Hybrid Aria 1-4

Damien’s POV

Waking up the next morning to Max screaming through the mind-Link. They had a sighting of Kade Barclay near the eastern forest. Jumping out of bed, Lily stirred before I watched her sapphire and amber eyes flutter open and look up at me. “What’s wrong?” She asks.

“Nothing, go back to sleep” I tell her, Darian growling in my head wanting to take over. Pushing him back, I grab some shorts. When I come back out, Lily is getting out of bed.

“No, go back to sleep,”

“I want to come, something has you on edge. Tell me what’s going on Damien,”

“Nothing you need to worry about, I will be back soon” I tell her despite her protests. I manage to escape the house without her, feeling a little uneasy about not telling her. Lily hated secrets but she was under enough pressure. I didn’t want her to worry, besides, it is my job to protect her and the Pack and I wouldn’t be letting her anywhere near Kade. She was safer at the Pack surrounded by our warriors.

If I told her she would demand to come, and I really didn’t feel like arguing with her right now when we were sort of okay at the moment. I meet up with Max, who is waiting out the front beside my car.

He goes to speak when I raise my hand, telling him to be quiet. Looking up at the bedroom as I climb in my car, I see Lily watching from the window. I knew she would be listening.

“Where to?” I tell him when I jam the keys in the ignition.

“The nature reserve, forty Kilometres East of the pack, scouts were searching the area and came across a camp” In a dust of smoke we tore out of the driveway heading to the front gates. The gates open as soon as the border patrols see my car heading towards them. Beckett waiting next to the gate stops me and I lower the window.

“What’s up?” I ask him. He wasn’t rostered today, but since we lost three of our men, he has refused to have a day off and has been tightening the border patrols.

“I want to come” Looking at his outfit, I see he is only wearing a loose-fitting pair of shorts and a singlet instead of his armour.

“Come on Alpha, you know I am the best tracker, I can help” He pleads. My pack members have been on edge wanting revenge for their fallen members. One of the men that were killed was Beckett’s older brother, and I knew he wanted revenge for his death.

“Get in” Beckett jumps in the back and we head to the reserve, Max tries and fails to contact the scouts. I tried to force the link when suddenly I felt the first one drop. His teether snapping, the pack link breaking, and I pressed my foot down on the pedal harder. I nearly lost control of the car when I felt three more of my scouts’ links break.

Growling through the pain and I wondered if Lily felt it. My white-knuckled hands clutched the steering wheel as pain from my fallen pack members racked my body, then feeling their mate’s agony flood into me.

The only downfall of being an alpha, is the link I share with my entire pack. It can become a distraction or a curse when you have to feel your pack members die, feel their last moments on this earth, then feel the heartache of their loved ones grieving them.

Max looked at me. I had sweat beading on my forehead and ran down the back of my neck.

“You okay, Alpha?” I couldn’t answer as I felt another drop, the last one. Instead growling as Darian fought for control.

“I have tried to get hold of them; none are answering the pack link” Beckett said from the back seat.

“That’s because they’re dead” I tell him, and I see Max’s body start shaking at my words.

“Don’t you fucking shift in my car” I warn him. Hair spread across his arms as he fought for control. The car skidded to a stop at the back of the bush reserve. The normal half an hour’s drive is done in ten minutes. As soon as Max and Beckett open the doors, they shift. Their wolves taking over. This time last year this reserve was under water from torrential rain and flooding. This year it has been dryer and now the place is flourishing.

The only problem with the dryer weather change is the worry of bushfires, as this Nature reserve isn’t far from the forest around the Pack. I hadn’t been out here in months, not usually leaving the pack unless called for, never had much reason to come out except on pack runs. Even those we usually stuck to the forest around the Pack, safer in numbers and not as far for me to run if the pack came under attack while out running.

The nature reserve was eerily quiet, I couldn’t even hear birds or insects, which is a good sign wolves have been around or still are around the area. That wasn’t also the only thing I noticed, it was the smell of blood and lots of it as the wind changed direction. Beckett, noticing it straight away drops his head and sniffs the ground before taking off into the bush. Max and I close on his tail.

