"Maybe she ran away." Alpha Brandon snorted as he rolled his eyes. He chuckled to himself almost as if he actually thought that his comment had been funny.

Sol did not appreciate that.

"If you don't have anything worth saying then don't speak at all."

"Don't speak to me like that." The elder Alpha snapped at the younger one, not at all impressed by the tone of the junior.

"Then don't speak about Artemis like that."

The Alpha rolled his eyes but despite the double chin, everyone in the group could tell that he was clenching his jaw, biting his tongue. That was a smart decision but unfortunately, it didn't last too long.

Turning around, he smirked at Sol from over his shoulder. "I'm heading back with my pack. The war is over and we have won so there's no point wasting any time here."

He was right about one thing though.

The war was over and they had indeed one even if they hadn't found Alpha Eaton. Now, his wolves were a whole different story. To give them a taste of their own medicine, they had been drugged in their sleep using their own concoction that they had found down in the labs and forced into cages. There weren't enough for all of them some shared cages with multiple wolves, all of their hands and feet tied along with some duct tape across their mouths.

It was agreed that everyone would be heading back to the Lupine Woodland which was the closest to the human base. They, they would throw the wolves guilty of treason into the dungeons. The ones that had information regarding their Alpha's whereabouts would be shown some mercy and be allowed to live, albeit spending the rest of their life in the dungeon. The rest that still remained loyal to their leader would die a long, torturous death.

The human had, had it lucky. Most of them had been killed in their sleep and the ones that had been caught awake or wandering the halls of the human base, they were glad they had died a quick, almost painless death.

There weren't many children in the base, just a small handful. Their lives had been spared as all children were thought to be as innocent. One of the other Alpha's had offered to permanently take them in so they would be headed back to his pack once everything was wrapped up and finished.

But there was still no sign of Artemis. Other than her lingering scent in the basement where she was last spotted, she was gone. But it seemed that no one cared apart from Sol, the two warriors that had been down in the basement with her and her immediate family.

All of this wouldn't have been possible if Artemis hadn't remembered anything, if she hadn't been left in the forest, unconscious. But as soon as the war was over, no one seemed to care where she was or if she was even alive; Alpha Brandon being at the top of the list, not that anyone was surprised.

There was nothing Sol could say to bring back Alpha Brandon and his warriors but he vowed that he would never forget this moment.

It appeared that not everybody was heartless because even though all the packs headed back to the Lupine Woodland pack, it seemed that Artemis had touched more hearts than he had anticipated because once everybody had left, there was a small group remaining.

This group consisted of himself, her brother and her parents, Clark, the two warriors from the basement, all three elders along with three wolves from the seven other packs -the three that were missing were his that no longer existed, Alpha Eaton's pack that would follow in the same footsteps along with Alpha Brandon whom hadn't even batted an eyelash in concern regarding Artemis' safety-, all courtesies of their Alphas.

Sol was sure that Clark would be receiving a lot of grief from his Alpha once he returned but, in that moment, he was ever so thankful for having such a caring, loyal best friend. At times, the man knew him better than he knew himself for just when he needed it, Clark came to stand next to.

"We're going to find her." He promised his best friend, maintaining eye contact to ensure that the young Alpha understood that they would find her and everything would be fine. "I promise you we'll find her."

"I need to find her," he exhaled, running his hands down his face, worried off of his head. He was sure that he was more worried than her parents and that was saying something considering he was sure that her family was undergoing the grief and torment of thinking that their daughter and sister was taken away from them for the second time.

Clark placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We will find her." He stressed on every word, trying to calm down his friend. Sol would be no good in helping to find Artemis is he was stressed and panicky.

Nodding his head, they all split into pairs as they walked over the perimeter of the base trying to catch a whiff of her scent. Frustration gnawed at him as he couldn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary. It was almost as if she had disappeared into thin air.

They all started out with within the perimeter of the base, inside the fence. When they found nothing, a few of them even headed down to the basement one more time looking for clues while the others checked both the base where the labs were located while the rest of them checked the residential area.

Sol had been one of the ones to head down to the basement with Apollo and the same two warriors than before. They were all invested in finding Artemis and were determined not to give up until she was safe, even the two warriors that didn't know her well. But they did know her well enough to know that if it was the other around and they had mysteriously gone missing, she would be doing the same for them.

