Chapter 20 #2
“The luna of the Moonvale Pack wishes to learn magic, and since we’re allies, we will help her find a teacher.” The lie flows out easily. “Keep me updated.”
They nod and head out, but Bauer pauses on the threshold.
“Alpha.” He gives me an awkward look. “Congratulations on your mate bond.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
Then, it seems he can’t get out of here fast enough. Once the door closes behind him, I sigh.
I stand at the desk with my palms pressed to the edge of the wood, listening to his boots fade down the corridor. My lips press into a thin line. I expected the uncomfortable look on Bauer’s face. I’ll be seeing more like it at breakfast. Not everyone will approve of my choice.
I just have to make sure they know not to cross any line.
A knock at the door snaps me back to the present.
“Come.”
Liam steps in first. Reese behind him. Both are commanders of my army. Both in their training kit, both with mud on their boots. They have been out at the perimeter since first light. Reese has a fresh scratch down the side of his jaw that he has not bothered to clean.
“Alpha,” he greets me.
“Sit. Tell me what you have.”
Reese drops into the chair across from me. Liam stays standing, his hand braced on the back of the second chair, his weight forward. He has news he does not want to deliver from a sitting position.
“The rogues who attacked Miss Carter,” Liam begins. “They were the only ones there. We combed every inch of forest within twenty miles of where you found her. There was no other group. They were alone.”
“You’re sure?”
Reese answers. “We’ve had every wolf we could spare on the ground for the past four days. Every scent trail led back to the same six rogues and out again.”
“Then they were not a raiding party,” I muse.
“Not large enough,” Liam agrees. “Six rogues do not attack a Silvercrest-patrolled border. They die at it. Which is what these wolves did, more or less.”
“So, why were they there?”
The two men look at each other. Reese speaks.
“My theory? They were scouts. The forward edge of something larger. Sent to test our patrol pattern, identify the gaps, report back to whoever sent them with a window for a real strike. Miss Carter walked into them by chance. They saw her, recognized what she was, and attacked because they could not afford to be reported.”
The dawn behind my desk has started to warm my back. I do not move from where I am standing. “And the gap they were testing?”
Liam’s jaw tightens. “That’s the other thing, Alpha.”
“Speak.”
“The rotation was wrong that night,” he tells me. “Should have been four wolves on that quadrant from sundown to midnight. There were none. An oversight like that is not possible to miss. Unless it was deliberate.”
“Each squadron believed the other was on duty,” Reese continues. “They swear they saw the names of the others on the roster. The others swear it wasn’t them. And the actual roster for that day is missing.”
I sit down. The leather of my chair creaks under me. Outside my window, the sun is breaking the line of the eastern wall.
“Someone got into the duty book and altered it.” My voice is sharp.
Liam replies, “Yes.”
“And then stole that page.”
“Yes.”
“To create a gap that a scout could exploit.”
Reese answers this one. “That is the most likely interpretation. We have eliminated bookkeeping error, drunkenness, and personal grudge. None of them fit. The alteration was clean, professional, and timed to the hour the rogues breached. Whoever did it knew what they were doing.”
I press my thumb and forefinger to the bridge of my nose.
“The names of the wolves who had access to the duty book that day.”
“Eleven of us. Officers, captains, two senior trainers. Holt, Bishop, Donnelly, Wirth, Hartley, Jones, the two of us, plus three lieutenants.”
“None of whom you suspect.”
“All of whom we now have to suspect.”
Quiet settles in the office. Down the corridor, the first of the kitchen carts begins to roll.
“Increase the perimeter patrols,” I order. “Quietly. No announcement. Spread the work across whichever wolves were not on duty that night. I want the next two weeks watched twice as carefully as the last two.”
“Done.”
“Audit every duty book entry going back six months. Cross-reference against actual deployments. If anything like this has happened before, I want to know.”
Liam writes that down.
“Move the duty book itself. Out of the captains’ room. Into a locked drawer in your office, Liam. Only you and Reese have keys. Anyone wanting to make changes goes through one of you in person.”
“Understood.”
“And on the question of who did it.” I let my hand drop from my face. “Watch. Closely. I do not have a name. No assumptions. But if there is a wolf inside this estate who fed those rogues a window, that wolf is still here. He or she will act again. When they do, I want to know immediately.”
Reese’s eyes flick to Liam’s and then back to me. “You think there’s a traitor.”
I don’t reply. I just meet his gaze evenly, and they both nod, their eyes heavy.
Once they leave, I sit at my desk for a moment, thinking.
A possible traitor. This is going to be a problem.
The first sunlight of the day is now streaming through the window, shining on the rug, hitting the spine of a book on the shelf behind me. Around me, the estate is starting to stir. A bell rings somewhere far down a service corridor.
