Chapter 70

Lucas’s POV

I can smell her blood from my office.

The scent makes my wolf feral, but I can’t move. I watch the sun set behind the trees as Harper’s hoarse screams echo up from the cells beneath the pack house.

She’s been screaming and wailing like a banshee for hours. At first, she was screaming that she didn’t do anything, then she pleaded for us to let her go, then she went on to yell that we needed to listen to her before she then switched to cursing me out and condemning us to hell for locking her up like we did.

Each time I hear her voice, the pain in my chest grows. Those long, pain-filled screams that contain nothing except my name… those rip into me. Especially when her voice starts growing weaker and the scent of her blood grows stronger.

She’s literally screaming until her throat is raw and bleeding.

Beating the information out of Logan earlier had been satisfying in a sick way, but I don’t want to hurt Harper. Not really. I just can’t let her go free when the evidence proves that she’s guilty.

Her strained voice tears at what remains of my heart, making my wolf claw at my insides.

“RELEASE HER!” He howls, battering himself against the restraints I’ve put over him.

“I can’t. Not until she’s proven innocent.”

“Then PROVE IT!” He snarls. “OR get the fuck out of my way so I can save her!”

“LUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSS!”

My knees buckle, and my legs give out beneath me, sending me to the floor.

“Lucas!” Mason and Brandon are at my side in seconds, helping me up and into my desk chair.

I take several deep breaths while they shove water at me, but I push it away and look at the papers strewn across my desk. The evidence is all right here, but I still can’t believe it.

“Maybe you should look further into this to see if—”

I cut Mason off with a growl, “The proof is here. What am I supposed to find if this is all there is?”

In truth, I’m torn. I want to do as my wolf says and save Harper from the cell she’s in, but if I do that before I can prove she’s innocent, then I could get myself thrown into a cell. If that happens, I won’t be able to help anyone.

The feelings I have for Harper and the shock of what I found sent me into a blind rage earlier, making me doubt her. It was the worst way I could react, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself. It’s like my body took control and acted on its own.

The idea of her doing something as vile as trafficking wolf souls set something off in me. Had she been lying the entire time?

I want to think not, but the evidence is stacked against her. Yet, I still want to help her.

Mason lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it, “Papers can be forged. What if—"

“You think I haven’t thought about that?” I shout, whirling on my Beta. “I want her to be innocent more than anyone, but look at the evidence! Her clinic opened one month before first instance of recorded trafficking in that area. It was the exact time the trafficking started going through the human quarters. How do you explain that? IT can’t be a coincidence.”

Mason and Brandon glance at each other, a silent conversation passing between them. I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to calm down. Yelling and shouting at them won’t do me any good.

Then, they both lean over the desk, looking at the papers that are spread out.

“Harper had her wolf ripped from her by her father,” Brandon says, looking at me.

“I know that. It’s why she agreed to help Logan,” I mutter, tugging on my hair in frustration. “He promised to get her wolf back if she helped him move the wolf souls discreetly through the area where her clinic is. That way, he had somewhere to hide the wolves in case he was caught.”

I don’t even know if I believe the words coming out of my own mouth. I want to believe that someone who knows the pain of losing their wolf would never help hurt wolf souls. I

“Can we really trust Logan, though? We know for sure that he’s a traitor, but I’m not so sure about Harper,” Mason says.

For as solid as the evidence is, I’m glad they’re questioning it too. Having them on my side is comforting and gives me hope that Harper really is innocent.

“My sister swears Harper never met Logan before she moved back here,” Brandon says. “My brother traveled but I never knew about him going to the human quarters.”

Clearing my throat, I look up at my best friends, “I want… no, I need Harper to be innocent, but right now, I don’t have a way to clear her name.”

“Then we’ll search until we find something,” Mason says, grabbing a stack of papers. Brandon does the same thing before they both sit in the chairs in front of my desk.

“There are holes in Logan’s story,” I tell them. “If we can find something within these records that contradict his confession, then maybe we can find something to prove Harper innocent.”

They both nod, and I look at the stack of papers in front of me. It only took me two days to find all this information, and a few hours to beat more information out of Logan. It had felt too easy in the moment, and now, I see why.

Some of this, or maybe even all of this, evidence could be fake, which means I could’ve made the biggest mistake of my life by bringing Harper into this.

Still, as I flip through the documents in front of me, all I find is documentation that she helped. Signatures, invoices, shipping records, storage units under her name… there are so many things that point to Harper.

“Does it seem strange to you that there are more pieces of evidence pointing to Harper than there are pointing to Logan?” I ask, laying several papers side by side.

“I’m finding the same thing. Do you think he could have remembered that Harper was kicked out and used her name to open these accounts to avoid detection by the pack?” Brandon asks, lifting a paper that shows an online messaging board that’s in Harper’s name.

However, the messages are messy and almost inarticulate. They’re nothing like how Harper talks or writes.

“Not to mention that their mate bond is fake,” Mason pipes in, sounding a bit bitter.

“She wouldn’t do this,” I mutter, looking at my friends. “It doesn’t make sense, right? Why would she help Logan if their mate bond isn’t real?”

“Mason passes a paper to me with a formula on it, “I’m not sure, but this seems to be the bonding potion. We know for sure that their mate bond was faked by Logan. Harper didn’t seem to know about it, though.”

“If she didn’t know about that, it’s possible she didn’t know about the other stuff either.”

A growl forces its way from my chest as I rake a hand through my hair. “I should have taken more time to think about this before accusing her and sending her to the prison.”

“Then you need to make up for it. We will prove she’s innocent before anything gets worse,” Mason says.

“I’m getting her out of there.”

“Yeah… wait, what?” Brandon stutters.

“You heard the elders,” I hiss. “They’ll send someone to torture her. I don’t think they’ll listen if I change my mind now, so I have to get her out.”

“You want to bust her out?” Mason asks.

“I want to save her.”