Chapter 25

Gunner's POV

I was in the middle of the meeting with the Alpha's, Charlie, my mate's parents, my dad, and Ben, when I felt the connect being forced through. I opened my mind to let her in but this time it was different. Maddox was actually seeing through Koa's eyes, which I could see also. There was a man standing in the doorway. I immediately grabbed a pencil and paper and started drawing.

"Son what's…" Dad started to ask, but I held my hand up to quiet him.

I went back to sketching the guy as I listened in on their conversation. I was almost done when I figured out that this guy was my mate's biological father. He was the King of the Lycans. By the time I was done sketching, everybody's eyes were on me. I slid the paper to Charlie, who took it and, wait…was he smiling?

"What is so funny?" I stood up asking him.

"My apologies. Your sketch is actually perfectly. I know this man and he is…" Charlie's smile got even larger.

"He's the King of the Lycans." I finished for him. Everybody was now staring at Charlie.

"Yes. Yes he is." Charlie was still looking at my sketch. "Looks like I will finally get my play time after all."

"Play time? You think this is a joke? He abducted my mate and is holding her hostage and you're worried about play time?" I snapped. I couldn't believe he thought this whole thing was so funny. "I swear if anything happens to her…"

"Relax Gunner. I just meant it as, I owe him some payback. Him and I have quite the history, one that I have never forgotten." His smile faded really quick as he was remembering their past. Apparently it wasn't a good one.

"Whatever. You can have him all to yourself AFTER we get my mate back! Deal?"

"Deal." And there was that smile again, but it was even more evil this time.

"Ok let's get down to work. We need to narrow down where she can be. She said she could smell salt water." I said grabbing the maps and moving them to the center of the table.

After a couple hours of going back and forth and tossing ideas out, we finally had it down to 4 different locations: Sabah in Borneo, Harris in Scotland, Oahu in Hawaii, and St. Lucia. Charlie had given me a list of questions to ask my mate next time she connected with me to help narrow down this list even more. I was hoping she was just in Hawaii because it was the closest option but with the other 3 locations outside the country, the odds were not in my favor for that.

"I do have a few people that owe me some favors that are closer to some of the locations. I will call them in and have them scout the areas." Charlie said.

"That would be much appreciated Charlie. Thank you." Alpha Nik nodded in his direction and then looked at me with a worried look.

"I will let you know as soon as I know anything, but I do ask that you give me at least 48 hours before asking for updates. We might have magic on our side but it's not like in fairytales. I can't wiggle my nose and make things happen. On the other side of the same coin though, Gunner, if you hear from her again and can get any of those questions answered, please send them to me. Also, mom, do you have anything that belongs to Cheyenne? I need something of hers personally, nothing was passed down." Charlie was looking at his watch at this point.

"I don't have anything with me right now, but obviously there's some stuff at the house." She said.

"Great. Do you mind if I come by to pick up something today before I head back to my home?" Charlie asked.

"No. That would be fine." She said looking at her mate who also nodded in agreement.

Everybody said their goodbyes and started filing out of the conference room.

"Hey man. Want to go work off some steam at the gym?" Ben stopped me as I was walking out of the packhouse.

I paused and thought about for a minute, "Yeah, I guess. What can it hurt right? Beats sitting at home stewing over all this right?"

"Yeah man. Come on, let's go burn off some stress. Who knows, maybe it'll help clear our minds." Ben said with a light chuckle.

We headed to the training center. When we walked in there was only a few other people in there which was a good thing because I didn't feel like dealing with anybody right now.

I was doing some lifting but my mind was somewhere else. It was like one of those moments where you're there, but you're not there. Physically you're there, but mentally you're somewhere else. I couldn't stop thinking about my mate. I was going through all my memories of her from the day I first met her.

If you would have told me that day when the runt ran into me, that in just a matter of months, she would completely flip my world upside down, I would have laughed in your face. I have now put my whole life goal of revenging my mother's death on hold for my mate that I never truly wanted to begin with, but going to the same school, being in classes together, football games, all that time in close proximity, it just helped grow the mate bond even stronger. Now knowing that she is half Lycan, it just made it all make that much more sense in the fact of why I couldn't resist it.

I was about to finish on the treadmill when a thought popped in my head.

"Ben! We need to get back to the packhouse now!" I hollered out.

"You hear from her again?" Ben asked jumping up from the weight bench.

"Not yet but I need to look at those maps she brought with her that day." I said while grabbing my towel and wiping my face off.

"Need our dad's?" He asked.

"Not yet. I know they're tired. None of us have really slept the past few days. Let's get back and look at those maps and then if we need them, then we'll call them. If not, I'm sure it can wait until morning." I said walking out the door towards Ben's car with Ben right behind me.

We got back to the packhouse and I had grabbed my mate's bag from Alpha Nik's office that she left in the locker room when she took off that night. I opened it and she had a couple books, really old books at that, there were notebooks upon notebooks, a few folders with some papers in every one of them. The deeper I dug in her bag, I found her clothes that she had worn that day. I could still smell her scent on her shirt. I took a deep sniff and I could hear Maddox purring in my head.

"Are you purring? I thought that was a cat thing!"

"Watch it! I will give you a headache so bad, your head will explode."

I took another quick sniff of her shirt and instantly felt 10 times calmer. I started laying out the maps she had with some of her notes. I was looking over them when Ben finally made his way in after making a "pit stop" in the kitchen.

"So what's going on?" Ben asked shoving a donut hole in his mouth.

