Chapter 27

Forest's POV

I drifted in a sea of tranquillity. I was safe. It was calm, relaxing and nothing would ever hurt me.

But my mate wasn't here with me, so it was hell.

For days I floated, trying to find land, but unable to anchor. Lost at sea, lost in my own mind.

For days I fought to get free, to escape and wake up.

I could feel her. I could feel Aria, but something wasn't right.

I shouldn't be able to feel her. We hadn't completed the bond yet, she didn't wear my mark on her neck and I didn't wear her's.

Even though I was still half asleep, even though I could barely think, I could feel pain throbbing through me.

Her pain.

She was in pain.

As I slowly woke up more I started to process the information flooding through me senses.

I could smell antiseptic, the undertone of strong bleach. My nose wrinkled at the smell, it was too clean, too fake.

I must be in a hospital, the pack hospital most likely, I could smell the scent of pack wolves, slowly the events of the attack came back to me.

The rogues knew where we would be, they must have. It was an organised attack, they knew where to attack and when. They knew the perfect way to bring us to our knees. The pack was defenceless without it's alpha family.

We had a traitor and mark my words they would pay dearly for it.

I could smell my parents close by, in beds next to me, but I couldn't smell Aria. She wasn't here. Not even faintly. She should be here. She should be here for when I wake up. She's my mate. But she wasn't here.

Over the next few hours, or days, I really couldn't tell, my senses woke up more.

I could hear the faint sound of footsteps outside my door. I could hear the sound of whispered conversations.

They had caught the traitor, I heard pack wolves talking about it, the traitor who was responsible for the rogue attack. They had been collared up and the pack was waiting for us to wake up before they were dealt with.

Good. I wanted to deal with this traitor myself.

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More time passed as I fought with myself to wake up. I would wake up and I would deal with the traitor, together with my family.

We would make an example of the traitor to show we don't allow that sort of treachery, no matter your status.

I could feel my parents waking up as well, their blood humming with power, breathing life back into them as mine did the same to me.

I felt stronger. I knew I could almost escape, almost.

Almost.

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Time ticked on, day turned to night and I fought through my mind, fighting to be free, fighting to be out.

And finally, my fight payed off.

I opened my eyes, not caring about the blinding light or the searing pain making me want to curl up and go back to sleep.

I just wanted to be home.

I slowly stood up and walked over to where my father lay, leaning on the wall for support.

Slowly he blinked his eyes open, groaning as he sat up, closely followed by my mum. "Well that was hell," He said, looking over to me and then my Mum.

"Call Ash and his parents, see if they can come fill us in on what we missed," My dad said, straight down to business, like always.

I grabbed out my phone, calling Ash, tapping my foot impatiently as I waited, something was wrong with Aria and I was going to find out.

"Hello," Ash's groggy voice called from the other side, "Who is it?" I smiled at that, leave it to Ash to not check the caller ID.

"It's me." I said, ignoring the gasp from the other side of the line, "can you come here and fill us in on what we missed, bring your parents too."

Not waiting for an answer, I hung up. Grabbing some clothes and going to get changed out of the horrible hospital gowns. Back in my own clothes I felt much better, I had mainly healed from the attack while being unconscious.

Back in the hospital room my parents had also got changed, they were talking about what had happened at the attack, so I filled them in on what I heard, "Some pack wolves were saying they had found the traitor, they're collared up on the hill for us to deal with."

"Do we know who the traitor is?" My mum asked, coming over to me and giving me a hug. Her wolf coming forward slightly to check her pup was ok.

I shook my head, "Maybe Ash will know? They didn't say a name, we'll find out soon though, when we deal with the traitor."

Just then Ash, Skye and Ash's parents came in the door, all smiling seeing us awake.

"We thought we'd lost you for a minute there," Ali said, giving me a hug. I hugged her back before asking the question we all wanted to know the answer too.

"Who's the traitor?" I asked, looking round the room, my parents coming over, wanting to know the answer as much as me, Skye and Ash looking down at the ground while Ali and Albert looked out the window.

"No one knows." Ash said, quietly, looking sad. I looked over to my parents, them looking as confused as I was.

"That's bullshit, we do know." I looked over to see who was speaking, it was one of the guards, the one Aria was speaking to the day she had her sensory overload, it seemed like such a long time ago now, a long time since I've seen Aria.

I looked over at him, Louis, "What do you mean?" My Mum asked, confusion written on her face, "Have we caught the traitor or not?"

"No," Ash, Skye, Ali and Albert all say at the same time as Louis says, "Yes,"

Louis looked over at the others, "If we haven't found the traitor, Then who is collared at the top of the hill? Just because you don't want to admit you were wrong."

Seeing my confused look, he turned to me. "We have found the traitor and we are waiting for you to deal with her."

"So, it's a female," I say slowly, watching them all nod their heads, I turned to Ash, "Why do you say no."

"She's not the traitor, I know she's not, we all know she's not. But no one with listen to us," He said, backed by Skye and his parents nodding.

As the sun started to rise, my Dad finally asked the question to solve everything, "Who is it, who is, or isn't the traitor."

"She isn't," Skye quickly said before allowing Louis to say who it was.

"Who else would betray the pack except a rogue, the rogue who distracted us, so the reinforcements didn't come as quickly as they could, the rogue who you adopted and brought into the pack only to turn her back on you and stab you in the back."

It took me a few seconds to process what he meant, the rogue we adopted, we didn't adopt a rogue, except, except Aria. I turned to Ash.

"I tried to stop them, they were so sure it was her, she's been collared all week, the pack have been attacking her while she can't protect herself, they wanted to kill her."

I roared.

I walked over to the door, nearly pulling it off its hinges to get out quicker, closely followed by my parents, Ash and Skye.

I looked up the hill close the pack hospital and at the top I could see the figure of a wolf, huddled to the ground, looking beaten up and tired, but even from here I could tell it was Aria.

I threw myself up the hill, reaching her in the blink of an eye.

Not waiting for the key, not wanting her to be in the vile contraption a second longer I ripped the collar of her neck, not caring as the silver burnt my skin, catching her as she fell, too weak to keep herself up.

By the time the other reached I had her cradled to me, bridal style, as I looked her over for injury, which wasn't hard to find, she whimpered as I moved, wincing in pain as her wounds rubbed against my shirt.

She was freezing, the silver shoving her wolf down while the bitter wind blew over the ground. I placed a kiss on her forehead and held her closer to me, sharing my heat with her.

"What happened?" I growled out, "Why did this happen."

Ash explained what had happened while we were out of it while I carried Aria home. I let this happen. I should have protected her better.

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While we walked home Aria had passed out, so I had tucked her in our bed and gone down stairs. My wolf didn't want me to leave her, I didn't want to leave her. But I needed to hear the full story and we needed a way to prove Aria wasn't the traitor, and she wasn't rogue before the pack killed her.

After an hour we were no closer to finding an answer. We knew what had happened, we knew why the pack blamed her, but proving her innocent was drawing a blank.

Suddenly Ash ran in. He, Skye and his parents had gone home while we worked on our plan. "The pack have noticed Aria isn't chained. They want to know where she's gone, technically, whatever you do, the pack has to know."

My parents nodded, turning to me they said, "We'll deal with this, go spend some time with your mate."

I smiled before running up the stairs. Not bothering to get changed I slid into bed, pulling Aria close to me and even though I had been asleep for a week, I felt my self-drifting to sleep, just before sleep pulled me into its sweet embrace I saw a flash and heard the click of a camera, I was asleep before it registered what happened.