Artemis was selfless and she didn't give herself enough credit for that.

Just to help save the wolves whom were stuck in the same horrendous predicament she had been only months ago, she had returned to the point of all her nightmares just to help them. It had already been more than enough on her part for remembering all the memories and then having to relay and explain her demons whenever anyone had asked. She had done one more and volunteered to help rescue the wolves from the basement even if that place was hell on earth for her.

Sol knew it was a bad idea to allow her to go down into the basement even if she wasn't alone. But Artemis would have rebuked him for sure if he had brought that up. At the end of the day, she was a grown woman whom was completely capable of making her own decisions regardless of what Sol said, and he loved that about her.

But in that moment, all that mattered was finding her.

All the other rooms were exactly the same as they had been earlier when they had rescued the wolves. But the place that she was seen heading into, the lone room at the end of the hallway, there was something different about it.

Sure, all the bodies of the dead wolves remained exactly as they had been before but there was a new scent in the air. Before, they could just smell Artemis but they couldn't smell where she had gone from here but now, hers was mixed in with someone else's; a werewolf's. He couldn't prove it then and there, but Sol was one hundred percent certain that the scent belonged to Alpha Eaton. That would also explain how they hadn't found him anywhere on the premises.

Alpha Eaton must have been hiding in the room with the dead bodies thinking that no one would venture down here but when Artemis did, that must have changed things for him.

The only way to explain his scent being masked would be that he had used the concoction that the humans had created.

"Where did she go from here?" One of the warriors asked aloud as he walked around the room, trying to follow her scent which was faint but still present. The scent masking concoction must be fading off.

Sol walked along with him while the other two men ransacked the drawers and shelves in the room, looking for any sort of clues.

"He must have drugged her with this." Apollo said, holding up what looked like a used injection. He brought the syringe up to his nose, smelling it. Shaking his head, he placed it down on the table before he sat down on a chair and buried his face in his hands, frustrated with not being able to find his sister. That would be the second time in his life now.

Sol looked up to acknowledge his words but continued walking with the warrior as they both came to a standstill in front of an old wooden closet. He raised his eyebrow in confusion and stood back as the warrior stepped forward and opened the doors of the closet.

The tell-tale squeak of the hinges on the closet door gave away its again but what shocked them more was the hole in the back of it.

Both the warrior and Alpha's jaw dropped as they stared at the dark abyss that was the back of the closet. There was no back panel to the piece of furniture and it seemed that it had been covering up the entrance to a tunnel.

This base had more secrets than a dirty Alpha.

Artemis' scent was stronger there, in the tunnel. It was still mixed in with Alpha Eaton's.

Apollo was the first one to run out of the basement, calling for his parents, the elders and the rest of the warriors. In under five minutes, the entirety of the group was immersed in the tunnel. It was dark, smelly and half of their flashlights had stopped working but no one complained.

They continued to follow Artemis' scent, all of them crawling on their hands and knees underground for what felt like half an hour, if not more until finally, they reached a ladder. Just like the one in the lab, this one also led up to a trap door. The only difference was that instead of climbing down into a basement, they climbed up to the forest.

It was clear that this trap door had previously been covered and disguised with some leaves and a bush, but whomever had last come through here must have been in a hurry as the greenery that was previously used to hide the door now lay splayed all over the forest floor in various directions.

Her scent was stronger here and the more they walked, the stronger it got.

"This feels like a wild goose chase," Artemis' father muttered as he walked alongside Sol with his wife flanking his side. His words appeared to be tired and irritated but one look at his face and you could tell that he was a determined man.

Sol had no doubt that this time, Artemis' parents and her brother wouldn't give up hope. They all felt like they had failed her the first time which absolutely wasn't true but he understood their reasoning. He already felt like he had let her down by allowing her to be captured. If only he hadn't been so blood-thirsty for that human commander and gone searching for the Alpha first, perhaps then they would have been a different situation now.

Trudging through the forest in the middle of the night with only the light of the moon to light their way and Artemis' scent to guide them, the group of werewolves came to stop at the mouth of a cave.

They did not expect to find what they did, but that whole day had been full of so many surprises that they were no longer shocked nor baffled.

-

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Layla Knight

 04.10.18