We ran for about five minutes when I heard Beckett growl before lunging at something. Running into the small clearing, the first thing I notice is the campfire that had recently been extinguished, still smouldering. Bodies of my five pack members ripped to pieces strewn across the camp had me seeing red. Darian comes forward, taking over while I take the backseat in our head.

Hearing a noise, he follows it before we stumble across an injured rogue. His sandy blonde hair matted in blood and he was slowly bleeding out. His wrist hanging at the wrong angle, he must have shifted to see if he could heal faster.

The rogue was way too gone and would die from the injuries sustained; no wolf could heal that quickly. He looks up as Darian advances and I see Beckett go to lunge at him, fury taking over at the scene we just came across. They strung one scout up in a tree and had his heart ripped out. The idea of having to take his body back to his parents like that was eating at me, Peter was only seventeen and jumped at the chance to scout the area.

If I had known they would actually come across something out here, I would have sent him elsewhere, but this area is usually deserted. Only a few farms out here and the bush reserve and a little further up the wetlands. Nothing for Miles, so I considered it a safe place for the younger ones to get some training.

“Don’t kill him, he is already dying, and we need information” I mind link Beckett before shifting and crouching in front of him.

The rogue looked up, a smirk on his face as he tried to hide the fear I could see in his eyes. He knew he was dying so I doubt I would get any information from him, but I still needed to try.

“Where is Kade?” The rogue chuckles before spitting blood at me.

“Fuck you” He spits at me. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen. Such a shame to see a rogue so young. Most eighteen-year-olds had the safety of a pack, so it made me wonder what he did to become a rogue.

“You don’t have long left; do you want to spend those few minutes in more agony? Tell me and I will make it quick,”

He doesn’t answer, I raise my hand letting my claws extend and wriggling them, just before I plunge them in his stomach he flinches. “Wait,” He says, and I drop my hand.

“Where is Kade?” I ask again. Beckett and Max growling behind me.

“I’m surprised you left your pack. We knew your scouts were tracking us. I didn’t think you would fall for it, come all the way out here leaving your pack without its Alpha,”

“Stop spilling nonsense and tell me where he is” I growl at him. He smiles and I see his wolf come forward, his eyes turning black and a sadistic smile on his face going from ear to ear.

“Kade isn’t the one you should be worried about right now, he is watching. Waiting. Bidding his time” Beckett and Max’s eyes darting between the trees looking for any sign of him. My eyes not leaving his.

I plunge my hand into his stomach, and he screams in pain, blood dribbling from his mouth and down his chin before he regains himself and smiles again like a lunatic.

“If you’re here, who is protecting your precious Luna?” He says before laughing. My heart pounds in my chest at his words.

“Lily” I whisper. Her name got stuck in my throat. Spinning around, I look at Beckett and Max.

“Get to the pack it was a fucking trap” I scream to them, they look at me before taking off. Turning back to the rogue, he was nearly dead, his breathing shallow.

“What are they planning?” I tell him, shaking him trying to get him to answer. He chuckles and coughs on his blood.

“Estella said to tell you she said Hi” I plunged my hand in his chest and watched as he died before shifting and heading back to the car. I could feel eyes on me and knew Kade was close, but right now I needed to get to the pack. Getting back to Lily, driving at full speed I slow down and stop when I catch up to Beckett and Max they quickly jump in my car.

We had been driving for a few minutes when I saw something in the middle of the road. We were only a few minutes out with my driving from the Pack and so far, I couldn’t feel any distress indicating trouble with the Pack. More figures dart onto the road, but I have no intention of stopping as I plough through them, when suddenly I hear a loud popping noise and feel the car lose control and head into a ditch. It throws Max through the windscreen and Beckett slams into the dash. My head smashing into the steering wheel as the car crashes into a tree in the ditch.

Groaning, I look up and see wolves surrounding us.