Crossing Paths With The White Wolf

Gonzalo P o V

"What's going on with you, Gonzalo? You look like s**t," Helios asked me. Damn, Helios was more observant than I thought. He has been my best friend and leader for almost 1800 years. I should have known he would notice. He knew me like I knew him. I sighed. "I haven't been sleeping well. I will do better, Alpha."

"I'm not worried about you doing better. Your work is spotless. You, on the other hand, have dark circles under your eyes. I have heard you running in the middle of the night or in the gym. You haven't been yourself since you saw Queen Karissa. I know you don't like talking about it, but maybe it would help if you talked to someone about what happened in Sicily." Queen Karissa, the Queen of the vampires. That woman had almost destroyed me once 200 years ago and now she was somehow f*****g with my life again. Just hearing her name put me in a sour mood.

"I'm fine. It has nothing to do with Queen Karissa. It's probably just stress from the attack. I'll do better. Can we drop it? We have a meeting in about half an hour about the arrival of the vampire assassins the Queen is sending and the plan for the compound we're going to be hitting next." Helios gave me a look before sighing and nodding. Helios and I have always had a good relationship. There was nothing I kept from him except Sicily. Her in Sicily.

I got up and headed to the door when he said more quietly, "It doesn't have to be me, you know? If you don't trust me, just...talk to someone. I miss my friend." I took a deep breath and left the room, fighting against my own emotions and guilt. Over the last couple of months, everyone I cared about had been asking me for an explanation and I have been lying and telling them I was OK.

It might actually help. If we talk to someone about what happened to you. - Dario, my wolf, said.

We just need to find our mate. Everything will be better once we find our mate. - I said stubbornly. All I needed was to keep my head above the water until I found my mate. I had seen how the mate bond had transformed Helios' loneliness when he found his mate. That was what we needed.

I went up to my room and showered. As I put my clothes on for the meeting, my eyes went to the top dresser drawer. It was calling me. Every atom in my body wanted to hold it again. I shook my head and grabbed my tablet. I reviewed everything we needed to cover in today's meeting and headed down to the conference rooms.

We'd forwarded the international council the name and address of Shane's father, but the man was in the wind. Evergreen hadn't been able to find a picture for his face recognition software and Councilman John was still not talking. In the meantime, we're gearing up to take down all of the labs in the states. The council had sent us some recruits to train, provided us with some funds and the vampire royals were sending their two best assassins. We had our work cut out for us, but it was something we needed to do. The vampires were scheduled to arrive this evening and we had a long to-do list on our plate.

I walked into the conference room. Every rank member of Guardian Moon and Crescent Moon but the Alpha and Luna was present. I felt a sense of pride that Helios and Markus were trusting me to lead this project. They were all my family and I was happy to see they trusted me as much as I trusted them.

"Celeste and Markus will be here shortly. Little Lucian got his 1st month shots today and has been a little cranky. Only puts up with mom at the moment." Gillian explained.

"How's little Josue doing," I asked him. His own mate had given birth only a month before Celeste.

His eyes lit up at my question. A sure sign of a happily mated wolf and I envied him that. "He's great. A real handful some days. The packhouse is going to be in trouble once all these pups start running around together. I fear for our sanity."

I chuckle at his words. Their packhouse had definitely gotten a lot busier in the last 2 years and you could see how much they enjoyed that. I looked over at Theo and Sebastian and wondered if they were still considering adopting. After being together for 187 years, Sebastian was ready, but Theo wanted to wait until the entire mess with the research labs was done. I looked at Helios and Natalia and frowned. I didn't actually know where they were in terms of wanting children. I realized then that I hadn't really spent much time with any of my family in the last two months. I haven't been a very good friend lately.

'Are you OK?' Theo mind linked.NôvelDrama.Org exclusive content.

I forced a smile back on my face. 'Yep. Just thinking it's been a while since we've had a poker night. Maybe we should figure out some time for a guys night.'

'Oooh, yes. I think that's a great idea. He said.

Markus and Celeste walked into the office then and we got down to business.

"We've narrowed down the group to head to Rochester next week. According to our information, that's the biggest lab in this hemisphere. We're flying in both private planes so we have enough room for any rescued shifters on the way back. Everyone in this room is going but Theo and Celeste, so we can have someone in charge in case of emergencies at home. Plus, we'll take Evergreen and about 30 warriors. 20 from Guardian Moon and 10 from Crescent Moon. Oh and the two vampires, who are due to arrive in a few hours." I listed off.

"Uhhh, one vampire. Did you not get the email?" Markus asked.

"What email?" I said as I looked through my emails again.

"Umm, here," he said, showing me his phone. I looked at the phone and groaned.

"They misspelled my name in the email. Awesome. Any other emails I missed?"

"Oh, I didn't even notice. I'm sorry," Helios said sheepishly, "I'll forward them your way and contact the council to update their contacts." He went through his phone and suddenly my tablet started dinging. "f**k..." I say.

