Axton POV

I pull away from the kiss to find us both panting from lack of air. I hadn't planned on ambushing her like this, but the second I saw her, I just needed to kiss her.

Resting my head against hers, I stare into her deep eyes, "Sorry."

She gives me a light smile, "It's okay."

We stay there for a few moments, my hands on her waist as hers rest against my chest. We just stand there looking at each other. For a moment, it is as if time has frozen still and we are just us.

My gaze wanders down to her mark and the scar lying across it. As if she can sense my anger and curiosity for what happened, she lifts her hand off my chest and places it on the mark to cover the scar before pulling away from me and moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

"We need to talk," she starts, taking the words right out of my mouth.

"How did you get the scar?" I ask first.

"The same place I get all my scars," she mumbles, looking anywhere but me as I take a seat next to her.

Trying to hold back my wolf from scaring her, I pull Ellie's hands into mine in order to get her to face me, but she keeps her head down, "How?" is the only word I ask her.

"I don't think you want to hear this, Axton."

"I don't think I want to either," I say, "But I have to."

Nodding her head a little bit, she raises her eyes to look me in the eye as she starts, "When I first left, all I did was keep running. I was terrified about you coming after me to kill us," I growl at the insinuation, but she gives me a look and keeps going, "I was so focused on making sure I wasn't being tracked, I didn't focus on where I was going."

She takes a deep breath as if to prepare herself, like she is breaking the glass of a box that says shatter in case of emergency, "I crossed into a rogue's territory. The moment I crossed, I was taken. He didn't like strangers coming into the territory since he had started his plans to take down the packs. He put me in the cells where I was to wait for a hearing to decide if I was good enough to live or not. When he interrogated me, he saw my mark. He knew I was the mate of an alpha, and with his obsession to destroy the packs, he thought I could be used as leverage. He was wrong."

"What do you mean?" I ask softly.

"He wanted to know who my mate was, which pack I had come from. But no matter what he did, I wouldn't tell him. He spent three months torturing me to try and get me to confess, but I wouldn't do it. Even when he... when he started kidnapping pack members."

"What?" I almost scream. How did I not know about other missing pack members?

"He thought if he could kidnap members from each pack, at least one of them would recognize me and know where I belonged, but none of them did. So, he killed them. Slaughtered them all right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do about it. Until I escaped," she says, raising her hand to rub her mark again, "The scar on my mark is from the first time I refused to tell him about you. You used a silver knife coated in wolf blood. It was spelled by the warlock he had with him, so even though it was used on the mark, it wouldn't heal without leaving a reminder."

"Ellie-" I start to say, but she cut me off when she abruptly stands up.

"You know, that's how I knew it was you," she says, turning to face me with not just pain on her face but anger too.

"What do you mean?" I ask her as I stand up to move in front of her.

"I mean that he scarred my mark, your mark. If it wasn't truly you the night that you rejected me, then you would have felt it. You would have known how much pain I was in and you would have come," she whispers the last part, her eyes drawing to the ground for a moment before lifting them back up to mine, "Every day I would tell myself and my wolf that you knew, that you could feel it and you were coming, but you never did. I don't know the exact day it was, but after so long, I just accepted it. You had rejected me, and if you were coming for me, it wasn't to save my life. It was to end it."

Grabbing her face in my hands, I pull us close together so she will focus solely on my words, "I swear on my life, I will never, ever hurt you. I don't know who or how we had been separated, but I swear to you that I will find out who tried to destroy our mate bond and I will end their life for it."

"Don't make promises you won't keep, Axton," she whispers.

I lift her head higher as I move closer to her, "I promise."

*****

We just stay there, staring at each other. Neither one of us willing to move a muscle, until Zea knocks on the door, asking for Ellie to help her with her dress for tonight.

After Ellie leaves the room, I just collapse back onto the bed.

How could I have not known? How could I not feel the pain she had been going through?

Is mate mad that we couldn't feel her? Knox asks.

I don't know, I tell him, I think she is disappointed that we didn't know. We should have known.

Kill him. No rogue gets to hurt my mate, Knox growls at me.

I plan on it, I tell him before changing real quick and heading downstairs to my office, linking Walker and Reid to meet me there.

"What's going on?" Walker asks the second they both walk in.