"Ok so remember that day she was telling us that she was researching all the major wars. She had the locations of them and that they were 150 years apart and blah blah blah. I wanted to see the locations of the wars and was hoping she had them labeled to see if it helped narrow down her current location." I was looking over the maps while I was talking.

My mate had X'd out the locations of the previous wars but didn't label which one was which. Ben and I tagged team her notes and were looking and hoping that she had them wrote down somewhere. This girl took meticulous notes. It's almost like she just copied the book.

About an hour into it, Ben found the notes telling which war happened where. I had Ben read out to me while I wrote down W1, W2, etc. next to each 'X'. That's when I saw it. War 1 was located in what is now known as Russia. War 2 was located in now known as Canada. War 3 was located in now known Mexico. War 4 was located in now known Mid-West USA.

"Hey look at this." I called out to Ben who was sitting on the other side of the table from me.

"What you got? A pattern?" He asked.

"They started in Russia, and then move east around the world. Major southern drop between War 2 and 3, and not sure why but I really don't care right now. If I had to guess on location for another major war, my bet would be between the Mid-West and Russia. That's the only area that hasn't seen a war of our kind." I started tapping my pen on the table going into deep thought.

"Ok, we can work with that. First and foremost. Princess…" Ben stopped and laughed at himself.

"What's so funny? The fact that she's going to kill you when she finds out you're still calling her that?" I stated.

"No. More because it started as a joke and now look where we are. Trying to rescue your mate, who is literally the Lycan Princess."

"Oh shit. I didn't even think about that aspect of it. What if…" I looked back down at the maps.

"Don't even go there man. We are going to find her. I highly doubt they are going to do anything to their only living heir to their thrown."

"I hope you're right man."

"Am I ever wrong?" Ben asked smiling that big cheesy smile.

"Do you really want me to answer that?" I taunted. You can see him thinking for a minute when he shook his head no.

"Let's get back to this shall we?" Ben said pointing towards the maps.

"Thought so. Anyways. Ok so if we narrow this down by the War locations, it automatically eliminates our Hawaii location. I'm not going to rule out St. Lucia just yet. It is really far south but it's still within the vertical lines of the first and last wars." I was pointing out the small island to show where St. Lucia was while Ben was looking over the other 2 locations that Charlie had helped us come up with.

"Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb here. Thinking war strategies here. If I was preparing for a major war and wanting the home field advantage, I would go with the Scotland location. Islands are just that. Islands. You can only fit so many of your warriors on them and enemies can easily surround you. Also, if you're in Scotland, and you start to lose you have land south of you to retreat to, plus it wouldn't be that hard to cross the water into Europe. Would be a lot harder to escape an island if your losing." Ben was using his finger to draw escape routes on the map as he was talking.

"You do make a valid point. I guess question now is, do we wake the dads to share this info or wait until morning?" I asked.

"I think we should wait. Charlie already said not to expect anything from him for at least 48 hours. Why don't we get some sleep? You're going to be no good to Cheyenne if you're weak from lack of sleep." He had a good point and I was tired.

"Alright. I will call you when I'm up and ready. I'm going to head home and shower and try to get some sleep."

Ben offered to take me home and by the time we got to my house, all the lights were off besides the small lamp in the living room. When I walked in dad was sitting in his recliner reading something. I wasn't really paying attention and just headed straight to the shower.

I turned the shower on and had it set a little warmer than my usual, but I was hoping the heat would help relax my sore and tense muscles. I stripped down and threw my clothes in the laundry basket. I stood there staring at myself in the mirror wondering what my mate was doing at that moment. I was hoping she was getting some sleep. She was going to need to save as much of her energy as possible.

I finally snapped myself out of my thoughts, remembering that I had the shower going. I got in the shower and stood under the shower head and let the hot water just run down my body. I wasn't sure how long I stood there before I heard a knock at the door.

"Son you ok in there?" I heard my dad's voice from the other side.

"Yeah dad, just sore from lifting." I answered back.

"Ok just checking on you. I'm heading to bed."

"Ok goodnight dad."

"Goodnight son."

I heard his footsteps walking back down the hallway towards his room and then his door shut. I shut the shower off and grabbed the towel from the towel bar and dried off, making sure not to get a drop of water on the title floor. Mom would have a conniption fit if she found water on the floor. Then it hit me, that's right, mom wasn't here anymore.

I shook off the thought and wrap the towel around my waist and headed to my room. I shut my door behind me and walked over to my dresser to grab a pair of shorts and put them on. I plopped down on the bed and rolled over to look out my window. I was staring at the moon and found myself asking, more like begging, the Moon Goddess for some help.

My eyes fluttered shut and I saw my mate behind my eyelids. She was beautiful. Standing there talking to her friend, with her hair moving slightly with the wind. She glanced over my way with that small innocent smile. There was this soft glow around her. Those emerald green eyes were sparkling in the sunlight. In a blink of an eye, the sun was gone, she was gone, the wind picked up out of nowhere nearly knocking me over. Lightening with the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard echoed throughout. I tried calling for her but nothing was coming out.

I sat straight up in bed, heart beating out of my chest almost and breathing so hard, it was like I just ran around the world. I was looking around trying to get my bearings when I noticed something on the end of my bed. I reached down and grabbed it. It was her shirt. I took a deep inhale of her scent, and instantly felt a calm wave come over me. Her scent was already starting to fade from it, but it would have to do for now. It was enough to keep me going. I laid back down, but this time with her shirt tucked beneath my head. I quickly fell back to sleep with ease.