"She is fine, but I think that they have drugged her to keep her unconscious most of the time. My fox could sense her wolf without a problem, so they haven't harmed her," James reassured us.

"Give her to me," Rafe stretched his arms to take Natalia over from him.

But instead of doing so, the fox Alpha pressed her closer to his body. "No! No way I am giving her to you. Look at you, you are a mess - all bloody and all- and frankly, you don't seem very stable right now. I'll take her back to the van, you sort out the chaos here- I think some of the cells have different shifters in them."

We had been so focused on getting Natalia that we had not thought about what else this house of horror could contain. We couldn't leave anyone here though.

Rafe stood there frozen, suddenly staring at the darkest corner of the room. It was like he wasn't even with us at this moment. I was not sure what but something inside me was breaking into little pieces at the sight of the cocky, smug arse that was Rafe Macalister, my supposed mate, looking lost and vulnerable. Was it my heart that felt like that?

He moved closer to the corner and just stood there. I motioned to James, "You are right- we will take care of things. Connor is waiting at the van, so get Natalia to safety and we will be there soon. If you need, take her back to my place- her wellbeing is a priority."

As James walked out of the cell with Natalia tightly in his arms, Rafe didn't even blink. This wasn't a good sign and I was now worried. I took a step closer to him, and then another. It felt like I was approaching an injured fawn that I was trying not to spook. When I finally reached him, I saw the claw marks on the wall in front of us. On the adjacent one, there were little lines etched in the wall in groups of five, all 30 of them. Next to them were two initial. "R.M."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen," he said with a trembling voice. My eyes filled up with tears that I was fighting back as I was not going to be of any help to anyone if I was a sobbing mess. My heart was hurting so much for the little boy that had spent 30 torturous days here. "My mother was in the next cell for most parts of it but not on that day. The day that they took her wolf away. All I heard were her screams echoing throughout the mansion. That's when one of the human guards decided to let me go."

His mother's wolf was taken away? Could it be the same people that were after me and my family? I pushed those questions aside though as I couldn't let Rafe fall apart.

I stepped in front of him, blocking the sight of the walls behind. I looked up and saw his face contorted with sorrow and grief. A single tear rolled down his cheek. I could only imagine what he was going through right now but it was probably similar to when I got all the memories from the night that my parents died. So I lifted my hand and placed it on his cheek, gently wiping the tear away with my thumb, smudging the blood that was still on his face in doing so.

He blinked and the frozen look in his eyes was gone. Instead, I saw gratitude that quickly changed into a fire when he looked right at me. Something inside me stirred but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. What I knew though was that somehow, deep inside me, I felt his pain lessen as calmness and warmth made their way from me to him. It was as if it all went from my heart straight to his, using the touch between my hand and his cheek as a bridge. He blinked once again before he cleared his throat.

"We need to get a move on. We don't know whether they might have reinforcements coming and we need to free up the rest of the people in here," he said as he walked away from me and towards the door. But before he exited, he stopped and turned in my direction again, "Thank you."

I stood there for a minute longer, trying to process the moment that had passed. The shouts of the guys outside eventually brought me back to my senses.

"Goddess, there are all sorts of shifters here. Most of them are alive, luckily, but a few had lost their animals. Some seem to have died in the process," I heard someone say in shock.

I walked past one of the closed cells and I saw Rafe, standing over two guys tied to their chairs. Neither moved, like they were frozen.

Rafe looked at me. "These guys are from my pack. Two of our older warriors that were now out of service," he paused. "They are both dead. And their animals are gone as well. I have no idea how they ended up here."

I thought of the emails that I had seen upstairs. Is this what was going on here? They were stealing the animals and the lifeforce of shifters in the process? But why?

None of this made sense. I needed to find more information. Before I made my way back up though, I saw one final cell that was still closed. I looked inside and there was a tall, muscly guy tied to a chair like the rest. He must have been in his late 50s or so. His head was hanging above his chest and I couldn't figure out whether he was dead or alive.

I walked in as fast as I could and went straight to check his pulse. It was faint but it was still there. I wasn't sure if his animal was still there or not but he was alive, so we needed to help him.

"Don't worry, you are okay now. Help is here," I tried to reassure him, even if I was not sure whether he could hear me.

I kneeled behind him, trying to get his restraints off. His hands were held together with simple cable ties, even if they were so tight that they were digging into his skin, but I was surprised that they had managed to restrain a shifter with those. They must have drugged him or his animal was indeed gone.

As I cut the ties with the knife that was strapped to my leg, I gasped and froze in my tracks. Right there in front of me, peeking from underneath his clothes, was an eagle tattoo that was clearly visible on his wrist. I lifted his sleeve to make sure that there was no mistake and indeed my fears were confirmed. This was the guy who took my family away. Who took my wolf away. The guy who robbed me of everything. Whenever I closed my eyes I could still see his hand reach for me.