"Most are just financial information. Receipts of the deposits of the funds they promised us, which you should be getting notifications from the bank anyway. One of their people got delayed and will be about a month or so late in arriving. The other one will be here as scheduled," he said.

'I'm really sorry, I had wondered why you never mentioned the emails but I thought you were just dealing with stuff.' He added via mind link. I felt a little insulted that he thought I would let my personal issues get in the way of our mission, but then again, I couldn't really fault him. I had shut down to anything but minimal conversation. I really needed to get out of this funk.

"I'll add another warrior to the group to make up the muscle power. I'll forward all of you a copy of Evergreen's work on mapping the compound. It's rough, since we don't have camera feeds this time, but it should help us with the general layout and where we might have the most problems. We'll go into more detail the closer we get to the day. I've booked some buses and hotel rooms, so prepare for an overnight. We shouldn't be gone more than 36 hours, but we need to make sure that anyone we rescue is good for traveling and to give Nat a chance to rest before heading back. My recommendation would be to take a doctor with us so they can deal with the smaller injuries so Nat can focus on the more serious stuff. We don't have any idea how many or what kind of condition we'll find people, but if the size is anything to go by, we might be coming back with a lot of new shifters."

"I'll talk to Dr Castle. He might be willing to go. I would recommend Valeria, but I am not sure if she's ready to be away from little Eva," Celeste said. We all nodded. Little Eva was only 4 months old.

"We have some time to figure it out," I said gently. "That's kind of all I have on my end. I've got the rooms on the second floor ready for the vampires. The windows have inside shutters for their protection and so they feel safe. We've got mini fridges in each suite stocked with blood, which I guess I'll move the stock from one to the other so it doesn't go to waste." I looked up from my tablet to see everyone. "Anyone have anything else?"

"I want to see the progress of your warriors to see if I'm grabbing any for the advance training. Can you set it up for sometime this week?" Danny asked and I nodded, adding it to my to-do list, "And not an agenda item, but James' birthday part is this weekend and you're all dead if you don't show up. Maya's words, not mine." We all laughed and the meeting basically broke up after that.

"Hey Gonzalo, Markus needs to go do some Alpha stuff with Helios. Will you walk me home? It's a nice day out," Celeste asked. I took a look at her and then Markus, who was trying to get past me stealthily. I raised an eyebrow at her and she gave me her big blue puppy eyes and I chuckled, giving her my arm.

"Well played, Luna." I teased her.

We start walking towards the bridge that connects both packgrounds. It's nuts to think that, just 6 months ago, this was the last place I saw myself ever stepping back on, let alone living in it. The m******e that had claimed Celeste's parents and her pack had not been done by us, but I had been the one to find Alpha Geoff and I felt the guilt for what happened to her as badly as Helios did.

"How are you doing lately?" She asked.

I was going to lie, but couldn't. Not to Celeste. She had the git of sight and Kara, her wolf, had a connection to Selene. There was no hiding from her. "I had a bad experience with vampires a long time ago. Queen Karissa reminds me of someone I knew. It's brought up some bad feelings that I thought I was over."

"Is that why you haven't been sleeping and have been shut off?" She asked.

I looked at her when she said that. "Who tattled?" I asked her, trying and failing to sound playful.

"Selene, actually," She laughed and my eyes widened. I thought she would say Helios, Theo or even Nat.

"She uh, did she say anything about my mate? When will I find her?" I asked nervously.

She frowned and my heart sank. Did I not have a mate? "Soon, she said. But she gave Kara two messages for you. 1. Your pain won't go away when you find your mate, it's something you will need to deal with one way or another and how you deal with it, will determine your happiness and 2. Sometimes, trust is a leap of faith where you give someone the chance to prove it, not earn it." "That's not very reassuring," I frowned.

"I wish I had more, but she's very cryptic. I have just learned to trust that the tidbits she gives me are what people need," she said as we continued to walk. "You can always talk to me, you know. But you should talk to your friends, Gonzalo. Keeping things inside will just rot your beautiful soul."

"Thank you. I will keep all of your words in mind. I am not sure how easy it will be, Celeste. I haven't talked about Sicily with anyone. I don't even know where I would begin."

"You will know when it's time. Don't let them rush you, but perhaps, don't shut them out either. It's OK to grieve and live at the same time." She squeezed my arm as we arrived at the bridge. I smirked when I saw Markus waiting for her there.

"I think your mate's Alpha business is finished, Luna," I said pointedly.

She blushed, "Maybe I lied. It wasn't Alpha business as much as it was Luna business. Thank you for the lovely walk. I look forward to meeting your mate. I'm sure she will be as wonderful as you." She gave me a quick hug before she walked over to Markus. I turned back towards the packhouse.

Run? - Dario asked me. I walked over to a bench near the packhouse and removed my clothes. I shifted to my reddish brown wolf and let him take over. I had a lot to think about and running always helped.