MIA

"You'll be fine, Mia. I know you will." James said as we sat outside the airport. My flight was scheduled to leave in less than an hour and I had procrastinated getting out of the car.

I shook my head, "I doubt it."

He reached into the back seat and produced a gift bag, "Here, Maybe this will help."

I grabbed the bag from him and removed the tissue paper. What I found inside made me smile. Inside the bag was a small stuffed wolf. "Oh my goodness, he is so cute how did you get a wolf that looks just like you?" I asked admiring the jet black fur and patch of gray on the chest.

"I have my ways," he said smiling back at me. He gently grabbed my chin, "You are going to go back and retake control of your life." He wiped away a tear that I didn’t realize had fallen. "I am confident you will be fine. You have all those books I leant you so you can keep learning about yourself. I am only a phone call away. Plus you have this little guy." he says motioning to the stuffed wolf.

I leaned over and kissed him, "Thank you for everything, James." I summoned the courage to finally get out of the car. Through checking my bags, boarding the flight, the flight itself, renting my car, I mean everything felt like I was having an out of body experience. I was really just going through the motions and where normally I would be fighting off fans I think that my general look kept most of them far away.

I was in a fog all the way up until I was about 15 minutes from pack lands. Even though it was dark outside by that time, I pulled over to the side of the road and took a deep breath. "You can do this, Mia," I whispered to myself. "You'll be fine." However, I don’t feel fine so I called the only person I knew that could help me.

*******
SHAWN

I plopped down on the log where Mia and I use to sit together and chat before she left. I was worn out. I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to keep up with being Alpha and Beta. My phone rang, and I was tempted to not answer it at all but it seemed like it was a day that everything that could be going wrong did go wrong and on the one hand I couldn’t take any more bad news. On the other hand, I knew I couldn’t let a potential emergency go unanswered.

I closed my eyes and signed deeply, "Hello." I answered my phone without looking at the caller ID.

"Shawn."

"Mia?," I perked up a bit, while she contacted me often enough she usually didn’t call me it was only a text message.

"Shawn, I'm…I’m back in South Dakota."

"Really? Where?"

She sighed, "Maybe fifteen minutes outside of the pack border."

"Ok? But you sound like something is wrong."

"How fast can your wolf get you out here? After the way I left the pack, I am not sure it’s a good idea for me to come back alone. I just pulled over on the side of the road"

"Yeah, of course, I'll be there soon." The though of her sitting on the side of the road in the dark didn’t sit well with me.

"Don't bring him." Every time I talked to her she refused to mention Ethan by name. Not that I blamed her.

"I wont," I promised.

The phone hung up and I made my way back to the pack house, knowing she was coming from the airport I knew she would be almost on the complete opposite side of the pack lands from where I was currently at. I stopped by my room to drop off my cell phone and change clothes and head towards Mia. I managed to make it in and out of the house without being stopped by any pack members.

As soon as I made it to the tree line I shifted and grabbed my sweat pants in between my teeth. I raced to the border as fast as I could, ignoring just how eager I was to see her again. I finally reached my destination and quickly shifted and dressed before emerging from the woods. I approached the car from the front so she could see me in the cars headlights and avoid scaring her. When I was almost at the car, the drivers side door flew open and she jumped out and ran towards me.

"Shawn!" She caught me off guard and almost knocked me over when she rushed me for a hug.

"Mia," I said, gently wrapping my arms around her, "I am so happy to see you."

We broke apart and started walking back towards the car, "Hop on the passenger side, I'll drive the rest of the way."

"So, how is the pack doing?" She asked as I pulled away from the curb.

"Not good at all honestly." I said not feeling the need to hide anything else from her since she was about to walk back into it.

"I had a feeling, you sounded tense on the rare occasion that we did talk."

"I didn’t want to tell you about what was happening because I didn’t want you to feel like there was pressure to come back."

I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye. "So how bad are things?" She asked.

