Alpha Markus
Chapter 72

Markus P.O.V.

I watched Celeste eat her pop tart in the morning. My neck was hurting from falling asleep with no pillow last night. I was still mad that she tried to sleep away from me, but then, at the same time, I knew I deserved it. I was keeping something from her and it was time to come clean. We’d had 3 different fights over her having a guard while on packgrounds. She didn’t understand why. I hadn’t planned on keeping it from her for more than a few hours, but all the tests that Dr West and Dr Castle kept doing had made me nervous. They were worried she’d have issues with her health because of the long-term malnutrition. What if this news caused harm to her or the pups? But now, I knew keeping it from her was worse. She had blocked me out of her emotions and that made me and Atlas stress over not being able to feel if something was wrong.

She was eating her pop tart, not saying anything as she waited for me to explain myself. I pushed my hand through my hair and got right to it. “Luna Luisa and Sandra have escaped,” I said and that made Celeste choke on her pop tart. I ran over as she hunched over choking and patted her back. She continued to hyperventilate long past choking. I could feel her emotions going all over the place as she processed the information. I sat down and put her on my lap and hugged her, letting the mate bond and Atlas and my determination to keep her safe calm her down. I smelled burning. Celeste’s eyes were ablaze and I looked around and saw that the waste basket was on fire.

‘Gillian, can you come to my office? Celeste is having a panic attack and the waste basket is on fire.’

‘On my way,’ he said. Less than a minute later, he came in with a fire extinguisher and put out the waste basket, then the chair that was right behind us.

“You told her then?” He asked. I nodded, but that was to be a mistake. Celeste snapped his head to Gillian and he paled at the look she gave him.

She glared at me. “Did everyone but me know?” I looked away guiltily. She stood up suddenly and started going around the couch. I jumped over it to block her way.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I am going for a run,” she said and panic filled me.

“No,” I said.

“No? Am I a prisoner now?” she asked, her eyes burning with fire again and Gillian doused the curtains with the fire extinguisher.

“No, of course not. Tuli please. It’s not safe,” I begged.

She thought about it and nodded and for a second I thought I was in the clear before she plunged the dagger into my heart. “I am going to spend the day in our bedroom. I don’t want to see you right now. I don’t want to see any of you. You all need to respect me for who I am. I will no longer be a passenger in my life.” She walked around me and stopped at the door. “Try to push me and I will jump out the window and go on my run and we both know, none of you can catch Kara,” she growled. Her eyes flickering to black a couple of times. She was fighting Kara, but I felt like she was fighting her to stop her from losing her s**t on us. Kara had been feeling the hormones a lot harder than Celeste. I felt her shut me out of the bond again as she stomped past the door towards the elevator. I saw Zack follow her up. I walked over to the desk and dropped on it, putting my head on my hands. This is not how I hoped this would go, but at this point, I counted myself lucky she hadn’t run away.

Kara shut you out too? -I asked Atlas.

He whined -Shortly after telling me what she wanted to do with our d***s if we got close enough. We f****d up.

“Umm, should I tell Maya to go check on her?” Gillian asked.

I shook my head. “No, I’m pretty sure she was included in her s**t list right now. I don’t doubt she would follow on her threat. The best thing to do is wait out her anger and then hope some groveling will smooth things out later,” I answered miserably. “Have we heard anything from the council?” I asked. Finding them would go a long way to mulling things over with Celeste. I had sent two of my best trackers to help.

“They followed them to no man’s land but they are hesitant to send 3 wolves by themselves into rogue territory.”

I slammed my fist against the desk, hearing it crack. “Have they figured out how they got away?”

“Beta Trevor got his hands on a wolfsbane dart gun from one of the guards and managed to get the keys to their cuffs off him. He uncuffed the women but didn’t manage to get them off him or Alpha Geoff. The girls shifted and ran as the guards struggled with the men,” he informed me, “We will replace them, Markus. I sent a couple of guards to join the others. They know what’s at stake. They won’t let us down. Celeste will be OK.”

I leaned back into the chair and tried pulling on the mind link. I was blocked. “But will we?” I said mostly to myself.

“Celeste is kind and rational. Her hormones may be making things worse right now, but she will forgive you. Just give her time.”

I looked at Gillian. “You haven’t said ‘I told you so’,” I mentioned, remembering he was against keeping things from her.

“I think you’re miserable enough without adding to it,” he smiled kindly. “I suggest asking mom what the proper way to grovel is. She sure made dad do it often enough.”

I was miserable the rest of the day. We had never really fought much before this and I was not OK with it. She was my drug, my calm, half of my soul. I had kept her so close to me since she had disappeared from me last month. I didn’t know how to be without her, even knowing that she was just upstairs, I needed to see her smile at me, that sparkle in her eye when she thought of a smart-a*s reply and the way her body reacted every time I touched her.

I kept trying to mind link her until she opened it once and yelled at me to stop. I could tell everyone else was also upset that she was angry with them for the decision I ultimately made. She didn’t come down for lunch or dinner and when I texted her that she needed to eat, she sent Melissa, the 13-year-old girl we brought with us, for plates for both of them to eat. Occasionally, she came down for more snacks. When I asked her how Celeste was, she said she was only allowed to tell me that she was pissed and that they were watching TV.

That night, when Melissa came back down with the empty plates from dinner, she looked at me with pity before she said, “Luna Celeste said she needs space. You can come up to sleep but she warns you not to wake her up and that you should get up early before she wakes up.” Then she patted me on the shoulder and I felt like I had hit a new all-time low if a 13 year old that had been through hell felt sorry for me.

I looked at my dad and my friends. They all had that same look of pity on their faces, “Any one of you manage to get her to speak with you?” They all shook their heads no.

“I tried to get her to talk to me when I took up her prenatal vitamins and she had Melissa come up and grab them from me,” Maya said sadly.