"Ellie told me about a group of rogues who started kidnapping pack members from different packs," I start, but Reid beats me to the punch.

"The ones who were chasing her after she had escaped them," he says as a statement more than a question, like he knows the answer.

I give him a look of disapproval, still angry about him keeping her a secret for so many years, but I nod my head anyways.

"Wait, so Ellie was taken by rogues, not rejected by you?" Walker asks.

"I never rejected her," I growl out, my wolf nor I liking the insinuation.

"Yes and no," Reid tells him, "Ellie left because of Axton, but when she was on the run, she got caught up with a group of rogues."

"Did she tell you what they did, or who they are?" I ask him.

He shakes his head, "No, when I caught up with her, she had already escaped and was on the run from them as well. That's what gave me the last straw to get her to come here. She was six months pregnant and if rogues were after her, this pack was her safest place," he says, "I tried getting her to tell me the name of the rogues, but she wouldn't budge. She kept telling me on the way here that she would only talk to you, but as you know, that didn't happen."

"Wait," Walker speaks up, "Ellie said these rogues were kidnapping other packs members?"

I nod my head in response, so he continues, "I remember reports about six or seven years ago about missing pack members that were never found."

"What?" I growl, "Why didn't I know?"

"Well, we were all deep in the search for Ellie. We weren't exactly in the right head space to go looking for a different pack's missing member when we were searching for our Luna. The other packs didn't ask us for help. They just sent us the information," Walker tells me.

"Alright, Walker dig out those reports. I want to read all of them. Reid, call up some of the alphas from seven years ago and see what they remember or if they had any clues about their missing members or the rogues that took them."

Once the orders are given, both of them leave my office.

"Daddy!" Zea screams as she comes running in after the guys left. She is bouncing up and down as she grips my hand tightly, trying to pull me with her, "Come on."

I get up quickly as I let her lead me to wherever it is she wants to go, "Where are we going, sweetheart?"

"To get mommy, so we can go to the party."

I laugh at her over eagerness but follow her to the staircase anyway. But we don't head up the stairs, since Ellie is already on her way down. Ellie's wavy hair cascades down her back as her blue dress hugs every curve on her body, "You look beautiful."

She smiles as a tinge of blush touches her cheeks. I love that even with everything that is going on with us, through everything she had been through and every lie that we had both believed for long, I can still make her blush by saying the smallest things. I can still affect her in the same way she affects me every time she walks into a room.

"Thank you, Axton."

"Let's go," Zea tugs again before leaving us completely to grab her shoes.

Ellie loops her hand through my awaiting arm as we all walk out the door with Zea running ahead of us.

"How is Knox doing after I told you about the torture?" Ellie asks.

"He's furious as I am," I tell her.

"You both always were the overprotective type," she comments gently, "I guess that's why I never understood why you would say you wanted me and Zea dead. It never made sense."

"Ellie, I promise you that it wasn't me, and I'm going to prove it."

"Well then, what's the running theory so far?" she asks, hesitant to fully put her faith in me yet.

"They had to hide the mate bond, make it feel like it was broken. The only creatures able to do that are warlocks."

"Why would a warlock care about what happens between two wolf mates?" she asks me.

"I don't know. When I find out who the warlock is, I will ask him right before I kill him," I growl out.

The conversation dies slightly as Zea starts running around us in a circle as we continue to walk.

"I've missed this place," Ellie says lightly as she looks out into the trees and the park, a smile gracing her captivating features, "I'll miss it again when we go."

"What?" I pull her to a halt, "You aren't going anywhere and neither is Zea. This is where you belong."

"As much as you believe that and I want that to be true, I don't know if that's what fate has in mind," she says.

"What are you talking about?" I ask her, "What aren't you telling me?"

"I didn't tell you everything about what happened seven years ago," she start, "There is a different reason why the rogues attacked Blue Moon than just territory. It's why I shouldn't stay here. The rogue-"

Her voice is cut off by a scream through the pack link as a siren from the border goes off. I look at Ellie as she picks Zea up into her arms, "Take Zea to the pack house. Make sure all the children are in the bunker and seal yourselves inside. Go," I tell her.

She gives me a longing, determined look as she grips my arm before saying, "Be careful, Axton, and come back."

She lets go of my arm and runs while carrying Zea towards the pack house as I take off towards my warriors and the pack border.

We are under attack.