Chosen by Fate, Rejected by the Alpha

~~

Reece

~~

I told Vincent to wait until six to call the rest of the pack warriors to the house. I wanted everyone here working on finding my Little Bunny. I wouldn't accept anyone not putting their all into this.

The men and women started to arrive quickly, having been summoned to the alpha house on official business. I was expecting nearly a hundred warriors to show, but imagine my surprise when I barely had eighty-five show up. We seemed to be missing quite a few people. 

I gave Noah the task of seeing who exactly was missing while I called Riley. I needed to have as much backup on this as possible.

"Reece, you better have one hell of a good reason for calling me so damn early." Riley grumbled into my ear.

"Someone kidnapped my mate last night." I snapped back at him.

"What the hell? Who?"

"I don't know, I was out of the state on business when it happened." I sighed. "I need your help Ri."

"Yeah, anything, man, just tell me."

"First, find out if there are any members of your pack missing. Then I need you to take everyone that is left, everyone that you trust, and help me search for clues. I need to track any one that might be missing from my pack and yours."

"Missing from your pack? Who is missing from your pack?" Riley seemed shocked at the very thought that someone from my pack had betrayed me.

"I'm not certain who all yet, but I seem to be missing about a dozen warriors at least. I'm not sure who else, I have a bigger pack and a much larger territory, it will take a lot longer to find out the complete list."

"I'll rouse the pack and do a full roll call. Once that's done I will wait for your instructions."

"Thank's Riley." I didn't know how far this web of lies in my pack went, but at least I still had my allies.

When Noah came back, he had a list of everyone that was missing from the warriors. Among them were the former guards that seemed to have caused problems for Trinity. There were a few other newcomers to the pack missing, but the rest had been in the pack their whole lives. 

I realized now that I might have gone too easy on those guards. I had reassigned them, put them back through training, and disciplined them. But I had not banished them, or better yet killed them. If they had anything to do with this directly, then I will personally see to it that are ripped to pieces. 

As for the missing pack members that had been with us since birth, their families had been here for generations. I just needed to look at who the families were. That was enough to tell me that each one of them had been loyal to Caleb, or better yet, my Uncle Frederick for years now.

It looks like I've got to clean house. There are clearly some problems inside my pack that need to be rectified. Traitors will not be tolerated in my pack. If they didn't do anything directly and walked away they might live. But if any of them so much as touched her, or knew about what was going to happen to her then they would pay dearly. 

Mom had been asleep when I had gotten home. So, even though she knew what had happened yesterday, she didn't have any new details. She came to see me in my office just after noon, after she had lunch. She had the Whittons with her when she came .

"Reece!" Mom exclaimed as she ran toward me. She threw her arms around my neck, squeezing me tight. "Oh Reece, we will find her. I know we will." She soothed me, rubbing one hand over the back of my head.

"I hope so, Mom. I won't ever stop looking for her." I whispered dejectedly.

"Alpha?" Wesley, Little Bunny's uncle, said my title as question, he seemed to be at a loss."

"Call me Reece, we're family now after all." I told him. He looked taken aback by that, but continued nonetheless.

"Reece, what happened?"

"I don't know exactly, but I'm trying to figure that out."

"How did this even happen?" Eve seemed to have been crying a lot recently.

"Noah and I were gone on business, someone took advantage of that and orchestrated this situation."

"You find her, boy. You need to find her so the same thing doesn't happen to her that happened to my daughter." The old man's face seemed to have broken, tears were falling from his eyes and sorrow filled his face. I had never seen the old man behave so emotionally.

"I won't let that happen to her, Mr. Whitton. I refuse to lose her to anyone." I could see Noah standing behind his family, a strange expression on his face, a mix of pain and anger. He was blaming himself as much as I was. He had advocated for me to leave Trinity home as well, he didn't want to put her at risk, now look what had happened.

"Reece, you haven't eaten or slept since you found out what happened, have you?" Mom sounded worried.

"I can't, I need to find her first."

"What use are you going to be to her if you don't have the energy to function? The same goes for you Noah. I know that you two will refuse to sit idly by and let others rescue her when she is found, you need at least a little rest."

"I wouldn't be able to relax enough mom. I can't bring myself to sleep knowing she's out there somewhere. Who knows what's happening to her." I had been imagining things all night. Horrible things that they might have done to her. My imagination was running rampant.

"Reece, you need sleep. You need to be at your best for her."

"She's right son, you need to rest. You too Noah. Go get something to eat and get some sleep." Eve added, backing up Mom's insistent words.

"I know that you're right, it's just not going to be easy. But I promise to try." Noah agreed.

"That's all I ask." Eve smiled at him.

"Reece?" Mom implored me.

"I'll try." I grumbled. 

I did intend to try. Mom forced me into the kitchen where I was given a plate of food made by Abigail. But all I could think about while trying to eat was how Little Bunny wasn't there. How her not being there made the food taste bland. I managed to force myself to eat almost half of it, but that was all I could manage.