Chapter 38
Valens
We left Lug’s office an hour later, with more general reports but no leads on the pixie king or any plots he might be hatching, just a very frazzled councilman who had no idea what was going on.
As soon as the door to our suite closed behind us, though, Elodie was nearly bursting with news.
“I snooped through Lug’s assistant’s desk.
Ninety-nine percent of it was what you’d expect, but I found a locked drawer.
There were twenty or thirty letters hidden inside, each and every one a report.
A few were about more kidnappings, but that wasn’t the worst of it. ”
“I’m almost afraid to ask.” I ran my hands through my hair, leaning against the desk as I listened.
“There were no fewer than five reports of supes encroaching on goblin territory. And not just a roaming pack of wolves or some warlocks too big for their britches. Mixed groups, heavily armed. From the few I was able to read, they seem to be moving around from territory to territory, and the estimated size? Growing with each report. I wasn’t through the stack, and there were thousands of soldiers.
That particular goblin clan was completely overrun.
They had to evacuate. So there could be even more waiting there now. ”
I frowned, trying to follow where she was going with this. “How did no one notice that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. So few other species interact with goblins, and they tend to live more remotely. My guess is that this assistant was put in place specifically to hide reports of the gathering army.”
I pushed off the desk, an alarming picture solidifying in my mind. “You think the pixie king’s army has been hiding on goblin land?”
“That’s exactly what I think. And from the trajectory, the numbers are growing fast. One of the clans reporting the largest numbers was in Romania, within a day’s drive from Pack Caelestis’s lands. The soldiers threatened to kill anyone who spoke out.”
“That’s it, then. That’s as close to confirmation as we’re going to get. The pixie king has an army, and he’s staging it to attack the high alpha.”
She nodded, lips pressed into a thin line. “We need to get back to the pack immediately.”
We sent a brief update to Lucien that we had news of an army and were packing to leave, when Elodie spun on me, irritated. “Are you going to answer that? It’s barely stopped buzzing since we left Lug’s office.”
I’d been pondering the implications of Rubix’s parting shot, of the gathering army, not at all noticing my phone across the room.
“Whatever it is can probably wait. I’d rather get on the road and then deal with it. One more minute than necessary in this place is one too many.”
“I don’t disagree, but it’s driving me nuts. Here, shut it off if you don’t want to check it.”
She pressed the slim black phone into my hand, then returned to shoving her toiletries into her bag. We were nearly done, but with a sigh, I slid up on the screen to see who’d been blowing me up.
I didn’t make it past the first message, and I called her back over to show her.
“Firecracker. It’s happening.”
“What is it now?” She sounded exhausted from the bad news, and I couldn’t blame her.
“Kane has called all the packs. There’s going to be another great pack gathering.”
“What?” She snatched the phone out of my hand, eyes racing over the string of messages and missed calls.
“Not for mating this time. He’s done it. He called it a war council.”