1. Zander
Zander
It’s been two days since Finley went missing and we were no closer to finding her.
I looked over at the woman sagging in the metal chair she’d been strapped to for the last two days in one of the cells Colt and Lane built for unruly wolves.
Peggy was our only connection to this whole situation and I didn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth.
“Please let me go. I’ve told you everything,” she begged, snot dripping from her nose with all the crying she’s been doing.
As I circled her, my alpha energy flowed over her, making her flinch, baring her neck in submission.
“The thing is, Peggy, I don’t believe you’ve told me everything I want to know.
How did they get into contact with you? Why didn’t you tell any of us that people from the Senate were looking for her?
Was the vampire with them, or is there another party that is looking for my mate as well?
The more you talk, the more questions I have. ”
“I was given a note with a location to meet them out in the woods off our land. They told me they needed to get Finley out of the pack and then asked me how to do it. I knew you wouldn’t let her do something risky, but they said she was an assassin before she became an omega.
So she could take care of herself… right?
” Peggy explained, giving me the same line as she had for the past forty-eight hours.
Sighing, I sat on the stool that we had placed in front of her chair.
“If they are from the Senate or even the same place that Finley came from, they would have picked you for a reason. I know you didn’t like Finley.
You made it clear that she wasn’t welcome that day in the greenhouse.
Just so you know, she never brought up a complaint about you.
She just took your judgment and moved on.
You kept saying that it wasn’t safe for Finley to be here… care to tell me why?”
This caught Peggy’s attention, her chocolate-colored eyes glaring at me with her blonde hair in shambles around her face.
“Just look at the trouble she brought with her! I knew she was going to be trouble the moment she started to pull our alphas away from us. The pack needed them. We are growing and thriving now as the largest pack in Tennessee and it’s all because of their leadership.
The moment they brought her here, they started to ignore us. ”
“The pack or you?” I asked, feeling like she was finally showing her true colors.
Milly, her older sister, warned me she had a major crush on Lane and hoped to one day catch his eye.
Now with Finley in the picture, Lane would never see another woman.
Jealousy could be a large part of this, but I had a feeling that there was more to it than that.
Why would she risk sending Finley away when it would only piss Lane off, hurting her more than helping if she had hoped to get him back?
“The pack, of course. Why would you think this had anything to do with me, personally?” Peggy snapped.
My brows shot up at her vehemence. “It’s no secret that you’ve had feelings for Lane.”
“Have you been talking to my sister?”
I didn’t acknowledge her question, only sat there waiting for her to talk to me.
Colt and Lane had asked me to do all I could before resorting to physical violence, not wanting to be that type of pack.
Having grown up in a pack that didn’t allow for anything other than complete loyalty and submission to the alphas, I knew exactly what they were talking about.
The reason why my first reaction to Finley not following my orders was to use discipline because that’s how I was raised.
It was all I knew and the biggest reason I wasn’t living here and not with my mother’s pack.
She was a fearsome alpha and her fellow alpha’s supported her demand for absolute control and order.
I could easily break Peggy if I wanted to, but I promised I would hold off on taking that course.
However, we were quickly approaching the point where something needed to change.
Elias had been taking turns with me not letting her sleep, hitting her with question after question, hoping the sleep deprivation would loosen her tongue.
Seeing how she was handling things without breaking in the slightest had me considering she could be more than just the grumpy gamma that ran the greenhouse for the pack.
“How long have you been a part of this pack?” I inquired, changing topics completely.
This seemed to surprise her and she frowned at me. “Five years. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Did you come with your sisters, or did you discover the pack first and then bring them with you?” I pressed, and an idea developed in my head.
“When our parents died, we didn’t want to stay in Michigan where it was so cold.
We contacted the Senate, knowing they have a roster of packs that are actively seeking members for their packs, and this was one of them.
There were a few we were interested in checking out, so we divided them up and eventually decided on this pack,” she answered, still not sure what I was looking for.
Nodding, I got up from the stool and paced the room, scratching my jaw as I put the pieces together. “So, how long have you been a spy for the Senate?”
The room went silent and I could feel the tension in the air at my question. “What? Why would you think that I’m a spy?”
I glanced at her with a withering look. “Don’t play games with me, Peggy.
You won’t win. I’ve been living in the world of politics for longer than you’ve been out of diapers.
The Senate never does something out of the goodness of their heart.
If they gave you a list of names, then it was packs they wanted to keep an eye on.
Have you ever noticed that some packs get left alone to live their lives while others are constantly fending off attacks from other packs or the Senate’s involvement? ”
She looked at me wide-eyed, shaking her head slowly. “It happens to every species of super, so don’t think it’s just us poor wolves. This is how the senators stay senators for so long. They wipe out their competition before they can get big enough to gain recognition.”
“You’re saying this about your own mother?” Peggy asked, her confusion clear in her words.
“My mother is a smart woman who knows how to play the game, but no, she isn’t the one who goes after the other packs.
She is the figurehead that keeps her hands clean while the other four alphas of her pack do the dirty work.
Granted, she doesn’t prevent it from happening but putting a spy into the pack under the guise of just wanting to keep an eye on an up-and-coming pack is a load of bullshit.
If they told you it was for the pack’s sake, you were here reporting back to them.
It means we are on their radar of packs that are growing too fast. Not to mention, it’s also the same time I moved here, and Father would love nothing better than to make sure I keep out of trouble.
They don’t really approve of what I do or how much I tell the world about us supernaturals. ”
I could tell that she’d tuned out after I said the pack was in danger because of her meddling, I was close to breaking through to her.
“How much have you told them? Now that we have an omega, this pack would become even more sought after. So why would you want to get rid of Finley if all you want is the betterment of the pack?” I questioned, taking a seat on the stool again, resting my elbows on my knees as I looked her over.
I could see the light bulb turning on in her brain as I talked. Now she was realizing that she was being manipulated and what she told them could actually hurt this pack in the long run.
“I didn’t know,” she pleaded. “How do I fix this now that they took her? Lane and Colt are going to hate me. They might even kick me out of the pack, which would be rather cold and selfish of them. What would I do then? I’d have nowhere to go.”
Sitting back, I knew I’d finally broken her to the point she would really tell me what was going on and hopefully what happened with Finley. “Start from the beginning.”
“You were right. It started out they wanted me to be their eyes and ears with you here. They didn’t know why you picked this pack when it was so new and small, so they figured you must be up to something else.
Then as I spent time here and saw the way that Colt worked with the pack and how Lane complimented him, it made sense.
You didn’t have anything to do with the pack as a whole, and Lane detests you, so it was Colt’s goodwill that you were even able to stay,” Peggy shared, making me want to roll my eyes at how quickly Lane figured out he wasn’t getting rid of me now that we shared a mate.
“My contact started to ask more about the pack and how things were going than about you. Soon it was like you were an afterthought and all they wanted to know was what Colt and Lane were up to. Especially when Mason, Noah, and Elias started to take on more responsibility. If Mason ever became an alpha, they wanted to know right away, something about them wanting to nurture the new alpha.”
That sounded about right for the others from my mother’s pack. They were so good at faking good intentions, but it’s how they got where they were today—letting people walk into the trap themselves, none the wiser. “What happened the other night?”
“Those were different people, but they said they were told to find me, and I would help them,” Peggy explained.
“There were three of them, two women and one man. They refused to tell me their names. When I was leaving the other night, I caught a name, Tabitha. She was the leader of the group and seemed to know Finley personally by the way she talked about her. They told me that she was an assassin and got bit on a job, turning her into a werewolf. I didn’t think that could happen with omega’s... ”