The Forbidden Alpha's Mate

The door opened without a knock.

Ray walked in. Placed a folder on my desk and stepped back.

His eyes were doing something I hadn't seen before. Not rage, but something colder, something that had gone very quiet and very still.

"Your father," he said, "Your father ordered it."

I looked at the folder. Then at him.

"Did you know."

"No."

"He's your father Levi."

"He's been dead for four years."

"Has he." His jaw tightened, "Because that contract didn't sign itself."

"I didn't know about Shadowmoon and I didn't know about that file." I held his gaze, "I found out the same night you did."

"Mina had that file for three years."

I said nothing.

"Three years," he said again, quieter, which was worse. "While I was out there carrying forty seven names thinking it was my fault."

Still nothing I could say to that.

"I'm going to talk to her," I said.

"I already did."

"What did she say."

"That she was waiting for the right moment." His voice was flat, "Three years of right moments came and went."

"Ray-"

"Don't." He put his hand on the folder, "Is he actually dead."

The question hit the room like something physical.

I sat back down.

"The assassination was never fully confirmed," I said carefully, "No body, no witness who survived long enough to testify. The council ruled it verified based on evidence submitted by-" I stopped.

Ray looked at me.

"Based on evidence submitted by who," he said.

"Two council members." I paused. "Both removed for corruption eighteen months later."

The room was very quiet.

"Your father staged it," Ray said.

"I don't know that."

"But you suspect it."

I didn't answer.

He turned away. Moved to the window and stood there with his back to me and his hands braced on the wall and said nothing for a long moment.

I watched him.

The bond was loud in the silence. Warm and pulling and completely indifferent to the fact that this man had every reason to walk out of this compound and never come back.

"Forty seven wolves," he said quietly. Still facing the window.

"I know."

"He bought them like a supply order."

"I know."

"And someone in this compound has been working for him for three years."

"Yes."

He turned. "Zayn."

"Yes."

"You're sure."

"Daniel traced three years of gate access and external communications back to his clearance code." I paused, "It's him."

Ray looked at the folder on my desk. Then at me.

"There's something else," he said. "In that file, last page, bottom of the contract."

I opened the folder and turned to the last page.

Read the bottom line.

Read it again.

A delivery clause. Something was supposed to be retrieved from Shadowmoon the night it burned. Something specific, something Victor had paid for separately from the destruction itself.

"He wasn't just burning my pack," Ray said. "He was looking for something inside it."

"A bloodline document," I said quietly, reading the description in the margin. "Original copy, pre-covenant."

"Do you know what that is."

"A succession record." I looked up. "Something that would give whoever held it a legal claim over every pack in the Pacific Northwest."

Ray stared at me.

"Victor didn't want power," he said. "He wanted to own the structure power runs on."

"Yes."

"Did he find it."

I looked at the completion clause.

Unsigned.

"No," I said, "He didn't."

"Which means it's still out there."

"Or it was never where he thought it was."

Ray was quiet for a moment.

"Someone lied to him," he said slowly, "Someone told him the document was inside Shadowmoon to make him move, to push him out of hiding." He looked at me. "Someone used Victor."

I went very still.

"Who benefits from Victor being exposed," I said.

Ray looked at me.

We reached the same answer at the same time.

"The council," Ray said.

A knock at the door.

Daniel stepped in without waiting. His face was wrong.

"Zayn is gone," he said. "Room cleared, gear gone. He left through the south gate forty minutes ago." He held out a folded note, "He left this."

I took it and opened it.

Read it once.

Handed it to Ray.

Ray read it.

Lowered it slowly.

"I know you found the file. Don't look for me, look for what's coming. The full moon is six days away, he's already moving."

Ray looked at me.

"Victor," he said.

"Yes."

"Six days."

"Yes."

Ray set the note on the desk carefully.

"Then we have six days to find everyone inside this compound working for him," he said. "Find the document and figure out who used Victor before Victor figures out we know."

He looked at me steadily.

"Where do we start."