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Andromeda raised her lip, "We were sparring, you overgrown mutt," she retorted.

Elane said something that Andromeda couldn't hear over the Alpha letting out a deafening roar before lunging straight towards her, shifting midair.

Not wanting to face his foaming jaws, she caught him by the scruff of his neck and slammed him into the wall beside her, forming a large, gaping hole in the sheetrock.

He paused for a moment before standing, angrier than before, but she could tell he was injured—both physically and egoistically.

The Alpha must have sustained a head injury, Andromeda assumed, because he growled at Elane and gestured to Andromeda as if telling his Luna to help him. She shook her head and tried to enter the library's door. Bernard unexpectedly snapped and lunged at her, and she narrowly avoided him.

"What is going on?" she linked Andromeda.

Andromeda shrugged and watched as Elane's mate lunged at her, and managed to catch her long brown hair in his jaw. She shrieked and Andromeda moved in to help her.

While the Alpha was distracted, she managed to retrieve the blade in her shoe again and stab the wolf in the stomach, missing any major organs. He cried out in a mixture of surprise and pain before he released her.

With a punch to the top of his skull from Elane, the wolf crumbled to the ground, unconscious.

His Luna sank to her knees, tears streaming down her face. Andromeda rushed to comfort her, as doing otherwise would be even more awkward.

Elane nodded to her with the ghost of a smile before linking a medic, who of course was completely confused at the situation, but brought the Alpha down the elevator and into the clinic without a moment's hesitation.

What the hell just happened? Andromeda wondered.

/

Recognizing the abnormality as something she had read, but not quite remembered, Andromeda rushed to the library, trying to find some semblance to the situation. Her eyes shifted through the vast shelves of ancient and not-so ancient texts.

"Mate bonds... Mate bonds II... Mate bonds LXIX...." she murmured, concentrating. She skimmed through row after row, shelf after shelf, until she finally found it.

Mate Bonds (Secondary). It had a dark brown cover with two black lines across the spine. Its title was displayed vertically above the two lines in faded hand-written print.  She quickly jumped to grab the book and flipped directly to the table of contents to find Aggression Towards Mates in chapter three.

After turning there, she skimmed the page for the cause. She murmured aloud, "Any aggression towards second - chance mates--ranging from growling and snapping to killing or fighting--is a telltale sign that the original mate is near."

"Damn," growled a voice from a ways behind her, going undetected before then. She quickly turned around, to reveal the source of the voice: Colin.

"What's so bad about her? Luna Aglamé, was it?" Andromeda inquired.

He seemed to shiver a moment. "She was ruthless. She convinced Alpha Bernard to put what she called the 'dirty omega brats' into the cells for prisoners. Children," he spat andlooked guilty and sad for a moment before continuing, "She even had such a distaste for me that after discovering I had a mate, she blackmailed a witch into breaking our mate bond and killing her," his voice broke, and Andromeda had no idea what to do, other than act on her instinct, which was to pull him into a tight embrace.

She thought she had a small idea of what he felt. Andromeda had killed enough mated wolves to have some clue of how deep their devotion lied. Many had come to their deaths in futile attempts to avenge their mates at the hands of Andromeda. She had seen many mates getting killed and seeing the light drain from their partner's eyes as the same happened to their own. This was enough to clue her in, but she had no idea what it really was like.

/

About an hour later, Andromeda found herself bored, more so than usual, and ventured off to speak with Luna Elane. After all, if she didn't know about the large possibility that Luna Aglamé had returned, Andromeda felt she should inform her.

She had first checked in her office, the kitchens, and the living room, before entering the clinic. Elane was sitting in the corner in the lobby, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes closed but were dripping with tears.

Andromeda didn't see a medic, nurse, pack member, or even a desk worker.

Odd, she thought.

Even worse, though, was the look on Elane's face. It was completely unlike any pain Andromeda had ever seen, especially not on the Luna. Her eyes displayed some kind of uttermost despair that was unfamiliar to Andromeda.

"Luna," she spoke softly, and thought, Is this how much mates truly care about each other, or is she wounded? "Are you injured?" Andromeda asked.

"No, I'm okay. Just a bit shaken, is all," she replied with a ghost of a smile.

"I mean no disrespect, Luna, but I do not believe you. Will you allow me to bring you up to your room, so you can rest properly?"

"No, no. I need to wait until they find what's wrong with James..." she trails off, her gaze stopped by her mind.

"Luna, I think I know what happened, but I think you need to rest before you hear it, okay? If you sleep, I'll tell you. Please, Luna. It's important you stay strong," Andromeda said in an almost-convincing attempt.

Elane searched her eyes for hints she was lying, but when she found none, she let her guard down.

"Okay," she mumbled, before snapping her fingers lazily, and they appeared in a room Andromeda hadn't seen before, but assumed to be Elane's.

"If you need me," Andromeda said, "I'll be in my room,"

"Andromeda," Elane whispered as she neared the door, "I don't know what I'll do," she said, looking at her with the same expression from before.

Her tears ran down her face again, and Andromeda stared blankly, "You will do the right thing. I trust you."

Andromeda stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.