Alpha Markus
Chapter 50

Celeste P.O.V.

“Are you ready for this Tuli?” Markus asked.

I took a deep steadying breath and nodded, grabbing the key and unlocking the door. It opened to about 10 different regular sized deposit boxes. I grabbed the first one and brought it out onto the table. Markus grabbed the second and placed it next to it and so we went until we’d gotten all 10 boxes onto the table.

I opened the first one. It had a bunch of pictures of my parents and myself. I looked through them with Markus’ chin on my shoulder. There were about 100 pictures and a usb drive stick, which I hoped would have more saved on it.

The second box had a pretty basic Last Will and Testament where they left everything to me. There were a few more deeds in my name and a couple still in my parent’s names, along with car titles and other documents.

“We can drop the Will and all the titles and deeds to my attorneys before we head home so they can start transferring everything over to you,” Markus said as he piled things into categories.

There were two deposit boxes full of jewelry. We decided to keep most of it in the deposit boxes for now, but I took a set of sapphire jewelry that would compliment my eyes and some amber items that I thought I might be able to wear for the ceremony.

The next 4 boxes had what looked to be formal and ceremonial dresses. They were beautiful and each looked to be hand made. Intricate delicate stitches decorated some parts of each dress with Aztec symbols. They looked old, but new at the same time. Almost as if they were magic.

Only one of the dresses didn’t look like it belonged with the theme of the other dresses. It was a light yellow bohemian style halter dress. Light fabric under handmade lace. It had some brown beading dangling curtain style in the torso. The fabric ended around the knee level, but the lace fabric continued down to cover the legs. Something about it called to me when Markus pulled it out and I just had to touch it. I felt my body push backwards the moment I did. I saw a younger version of my father. Curly hair, blue eyes, and soft smile in loose khaki slacks and a light button shirt with the top 4 buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up talking to a young version of Lucian when a younger version of my mother comes out in the dress I’m holding from a place called Cantina de la Loba. I saw as my father’s head suddenly turned upwards, smelling the air. He turned and I saw the moment their eyes connected. “Mate” his eyes glowed as he approached my mother. I looked up and saw a full blue moon in the sky.

I jerked forward again to the present, where Markus was looking at me with his head c****d, “What did I just see?” He asked.

I smiled, “I think that was the moment my parents found each other.” A sudden thought occurred to me.

“Did you see the vision I had during Lucian’s funeral?”

He looked at me funny, “I saw something. It wasn’t clear though. It was like I was looking at it through a fog. I just saw figures running and heard laughter. I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought I imagined it.”

“Hmm…must be because you were only just starting to share that gift with me. This one was clear?” He nodded.

“I wonder if we’ll always have the same visions or if you will have different ones or if we need to be touching/together for them to be shared.”

“Not sure how you would test that. You can’t control when they come, can you?” He asked. I shook my head, “We will just have to wait and see, I guess.”

I nodded and added the dress to the take pile.

Two boxes left. I opened one of them. I gasped. “I remember this dress. I used to see it in her closet all the time. She told me it would be mine when I grew up,” I said, as I gently touched the shimmery beaded fabric. I didn’t need to take it out. I knew what it was. It was something I thought was long lost. I grinned at Markus, “Looks like I don’t have to go shopping tomorrow after all,” He laughed at me and shook his head. I took the dress out of the box and passed it over. As he took it, a letter fell out from within the folded cloth. It just said “Celeste” on the outside of it. I held it in my hands.

“Are you going to open it?” He asked. I shook my head, “I don’t think this is the time. I will open it the day of the ceremony,” I said, and put it on top of the dress.

One box left. I opened and saw a really old looking document. On top of it was a pendant. It was made of beautiful solid obsidian stone. It was round and had a lot of symbols on it. There was rose gold filigree attached to the top, bottom, left and right sides of the round pendant as if holding it together. A single fire opal in the middle shone brightly. It was beautiful and magical.

“That looks like the Aztec Calendar,” Markus said, coming over and taking it from my hands to inspect it more closely. The amulet seemed to respond to him, the fire opal shining more brightly.

“It looks like it’s chosen its owner,” I said. He looked confused but added it to the take pile.

I pulled out the parchment paper, “It’s a family tree,” I mused. Markus took a good look at it and his eyes widened.

“That’s your mother’s family tree. Look at this…it seems to follow the matriarchs. All of the females. Celeste, I think this is the tree that documents all of the females with the b***d lines. All of the gifts. Look. The males are noted, but not followed. There’s only a name to them unless a woman was born to them. But see, the women all have dates of birth and death as there’s little symbols underneath them.”

I looked at it more closely, “Half of these women died so young. Not even past 20 for some. Many didn’t even replace their mate before they died,” I whispered, my stomach sinking.

He took the tree and put it down on the take pile and wrapped his arms around me, “That won’t be you. We will never let anything happen to you,” he said as he held me tight to his chest. I sighed and let him hold me in silence. After a few minutes, he pulled back chuckling as my stomach growled, “I’ll go get us a box for the take pile, why don’t you start putting the rest of the stuff back and we can go drop off the documents to the attorney and then I’m taking you to lunch.”

“I’m paying remember?” I yelled after him as he left the deposit box room and I took all the boxes with the items we weren’t taking with us and placing it back in the box locker. I was locking it when Markus came in and we went on our way. Mr. Ronin gushing after us the entire time.

We then dropped the documents at Markus’ attorney’s office. We were just parking near a little restaurant called Bailey’s Diner when the phone rang through the truck’s speakers.

“Hey Gillian, What’s up?” Markus answered.

“Alpha, someone took her. I’m sorry. I don’t know where the security measures in place failed. I am getting the camera’s video to see. You need to come home.”

“Who Gillian? Who did they take?”

“Ruby. Someone took Ruby. Her bedroom windows are shattered. Two of the kids heard a scream and saw two people dragging her towards the forest. We couldn’t catch them. They had too much of a head start,” He said in a defeated tone.

“How did they get past the gates?” I cried, “Who took her??! We have to get her back.”

“I’m trying to replace out Luna. I’m so sorry. I am trying to figure out how something like this could have happened. We should have been able to sense anyone coming past the borders uninvited.”

“We’ll be home soon, Gillian. Have all the cameras pulled for the time window we need. No one takes my pack members and lives,” Atlas and Markus growled, already pulling out of the parking spot.

“Maya? Has anyone checked on Maya? Did they get her too?!?” I said, panic filling me.

“Maya is fine. Danny and a few guards are with her. She was with Mrs Quinn and Kelly hashing out some details for the ceremony when they took Ruby. They were supposed to me—f**k. OK. Just get home please. I think I know how they got in,” He hung up. I looked at Markus and he grabbed my hand, speeding up.

“We’ll get her back, Celeste,” he said with determination, but I had a bad feeling we were going to be too late.