Logan could feel a headache coming, as sure as thunder on a rainy night. He gripped his head and squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to let the tears of frustration drop from his eyes in the presence of his beta.

He heard the crackle of dead leaves as Casper walked towards him and a suppressed grunt as the other man sat beside him. He didn't look up or acknowledge his presence in any way. All he wanted to do was lie on the forest floor and never open his eyes again.

He was exhausted in his body and mind. He was heartbroken at the deaths of his people, at the back and forth he had been having with his mate, at all the questions that were lodged in his mind and needed urgent answers. 

"Hey, Logan." Casper called quietly. "I have dismissed the patrol team so you can open your eyes now."

Logan didn't budge or make any indication that he had heard Capser talk. He thought of the members of the patrol team that had seen him take out his anger on a nearby tree. That action had been weak and stupidly impulsive. What would the patrol members think, that their leader had lost his marbles?

He began to chuckle almost quietly as Casper waited for his response. "What do you think they'll tell the other pack members, Casper?" He said in between chuckles. "They sure won't keep their mouths shut about this. Soon the whole pack would be buzzing with news about how weak their alpha is."

"I'm sure they would not dare say anything." Casper replied reasonably. "Their loyalty lies first and foremost to you. They would not even think of doing anything to jeopardize that. And if there is anyone who plans to spread slander about you, he will lose his tongue before he can even open his mouth to say anything. I can assure you of that."

"They don't have to say anything, Casper. They can all see it. I'm sure you can see it too. We will all be wiped out as long as I am alpha. And the most painful part is that I don't even know how to stop it. I don't know what to do. I'm bereft of ideas. My people are dying under my nose and all I can do is sit on my hands. At this point I just want to lie down and never stand up again."

"Don't say that, Logan." Casper replied. "You are the best alpha to happen to this pack. I can assure you of that, and the people know it too. I want you to cheer up, Logan. This is not the end, only a beginning."

Logan scoffed. "Yeah, the beginning of doom."

He heard Casper sigh at his words and raised himself from the forest floor, looking at his beta with eyes full of self-pity. Casper was one of the few people he could bare his mind to without reproach

"Casper, I'm scared. I really am." He confessed. "I don't know what to do. Everytime it seems like I'm getting a lead on something, something that would finally put an end to these killings, but the sooner I find something, the faster it would slip from my fingers. I remember when we found Aella at the border and I thought we had finally captured a spy and I could get her to spill her secrets, but the Goddess' decided to mate me with her. Then we captured the rogue wolf and I thought that we had gotten our answer. Then the library and now these useless wolf prints. I am confused, Casper. I don't know what to do."

"We could still try getting information from the wolf we captured, right?" Casper asked. "I mean, that's viable enough, yeah?"

Logan did not even spare a reply to that. Instead he thought about Aella and his mind flashed back to what she had told him about herself, a few weeks back when she had been attacked in the gardens. She had said that her parents had been murdered and that the murderer was after her life. He felt that she was saying the truth, but also felt that she was holding back.

Sometimes he thought that he knew all about her, and other times he thought that he knew next to nothing. She had appeared suddenly in his life and the Goddess' had decide dto mate them together and so he was stuck with her for life. She drove him crazy. It was funny how admist all of it, he still loved her deep down. He knew that something was off about her but he still loved her. It felt as though he was betraying his people by doing that.

Why would she not tell him about her past? Why was she hiding secrets from him? It was conflicting, frustrating and annoying as hell. They were mates, for goodness sake! How would he be so ignorant of his partner's past or anything about her for that matter? 

The few things he knew about her were things that happened to her after she was found at his border, or those she had let slip after she was attacked in the pack house garden. 

He let out one long groan and lifted himself from the floor, dusting his body free of the dead leaves and twigs that was on it. "Let's go back to the pack house, Casper. Moping around among dead leaves won't do anything to help our moods."

Casper sighed and followed his alpha up. "That's what I have been saying since, but if you say so Alpha."

The two of them walked towards the pack house in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Logan could still not shake the feeling of fear that permeated his heart. However, he had decided to do something instead of moping around about it. He didn't yet know what to do though. All he could do now was hope that the Goddess blessed him with answers.

"Casper, I found out something very strange. It has been tugging at my mind for several days now." He began. Casper looked at him with questions in his eyes. 

"What's wrong? What happened?" Casper asked. 

"I..." Logan hesitated. He wasn't sure if he should share such information with anybody until he had gotten to the root of the matter and figured out the truth, but then this was Casper; a man who had been with him through thick and thin, who had seen him at his highest and equally at his lowest. He could not hide anything from his beta.

"Promise me you would not tell anyone." Logan whispered.

"I promise, Logan." Casper replied "Now what is it?'

"You know that tattoo I found on the neck of the rogue wolf we captured? Well, guess what? I saw the same tattoo on my mother's wrist, on one of her old pictures."

Casper opened his mouth in shock. "Well, that's surprising."

"It was to me too. I found it on the rogue, on my mother, and...and–"

"And on who?" Casper urged. 

"And on Aella's shoulder."

Casper stopped walking suddenly and looked at Logan with a shocked face. "No way! So you're saying..."

"What I'm saying is that the tattoo points to the fact that my mother, the rogue wolf and my mate are probably somehow connected. Maybe by blood, maybe through a pack, I don't know. But they could belong to the same pack that the rogue wolf came from."

"Well, that's certainly news. So what are you going to do now?"

Logan looked up at the morning sky, letting the warm breeze wash over him. "I don't know, Casper. I don't know."