she hasn’t come in today. No messages, which isn’t like her."
That made twice now. Twice, someone telling me the same thing in different words... she hadn’t shown up where she was supposed to be, and nobody had heard from her to explain it.
I got back in the car and sat there a moment before I pulled out my phone and dialled her number.
Knowing she’s safe was much important to me right now than keeping my words.
But then instead of it to ring, it did a beep sound and the call ended.
I tried it again and again but each time, it does the same thing.
Only after I’ve called the twentieth times did I accept that I’d been blocked.
She’d blocked me from calling her. But why? What was my fault? Because I loved her?
How does loving her become something so disgusting?
But I didn’t care if I’d been blocked, I wouldn’t stop until I’m sure she’s fine.
So I dialled Neve’s number instead. She picked up sounding irritated before I’d even spoken.
"What."
"I can’t find Lumi," I said immediately. "I can’t feel her, Neve. Her office hasn’t heard from her, Theo missed school today. And she’s not at the apartment. Something’s wrong."
"And this is my problem how, exactly?" Her voice came out sharp, almost bored.
"Can you hear me? I said I’ve checked everywhere, I can’t find her. Don’t you care that she might be in danger." I couldn’t believe that Neve would be this way towards anyone.
"She’s dramatic, Ren. Always has been. I’m sure she just wants pity."
"Neve..." I gritted my teeth letting her know I’m not finding her words funny.
"I do not care about her anymore Ren. She’s your woman, right? Then she doesn’t need me anymore because she already has you. She can’t have the both of us together." I blinked, surprised at her words.
If I didn’t know my her, I’d have said she was inlove with Lumi.
"Alright... Let’s say you don’t care about her anymore. I just need you to tell me if you know where she might be." She scoffed at the other end.
"I don’t know...but maybe because I asked her to leave my apartment and had withdrawn my contract with her company, she must have made a decision to go back to her husband. She might have realised that she wouldn’t be able to manipulate me anymore." I blinked, every words coming from her mouth felt like an arrow to my chest.
What happened to my loving sister. How did she turn into this?
What have I done?