And as the alpha-mate of Torma, it was even more important that we ensured the safety of one of our pack. Torin was going to be furious when he found out about this, and I sure as fuck wasn’t about to keep it from him when he had a ton more resources to help track her down.

“We had to protect her place in the pack,” Mika said, still making excuses as tears trailed down her cheeks. “I never thought she would leave the pack without permission, but she did. We played it off as a vacation so that she wouldn’t be punished upon return. Thankfully, Torin is much more accepting than Victor, and he’s just allowed us to update him without pushing to speak with her himself.”

Accepting or lazy. The jury was still out on that fuckhea… alpha whose help I needed. “We have to tell him now.” My tone made it clear that if they argued with me about this, I was going to bring the full force of Torma down on them. “She’s been missing for too long. If anything has happened to her…”

If I hadn’t had my memories stolen from me, I would have been onto this shit weeks ago. My anger and frustration over what happened had reached a crescendo, exploding in growls and curse words. To say I was pissed was an understatement. I’d woken up in my underwear, in the bed of a man I detested, with no memory of how I’d gotten there or the weeks that had passed since my first change. I’d woken to find that someone had messed with me in the most terrible of ways, a true abuse of power, and now it seemed that Simone was involved as well. Maybe hurt—or worse—because of me…

I was finally seeing the bigger picture. “I get it now,” I said slowly. “It’s all finally starting to make sense.”

The Lewisons were understandably confused.

“I’ve been furious since I woke up,” I explained further, “and no matter how much Jaxson and Sisily and everyone else in the damn pack tell me that I should just let it all go and enjoy being alpha-mate, the truth is, I feel like I was completely violated. My life stolen from me. My best friend stolen from me, so I would have no choice but to rely on Torin.”

Mika stepped closer. “No, Mera. You cannot think that Torin would ever act inappropriately toward you; he’s been nothing but a gentleman.”

I nodded. “Uh-huh, sure. Just like the time he rejected me and then fucked Sisily in front of me. A true, true gentleman, that one.”

Wow, the silence was so awkward that even I wondered if I’d gone too far.

“Let’s focus on Simone,” Mika finally said. “She’s our priority.”