Chapter 38

Elena

I found Killian in his office, frowning at a computer screen.

Tiffany had walked past me towards him at his desk, but I stopped a few steps into the room. Killian looked from her to me and his frown deepened.

“He’s making progress,” I said, preventing him from commenting on my distance. “His memory is returning and he says he was under the control of someone else.”

“Did he say who?”

I shook my head, looking down. “No, not yet,” the lie came out easily. “But, I do believe that he is not as guilty as we initially thought. I get the sense he is a mercenary who got caught in the wrong scheme. Not a complete innocent, but not a threat to the Pack.”

“And you trust him?”

“I do.”

Killian was skeptical, but I could tell he was trying to give me the benefit of the doubt. For so long he had dismissed me off-hand, that I wasn’t used to actually explaining myself.

“Well, good work, really,” he said, looking back at his computer. “Now that you’re here, you can help me look over some campaign marketing.”

The face I made must’ve shown him my opinion of being told what to do.

“That is, I would appreciate your help.”

Tiffany scoffed from the chair she’d taken in front of Killian, her face buried in her phone.

“That does sound important,” I said slowly, “but I was actually hoping to go out on my bike for a while. I could use some fresh air after my session with Graham.”

At the mention of the activity, Tiffany looked up with a horrified look on her face. She turned hateful eyes in my direction, but I cut her off before she could speak.

“Alone, if I could,” I said meekly, prostrating myself in front of the Alpha. “I know Tiffany is much better with the marketing anyways.”

She shot a pleading look at Killian, who leaned back in his chair and sighed at me.

“I suppose that is alright,” he acquiesced. “Just keep your phone on you and your location accessible.”

“Of course,” I said quickly, “I was thinking I’d go back to the lake in the woods, Tiffany knows where. I shouldn’t be gone for too long.”

“Very well,” he said, “but no rock-climbing today, please. We have events coming up and I’d prefer it if my lovely wife was not bleeding all over the campaign trail.”

I couldn’t help myself from smiling slightly, then caught myself and stretched my face muscles out of it. His sarcasm was occasionally entertaining.

It took all my restraint not to run up the stairs and to my bedroom, so eager I was to get out of the house on my own. Changing into more nature-friendly clothes, I found a small shoulder bag with an inner pocket that would keep Graham’s clearance card from getting crumpled. I put a book and a sweater in the bag to fill it out, so as not to look suspicious.

By the time I reached the coordinates I had sent to Jaxon, the rival Alpha was waiting for me. He was wearing a dark shirt and a wide grin, and his eyes were full of mischief.

“So good to see you, Luna Elena,” he said, emphasizing my title. “I must say I was a bit surprised, given your husband’s opinions of me.”

“My husband’s opinions are not my concern,” I said seriously. “He doesn’t know I am here, of course.”

“Right,” he nodded slowly, and seemed both curious and amused. “Well, it doesn’t seem like we are here for tea, so what is it that you want from me?”

I took a deep breath, squaring my shoulders back. The extra oxygen among the trees was an extra blessing to my confidence for this moment.

“I need your help,” I said, letting him feel powerful, “or, I need you to do something for me. Something I cannot do for myself, nor have anyone know about what I am proposing.”

He stared at me, even-keeled, that slight smirk at the corner of his mouth that was so pompous and yet also somehow very alluring. His features were rough but mostly symmetrical, and something in his eyes told you he had a ferocious wolf in him. His skin was so much darker than mine, a deep brown opposite my pure white, a gift of nature standing before one another in nature.

I started to wonder what his chest looked like and then realized that he still hadn’t said anything. Had it been ten seconds or two minutes?

“I would do nearly anything to help a fair lady,” Jaxon said, chivalrous and sensuous, “but I may have to hear my quest before I take up my sword. Especially one who is married to my political rival.”

I couldn’t stop my face from reacting slightly, but kept my head level and my eyes cool. If I showed him how riled up my emotions were inside, he would try to take advantage of me. He could ask for something in return, something I might not want to offer.

“Politics and Pack divisions don’t matter when there is life on the line,” I said, not fighting the shakiness in my voice. Authenticity is key when negotiating with Alpha men who think they are smarter than you. And so I played my ace.

“It’s my sister.”

That got his attention, one eyebrow climbing up his brow.

“I think she’s alive.”

His face slackened for an instant, then resettled. He whistled through his teeth as his looked me up and down.

“I really never can guess what you’re going to do next, woman,” he said, his smile returning. “What makes you think that?”

And this was the hard part. Of course I couldn’t tell Jaxon that I knew Natalie wasn’t dead because I had lived through her return and then travelled back in town. Nor could I say nothing and hope he would take my word. I had to be credible without seeming crazy.

“The prisoner,” I said, adding a bit of condescension when speaking of someone so far beaten at my station. “He was sent for me, and luckily the attack was not successful.”

“Because of you,” he said, somewhere between a question and an accusation.

“Because of my guards,” I said back, hoping my cheeks were not as flushed as they felt. “Thank the goddess they are so loyal to me.”

“Of course,” he said, letting the moment go for now. “Loyalty can be hard to find.”

He was goading me, and I did not take the bait. I went on with my plea.

“He came with this.”

I held out Graham’s entry card in front of Jaxon, the afternoon sunlight glinting on the Pack seal’s shiny surface. He held himself still, but inhaled deeply through his nostrils like he was rooting out a rat.

His eyes met mine, and I saw him start to put the pieces together. I didn’t need to say anymore.

“Are you sure she is there?”

“No,” I said, looking down. I was trying to drum up some sadness for my lost sister, not revealing my true motive for finding her. “Gra— the prisoner said there are a lot of people in and out, nomads and outcasts and runaways. But he remembers a woman, she seemed important to the Alpha though he never spoke with her.”

“And you don’t believe your sister died, years ago?”

“I did, for a long time,” I said, telling the truth then returning to my false sorrow. “I always hoped, of course, that it wasn’t true. There wasn’t a body, really, just blood and clothes. And then someone dug up even that!”

I raised my voice, almost a shout, selling the rage of a sister seeking revenge. Jaxon instinctively took a step closer, as if to keep our conversation more private from our audience of trees.

“Hope is a good thing, even in this wicked world,” he said, his hand reaching to the side of my arm in a gesture of comfort. It threw me off, but I didn’t let him know that. “Are you asking me to go find your sister?”

I made my eyes huge as I looked directly at him, like a kitten being saved from a lake.

“I just need someone to go and see, someone I can trust,” I said, putting my hand over the one he held on my arm. “Before I do anything drastic and start a Pack war, I just want to know if she might be there. And I cannot go myself without alerting Killian or possible walking into a web designed to entrap me. And I know it could be a dead end—“

“I’ll go.”

“You will?”

“I will,” he confirmed. “But you’ll have to do something for me.”

I gulped, and he laughed.

“Not that,” he said, a touch of lechery in his eye. “Though I’m sure it would be nice, I’m not that much of a scoundrel.”

My cheeks burned but I held steady.

“Then what?”

“If I agree to do this for you,” he said slowly, “you agree to make Killian drop out of the campaign.”