After a few seconds, I pick up my desk phone and press the button for Lydia’s office.
She picks up on the second ring. “Yes?”
“Lydia. It’s me. Could you come to my office, please?”
There’s a pause before she says, “Five minutes.”
When she walks in, her expression is calm, but there is an undercurrent of tension within her frame.
She knows. Of course she knows. She manages this entire household. The staff would have told her.
“Congratulations on your mate bond.” It comes out warm. Steady. Pitched at a register a good friend would use.
I get to my feet. “Thank you.”
After a brief silence, Lydia crosses to one of the chairs in front of my desk but does not sit down. “I just wanted to say it properly, in your office, before the announcement at breakfast.”
“And I wanted to thank you,” I murmur, “for the discretion. Sending dinner up without questions. Keeping the staff quiet.”
“Of course.” Her mouth lifts at the corners. “It is what I do, Lucas.”
“I know.”
A longer silence.
Then, she tilts her head. She has known me long enough to read when there is more on my mind than gratitude.
“Was there something you needed?”
“Yes. I’m sorry to bring it up at this moment, but it has been on my mind since yesterday, and I would rather raise it now than let it sit.”
“Go on.”
“When Sienna first arrived, did you brief her on the forest? The patrols, the rogue activity, the areas she was not to enter alone.”
Lydia’s eyes blink once. Her eyebrows draw together very slightly. “I’m…Yes. I’m sure I did. As part of the standard estate orientation.”
“Sienna says you didn’t.”
The pause this time is longer. Lydia looks down at the tablet in her hand. Her thumb passes over the screen. When she lifts her face again, there is color in her cheeks that was not there a moment ago. Embarrassment, not panic.
“Lucas.” Her voice has gone soft. “I may not have. I truly thought I did, but if she says I didn’t, I may not have.”
“Lydia.”
“I walked in on the two of you in the library and got distracted. I was supposed to give her the briefing that night, and it’s possible I forgot. I’m sorry.” She presses her lips together. “I might have told myself later that I had done it, when actually, I hadn’t.”
Her honesty is uncomfortable to watch. Lydia does not embarrass easily.
I let out a slow breath. “Alright.”
“It’s not alright. I should have given her the briefing. If something had happened to her before she learned about the perimeter rules, that would have been on me.”
“Lydia.”
“I am sorry, Lucas. I’ll apologize to her.”
“It’s fine. You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t want her to think it was deliberate, Lucas. I never meant any—”
“She knows that.” I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
I look at Lydia for a moment.
This is the woman who has run my household for six years.
The one who organized my father’s funeral when I could not get out of bed.
She knew my mother’s tea order by heart and still serves it on the anniversary of her death.
Whatever else has lived between us, our friendship is real, and the work she does for this house is real.
I am not going to weigh down her morning any more than I already have.
“There is something else I need your help with. The breakfast announcement. I would like your support, if you can offer it. Standing with the senior staff at the back of the room. Nothing more than your presence. You know what it would do for the household to see you there. If that is too much to ask of you, I understand entirely, and you do not need to give me a reason.”
The corners of her mouth lift again. A real smile this time, not the polite one. “I will be there.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m your friend. Where else would I be when you formally acknowledge your mate?”
My throat tightens. “Lydia…”
“Don’t, Lucas. I have been preparing for this since the moment you broke off our engagement. Better to be useful today than hidden. Let me be useful.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.”
We stand there, looking at each other across the desk.
Twenty years of friendship moves between us in the silence, and underneath the soreness from what has happened this week, there is this older, steadier connection that has held us together for so long.
She is not going to be the luna I never wanted her to be.
What she will be is the same friend she has always been.
“I wish you the best, Lucas,” she murmurs. “I mean it. I have your back.”
“Thank you for everything you do for me.”
A small, dry breath leaves her. “Always.”
I watch her turn and walk toward the door. She pauses with her hand on the knob.
“What time should I have the staff assembled?”
“Quarter past seven. Sienna and I will come down together.”
She nods. “I will see you in the dining room.”
The door closes behind her.
I stand at the window for a while after she is gone. The sun is fully up. Below, outside the kitchen, two of the gardeners are working their way along the herb beds, one bent over rosemary, the other moving with a basket. The estate is awake.
I cross to the desk. Pick up my jacket from the back of the chair. Slide my arms into it. Adjust the cuffs. The man in the small mirror by the door looks tired. He also looks calmer than he has in months.
Time to go get my mate.
I take the back stairs up to our suite two at a time. The corridor is quiet. Outside the door, I pause for a second with my hand on the wood, listening. The bond tells me she is awake.
I open the door.
“Sienna,” I murmur. “It’s time.”