Logan watched in utter disbelief as the rest of the Head Wolves stood up from the foyer chairs and stood behind Elias in support. He looked into all the faces of the men behind Elias—some of whom he had helped at one point or the other in their lives— and for the first time ever, the hope in his heart died. What was the use of trying to protect people who would turn on him the moment they heard a scandal?

Within two days that he had been away, Elias had managed to gather the majority of the Council to his side, to poison the hearts of the pack members against him. Logan knew that Elias was a very dim-witted man, but he almost admired the man's courage and smartness at this point. Only a smart man could manage to do that within the space of a few short days.

"We, the people of this pack have come to a conclusion that having you as alpha will only do us more harm than good in the long run." Elias said, his face lit up in a confident smirk. "We urge you to step down, Alpha, and to do so very quickly."

"I have only been gone a day or two, Elias, and you have managed to leak out secret information that i specifically told you all not to tell the pack." Logan said, his voice laced with anger. "You did it to poison the hearts of the people against me, did you not? You did it because you are so power hungry that you did not even stop to care about the problems this will bring in the long run. You should be ashamed of yourself, Elias. You are not worthy to be called a Head Wolf." 

Elias chuckled, the sound dry and without humour "All these are the words of a man scared of being defeated. And of course, I am not worthy of being a Head Wolf because I am much more than that. I... we all are worth much more than receiving orders from a man who is descended from rogues. The rogues are barbaric, disgusting creatures who should not even be given the luxury of being regarded as Lycans, and you are one of them, no matter how hard you try to deny it, Logan. You are a rogue wolf because your mother was one."

Ignoring the pain he felt inside his chest, Logan opened his mouth to utter a reply but Elias did not even give him that luxury. "Have a good day, Alpha." He said bitterly, the last word ranged with something that sounded like mockery. Then walked off with the other Head Wolves behind him.

Logan turned and watched in amazement at their retreating backs. Of all the people he had thought would do this to him, he hadn't expected it to be the Head Wolves. A lump of emotion formed in his throat and he struggled to swallow past it. He felt betrayal, of course. But he also felt scared, and heartbroken. His people had deserted him faster than he could even save them from their true enemies.

It was as though Elias was waiting for the right time to make his move; bidding his time while pretending to obey all of Logan's instructions. The moment Logan had left the pack, he had seized the opportunity to strike.

I should have left Casper in the pack, he thought.

He turned his back to the Head Wolves and slowly walked back to his room, thinking about how things could change in the space of a few moments. In less than a minute, he had imprinted on his mate, even when he had had no interest in mating or continuing his bloodline. It had taken him only a few moments of watching Aella dance with another man on Louve's wedding for him to realise that he was scared of losing her, scared of a life without her in it. Now in only two days of being away from home, it seemed as though his life was coming apart at the seams. Familiar things were no longer as familiar and everything was changing faster than he could catch up with.

What if I am kicked out of my ancestral home, he thought. His mind went to his invalid father and he thought of the possibility of moving him away from that room. How would he take care of a man who could not even move around like every other normal person? How would he, much less, take care of his own mate?

Deep down, buried underneath all the sadness and hopelessness he felt, was a feeling of rage. All he had ever done for this pack was try to protect it, and the people did not hesitate to turn on him the moment they found out something about his mother that had nothing to do with him in the first place.

He had taken on the mantle of leadership at a very tender age of fifteen, and even though he had been the least qualified for it, even though he had only gotten the post of alpha because his father was the former alpha, he had led the pack to the best of his ability. He had sacrificed a lot of things, including a social or romantic life, for this pack. All for what, a couple of knives in his back?

He got to his room and slowly opened the door. He looked around, slightly happy that Aella had still not come back into it. He shuffled over to the bed and collapsed on it, allowing his conflicting emotions to wash over him like a wave. 

Somewhere in the middle of all his thinking, he dozed off into a light sleep. He was still on the edges of consciousness as he could hear movement and murmuring around him but he was too tired and too detached to react to the movements. He did not want to open his eyes and have to deal with or talk to whoever was moving around. He just wanted to float around in his dreams with no care in the world.

It wasn't until he felt a pair of warm hands cup his face that he reluctantly pried open his eyes and looked up. The person turned out to be Aella, staring down at him worriedly. A curtain of black hair framed her face and her forehead was creased in a concerned frown.

He gently pushed her off him and sat up. Aella sat beside him and looked into his eyes the way only her could. She seemed to stare right into his soul, her big brown eyes burning into his green ones with intensity.

And before he could control it, Logan felt the tears well up in his eyes. The first of them dropped from his eyes and down his cheeks.

"Oh, baby..." Aella murmured and raised her hand to wipe away the falling tears. He leaned forward till his head was on her chest and let out all his emotions. Huge, wracking sobs escaped from his lips and his tears stained the silky white material of Aella's dress. For once in his life, he didn't want to feel strong. He wanted to bare out his soul in a scream of anguish.