"Well, Ethan's wolf hasn’t been right ever since you left so he hasn’t been able to really manage the pack like he should. So I have been doing his job and my job. The pack is also going through a tough time…missing their Luna." I said not wanting to make her feel bad.

"It’s a weird feeling that a whole group of people love and depend on me and I haven’t personally met most of them. The mating bond is so strong its honestly a little scary." She said.

"I can only imagine," I sighed, "I am sorry about how things went down before you left. I've been thinking about it and we were so wrong for how we tried to push you. I am glad, kind of, that you were able to find James and take some time to learn about wolf life without the added pressure we were trying to put on you."

"Thank you for saying that." She said.

"You know I am going to have to tell him you are here as soon as we reach the gate, the guards are going to alert them anyway." I glance over at her.

"I know."

I mind linked Ethan, "Mia is back."

"What?"

"Mia is back, we are crossing into the pack lands now.

"Meet me in my office." He growled shutting off the link.

We pulled up to the pack house and once we got out of the car I instructed an Omega to take Mia's things to her room. She hesitated on the front steps and I gently place my hand on the small of her back and led her towards Ethan's office. When we got there Ethan was sitting at his desk, a position I haven't seen him take in nearly four months. He looked like he’d attempted to clean up a little. He hair was combed, he had on some fresh looking clothes but he still looked worn down.

He got up from his desk and walked towards Mia. In a move that I think surprised all three of us he pulled her into a hug, burying his nose in her neck. She was still covering up her mark but I think his wolf was too preoccupied to notice. At that point I realized his wolf was mostly in control and needed that closeness with her. She loosely wrapped her arms around him too, her wolf probably needing the same thing.

"Leave," Ethan said to me after they pulled apart.

I looked over at Mia for confirmation. I wasn’t sure that she would want to be left alone with him so soon.

"I'll be ok, Shawn." She said quietly.

I nodded and left the couple to their reunion with my wolf protesting the whole way back to my room.

*********
MIA

After Shawn left the room there was an extremely long silence between Ethan and I. I wasn’t sure what to say to him. Sorry for running away? I wasn't. Was I supposed to ask how he had been? I didn’t really care.

"How have you been?" He asked walking back to the other side of the desk.

"Fine." I said.

"You look good."

"You don’t."

He chuckled, "Yeah, my wolf has been in a funk since you left."

"What did you want to see me for?" I asked, it was late and I was tired and I really didn’t want to argue. Or at the least we needed to go ahead and get the arguing out of the way so I could go to bed.

“My wolf…” he trailed off.

“Right,” I sighed, “I feel better than I have in weeks being near you. Even after just these few minutes.” I admitted reluctantly. “And I hate it.”

He silently regarded me for a few minutes not saying anything. His gaze lingered in my neck and I knew he wanted to see his mark. I also knew he probably had questions about why I kept it covered. I almost thought he was going to ask but he didn’t say anything.

“You can go now.” He said cooly dismissing me.

I rolled my eyes but left the room without a word. I was thrown off by the whole interaction. I expected yelling and cussing not the gentleness that I got. He must have really been going through a rough time. I text Shawn when I got back to my room to let him know I was in one piece still. I could tell he was worried by the look on his face when he left the room. I didn’t bother to unpack anything. I quickly undressed and slid under the covers drifting off to a dreamless sleep.

*****
The next morning after showering and getting dressed, I was hanging out, or hiding depending on how you looked at it, in my room dreading whatever was to come from my return. However, in my quiet time I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to cry anymore. I had to be stronger than this situation and find a way out of this and being a crying blubbering mess wasn’t going to help. So, I decided to do whatever I could to help the situation and the pack while I figured out how to get out of this.

I was mindlessly flipping through television channels when there was a knock at that door but figured there was no need to avoid the inevitable. I was surprised to open the door and find Beth standing there. She immediately hugged me, "I missed you so much! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?" she asked as she came into the room and I closed the door behind her.