A conflict was brewing inside me as I suddenly had doubts whether to help him or leave him to rot in the cell. It would only be fair, right?

For some reason though I wondered what my mother would have done, the great Alpha Moreau. I didn't know how but I had been told enough stories by now to know that she wouldn't leave anyone to die like that. To be honest, nor would I- that was simply not me, no matter how much pain he had caused Lucien and me. Besides, we needed answers and only he could give those to us.

The door to the cell opened wider as I made up my mind, and Rafe walked in.

"Riley, we need to go.....Wait, what is John doing here?"

"You know this man?"I asked him, shocked.

"Of course. He is from my pack. He....." Rafe paused like he was trying to decide what to tell me, "he is one of my dad's enforcers."

I was speechless. I couldn't believe what I just found out- my parents' murder was an enforcer for Angus Macalister? He worked for the father of my supposed mate. He was part of his pack.

"I don't get how he had ended up here though. Last time I saw him was at the party and when Natalia went missing, my dad didn't mention anything about missing pack members. Unless..." he paused for a second, "unless my dad sent him and the other two guys to rescue Natalia. It would explain why he seemed completely disinterested in doing anything about it- he already had men on it, the bastard. But how did he know where she was?"

"Rafe, when we were upstairs, I came across a laptop with messages from the guy who seems to be behind this. He was talking about teaching your dad a lesson."

"Wait, what are you implying, Moreau?" I winced at his harsh tone. I knew he was not going to like what I was about to tell him but it didn't change the facts.

"What if your father knew about this place and the people behind it, Rafe?"

"That's not possible," he hissed. "My father is a bastard but this is where my mother and I had been kept, where she lost her life. There is no way he could have known about the location or the scumbags who operated here."

"Rafe, your mother had her wolf taken away, no? And these people are still clearly doing it to this day, some 17 years later. The fact that they wanted to teach your father a lesson and that's why they took Natalia should tell you that there is some sort of a link." I took a deep breath before I continued. "There is more."

"What do you mean?" I hesitated whether to tell him but if he really was my mate, he would trust me, I guess. "Tell me, Riley!"

"My wolf, I lost her when someone tried to extract her out of me on the night when my parents died." His eyes flashed yellow and he growled angrily, so I knew that his wolf was angry about what had happened to mine. "Clearly what happened to me is linked to whatever the person behind all of this is doing. But that night, the person that killed my parents and tried to kill me by killing my wolf had an eagle tattoo on his wrist, one that is etched in my memories."

I raised John's arm, exposing the eagle tattoo to Rafe. "This was the tattoo, Rafe. This was the man. The same man that I saw at your father's birthday party. I have absolutely no doubt that this man is the reason why I lost my parents and my wolf. And I remember him clearly talking to his accomplice about following the Alpha's orders."

He stood there completely still, no witty or angry response coming out of him.

"Rafe...."

"So you are saying that my father's enforcer is responsible for the death of the Alpha and the Beta of the Blackwood pack and for the fact that you no longer have a wolf? And he did that under my father's orders? Not only that, but he extracted your wolf in the same way that these bastards extracted my mother's wolf and that they seem to still be doing to other shifters?"

"Rafe, I know this is a lot to take in. I am only starting to put the pieces together now. And there was more information upstairs but this is not the place-"

"Enough! Enough, Riley." He cut me off angrily but it would take more than that to shut me up.

"Listen, I get that you are hurting and this is only making this worse. I can promise you though, I am not making any of this up. You want answers? So do I. The only way we can get them is either through your dad or this man," I pointed at the unconscious enforcer. "Help me get those answers. For you, for me, for Nat, for my brother....." I looked him straight in the eyes with my pleading face. "Please, Rafe - I need your help."

After what seemed like the longest minute of my life, he finally spoke up. "Fine. But we do this under my terms. He is a member of my pack and if he is really guilty of the things you mentioned, I have to determine what his fate will be. Same goes for my father."

I couldn't believe that he was going to help. Did he believe me? Or maybe he felt obliged because I was his mate? Right now, I didn't really care about his reasons. I knew that I was finally going to have some answers. "Okay."

"We will take him to a remote cabin that I own back home and we will interrogate him there. No one can know about this, Riley- not even Lucien. Only you, me and Aiden will know his whereabouts and only we get to interrogate him. Understood?"

I nodded in agreement.

"Good. Now we need to get him and the rest out of here. James and Natalia must already be at the van and Callum called people who will take care of this mess, making sure that no one finds out what happened here."

"We need to convene the Council when we get back to Scotland," I added." Aiden and I have come across some disturbing information that will impact everyone and I do mean everyone- shifters of different kinds all over the world. This guy- Mr X- he is planning something big, Rafe, something that will turn shifters into a distant memory."

"Fucking great! Can this day get any better?" he grumbled as he made his way to John and wrapped the enforcer's arm around his shoulder to carry him.

"Wait. Let me help." I did the same as Rafe with his other arm and we began carrying John out of the cell.