Chapter Five
~Leo~
Most of the senior officers were already inside the meeting room when I got there.
Vaughan and Calista sat at the centre of the table, speaking quietly to each other, and just outside the doorway, Felix and his mate, Evalina, did the same.
That saved me some trouble; I’d been planning to ask Felix where to find her.
Both of them turned to look at me as I approached.
“Evalina, would you mind asking the house manager for a room for Kalo? And showing him to it once it’s arranged?”
“Of course,” she agreed immediately. “I’ll make sure he feels at home.”
That was exactly what I hoped for. “Thank you.”
“I’ll see you later,” she whispered to her mate, and they shared a sweet kiss before she left. Felix watched her go with a mix of pride and affection that, for the first time, I could almost begin to understand.
A second later, however, his nose twitched, and he turned back to me, faint lines etched between his brows. “You smell different.”
Of course he noticed. Every wolf in the pack would, and heat crawled up my neck at the idea of having to explain my current predicament to each and every one of them.
Before he could form the question, though, Vaughan’s voice carried from inside the room with his usual Alpha authority. “Everyone in. We’re starting.”
Felix shot me a look that promised he would revisit the subject before stepping into the room, and I followed, schooling my expression into its usual neutral form as the rest of the leadership team took their seats around the square table.
All eyes went to our Alpha as he leaned forward, forearms on the table.
Vaughan had always been a serious man, carrying the weight of his position even when we were all children together, but since he’d found his Luna, some of that heaviness had disappeared.
He smiled more easily and he stuck to the rules a little less strictly.
As his Gamma, it had thrown a bit of a wrench into some of my work, but on a personal level, I knew he was better off for it.
“Alright,” Vaughan’s deep voice rumbled. “Let’s go over what the hell happened at Ravenstone.”
He looked to Felix, who immediately deferred to Darius as the senior defence team member. Unlike some pack leaders I’d come across, our Beta never tried to take credit for anyone else’s work.
The Delta cleared his throat. “It appears the pack’s former Beta made a deal with a rival pack in an attempt to overthrow Alpha Amanda.
He planted the locket for her to find, which summoned the genie, assuming that any wishes she made would backfire, as wishes usually do.
But thanks to the information Felix and Calista provided, she was able to negotiate with the genie, and we came up with a strategy to beat back the invaders.
On top of that, it turned out that Troy, the Alpha’s mate, was the illegitimate son of the other pack’s Alpha, and he killed his father in a challenge for the pack before giving up command to his half-brother so he and Amanda could stay at Ravenstone. ”
He went into a little more detail, and hearing it all laid out that way really drove home how crazy the last few days had been.
Vaughan rubbed his forehead with one hand as he absorbed all of it. “Where’s the genie now?”
Darius shot a furtive glance in my direction before answering, “Well, first of all, he’s no longer a genie. Amanda’s wish released him from the magic. And he’s upstairs right now. We brought him back with us.”
Vaughan also glanced in my direction, not having missed Darius’ look. “Why would he come here?”
I drew in as deep a breath as I could, which still felt painfully shallow as my chest tightened with the significance of my coming confession. “Because…”
Felix spoke at the exact same time, not noticing that I’d already begun to answer.
“I thought it would be helpful for me and Calista to speak with him. Although his magic’s gone, we can still learn a lot from him about genies and perhaps other types of ancient magic too. He could be a goldmine of information.”
My wolf, Silo, growled inside my head. They’re talking about him like he’s an encyclopedia, not a person.
Across the table, Darius cleared his throat. “That’s not the only reason, Alpha.”
He gave me a more pointed look, one brow arched in silent encouragement, and Vaughan’s gaze again landed on me. “What else?”
Once again, I opened my mouth to speak, and once again, I was cut off, this time by a piercing alarm.
Everyone at the table immediately covered their ears, and Silo whimpered as the sound ricocheted off the walls, piercing enough to make my vision blur.
Vaughan shot to his feet. “What the fuck is that?”
I stood too, shouting to be heard over the wail of the siren. “It’s the new warning system. You asked me to improve our monitoring after the incident with the spirit and the sasquatches.”
“Border patrol hasn’t reported any breach,” he snapped. “And even if they had, we don’t need to wake the dead with it!”
“It must be a calibration issue,” I admitted. “We haven’t done a full test run since I had to leave for Ravenstone right after it was installed. I’ll take care of it.”
Vaughan gave a curt nod as he slowly lowered back into his seat. “Go.”
My pulse thrummed in time with the alarm’s shrill cry as I made my way down the hall. The sound echoed all around me until it felt like it was coming from inside my own chest.
Definitely a little too loud.
My head had started to ache when I reached my office.
Grimacing, I stepped into the dark room and entered my code on the security panel next to the wall.
The main menu came up, and I jabbed at the large green ‘override’ button.
The alarm cut off abruptly, leaving behind a hollow silence that rang even louder in my ears for a moment, and I let out a long exhale, rubbing a hand over my face.
Rather than feeling relief, however, the back of my neck began to prickle. From the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw movement in the shadows.
Someone’s there, Silo growled in my head as I reached over to switch the room lights on. As soon as light flooded the room, I spun around, looking for the culprit, and saw… no one.
Nothing was out of place, everything exactly as neat and tidy as I’d left it. The curtains were mostly drawn, leaving only a thin sliver of window looking out onto the darkness beyond.
What the hell?
The question in my head was more to myself than my wolf, but Silo answered anyway. Someone was here. I felt it.
I thought I had too, but paranoia wasn’t productive. Clearly, we were alone. Let’s figure out what set off the alarm in the first place.
The unease lingered as I crossed to my desk and sat on the edge of my chair, loading the new surveillance system on my desktop. The monitor glowed as lines of data scrolled across the screen in steady streams of numbers and sensor readings.
The technician had gone over everything with me when he installed the system, but I hadn’t had a chance to really learn my way around yet.
With a sigh, I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out the manual.
This wasn’t going to be quick, which meant it would be even longer until I could check if Kalo had settled in alright.
Normally, I didn’t mind spending my evenings in the office, making sure everything was in place for the pack. That night, however, I would have much rather gone to check on my mate.
And more than that, I still couldn’t shake the sense of something being slightly off. Was it all in my head, or was it possible there really was something out there? What if the system hadn’t been wrong at all?