“I’ve missed you too. I didn’t tell anyone, Beth. There was a real chance I was gonna get right up to the gate and change my mind.” I said as we sat on the edge of my bed.

She grabbed my hand, “You have no idea how happy I am to have you back. I’ve been so worried. You have to tell me everything, including everything about this James character.” She said wiggling her eyebrows at me. Another surprise, Beth actually wanted to hear about me and another man even though her brother was my mate? Confusion must have been evident on my face, “I know it’s weird that I’m asking but my brother has screwed up everything and if you were able to find comfort in someone else I think I can understand that. And I was serious about what I said before you left. I want my friend back and I’m not going to mess things up like last time.”

Before I could answer a news story on TV caught my attention. "Breaking News, it is confirmed singer Mia Kane has been killed in a car crash early this morning. The singer had taken a few months vacation after her world tour and was on the way to the airport to return to her home in California. Unfortunately, her car collided with an 18-wheeler and burst into flames." As the reporter spoke an aerial shot was shown of what I assumed to be a car, it had been burned so bad that it was unrecognizable.

"What is happening?" I asked, shocked as the reporter kept talking and launched into discussing my career and my personal life.

My phone rang and I quickly answered it when I saw that James was calling, "I'm alive." I said right away.

"Thank God! I was so worried when I saw the news. What's going on?"

"I…I have no idea. I am just as surprised as you are."

"You should talk to Ethan." he said.

"Ethan?" I asked clearly confused.

"Werewolves have a long reach. How do you think we have remained hidden for so long? We've infiltrated most of the human world in one way or another so its possible staging a death wasn’t even difficult for him if he didn’t want you leave again."

"He better not have…I'll call you back later."

I turned and rushed out of the room yelling for Ethan at the top of my lungs as I went. How could he! As if he hadn't don’t enough to me he took my life and career too. After attracting the attention of half the pack with my yelling, I finally found him in his office with Shawn.

"Tell me you didn’t do this." I said.

"Mia, what's wrong?" Shawn asked.

I ignored him and walked right up to Ethan's desk, "Tell me you DID NOT DO THIS!" I repeated.

He regarded me for a second before he spoke, "I had to ensure that you couldn’t leave me again." he said nonchalantly.

That smug look on his face took me over the edge and before I knew it I leaped over his desk trying to get to him knocking his computer and some other items off of his desk. I was so furious my whole body was shaking I had never felt so angry in my life. I managed to swipe at him and leave some pretty deep scratches on his face which started bleeding immediately. The size of the scratches caused me to look down at my hand and I realized my hand has shifted into a large paw. No wonder my swipe at him had made such an impact. I froze in my tracks which allowed Shawn to pull me down from Ethan's desk.

"Mia…" he stopped mid sentence when he noticed my hand. "Shit, Mia." He placed a hand on each of my shoulders, "Just calm down, ok? Once you get your emotions under control it should shift back to normal on its own."

I didn’t respond because I was still looking at my hand in shock. He gently grabbed my chin so I was looking him in the eyes. "Hey, its ok. You lost control of your emotions and your wolf came out, not the end of the world ok?"

I nodded slowly and closed my eyes. I took a few deep breaths trying to calm the rage inside of me. After a while I could feel my hand shift back, an uncomfortable feeling but not as painful as I would expect.

"Now tell me what's going on?" Shawn asked after my hand returned to normal.

I silently picked my phone which had fallen to the floor during the commotion, and pulled up a video from CNN.com and turned my phone towards him. As the reporter repeated the same information I had heard in my room, Shawn turned to Ethan.

"Ethan, you didn’t."

"She can't leave again. I can't go through that again, my wolf can't go through that again." he said almost sounding desperate.

"You are a sick, selfish bastard." I said before leaving the room. Everything in my life just got 10 times more complicated. Something I didn’t think was possible.