Page 49 of The Alpha's Mates

We turned as the doors opened and Jessu's Cadre Mates, Relay and Nero came inside. "Sorry," Nero told us with a friendly smile.

"Is everything clear?" Jessu asked them.

"Yeah," Relay replied. "We only had to dig out one landslide. The path is open for you."

"You two aren't coming?" Atlas asked.

"No," Jessu told him. "Celinda is squirrely in the best of times and lately she's been losing her grip on reality more and more. We don't want to bring any more people than we have to."

"Besides," Nero told us, "we want to stay behind to protect our pack."

"Been having a lot of trouble?" Calder asked with a tilt of his head.

"There's a new pack forming nearby," Nero explained. "Outcasts from other packs."

I frowned over at Jessu. "Want us to help you take care of that?" We all knew what this meant. The worst of the worst from each of the packs, the males who'd been kicked out of everywhere else, were banding together and would wreak as much havoc as they could.

"Thank you, but no. You need to focus on this mission and nothing else. We can handle things here."

I had no doubt about that. Jessu and his cadre mates were our parents' ages, but they were strong. It was a shame they'd never found their mate. Maybe once The Moon Goddess was restored, they would find her living among some distant pack.

"What do we do if she can't help us?" I hated even having to fucking ask the question. I hated not having a plan. Planning was my fucking forte, but in this, I was flying blind. My grandmother, Jessu, and Tellura had the only answers. Deferring to them and their knowledge wasn't a problem for me. I just wish there were some damn reassurances that we weren’t wasting our time.

Jessu shook his head. "Go visit Tellura and see if he's found anything in his texts over the last few months since I've seen him." His solemn eyes met mine. "Let's just hope Celinda can help."

"I still don't get how some crazy female is going to help us with this," Calder said with a laugh. He grunted in pain a moment later and glared over at Atlas, who had kicked him under the table.

Relay chuckled and nodded as though Calder had a valid point. Even if he did, it hadn't been very diplomatic of him to point it out.

"She's..." Jessu broke off and shook his head. "I don't know how to explain what she is. She's more than a loon. At least, I hope she is. Because she's kind of our last hope here."

"Great," Calder muttered, shifting away from Atlas in case he tried to kick him again.

"We'll head to her first, then," I told them. "If we can't find any answers there, we'll head to Tellura's. We'll find something," I said, with a reassurance I didn't quite feel.

"You'd think the Moon Goddess would leave easier clues for us to find her," Calder groused.

"Unless she didn't leave of her own free will," Atlas pointed out.

"True," he sighed. "Which means it's not only going to be hard to find her, but hard to free her as well. She's probably going to be guarded."

"One problem at a time," I replied. "First let's find her. Then we'll worry about who the hell we have to fight in order to free her."

"That's even if she was taken," Nero pointed out. "For all we know she just got sick of dealing with shifters and all our shit. These kids are probably going to find her sitting on a beach somewhere, drinking fruity drinks, and end up ruining her vacation."

We all fell silent, staring at him while he shrugged. Relay glowered at him after a few seconds. "That's fucking depressing. Thanks a lot, Bro."

"Just pointing out a possibility."

"I think it's best if we go into this assuming she hasn't willingly left us," Jessu suggested, with a wry smile for his cadre mates, "so that we're prepared for anything that might happen."

"Good plan," I agreed.

"We should get going," Jessu said, standing up. "It's going to take a few hours to climb to the top of the mountain."

"What mountain?" Atlas asked.

We all followed him out the door and glanced over as he pointed to a peak that was out in the distance.