Page 110 of Wolf's Endgame

Kris sat up straighter. “Yeah, I asked Royce if he could ask your scouts to find them, but so far, they’ve seen nothing.” He looked slightly uncomfortable. “I hope that was okay? To ask?”

I waved it off. “We need to find them. Ned and Leo and some others brought everything they could find at the second location back here.” It was my turn to be uncomfortable. “I haven’t gone through it yet.”

“Other things on your mind,” he said, brushing it off, then coughed. “But…”

“When the Pack Council arrives, and they will, it would be nice to have the evidence we need to overthrow them.” Scratching my head, I tilted my head back and groaned. “I’ve neglected my pack.”

“Your pack is more than able to function without you for a few weeks,” Kris said gently. He then looked at me with his own guilt. “I need to be back at Anterrio Pack and explain something to them, but…”

I laughed. “What a pair of alphas we are, right?”

He stood. “We should be better.”

“Yeah.” I looked out the window. “I’ll call for the others.”

The speed with which my brother, Royce, Leo and Ned arrived shamed me. I watched Ned look around, obviously feeling out of place. It was rare I took him into these meetings. He was more a follow-orders-and-not-question shifter, but he had been an invaluable help at the compound. He’d kept his head when I had lost mine.

“Sit,” I directed him. Kris hovered near me and eventually retook the chair he had been in when he first came in. “I owe you an apology,” I started. “She’s…” I swallowed. “She’s the same, no change. But my pack has changed. We have faced losses.” Five of my pack hadn’t made it back. I had gone to their families, but I recalled very little of what I had said, my concern for Kezia overriding everything. “We uncovered a mess, we confronted it, and I have failed to clean it up.”

“You’ve had a lot going on,” Royce said gruffly.

“Yes,” I agreed. “But I need to remember I am an alpha, this is my pack, and my duty remains to my mate and my pack.”

Nikan watched me. “What do we need to do?”

“We need to find the missing pack members of Anterrio, we need to go through the documents Ned brought back, and we need to go to the Anterrio Pack and try to clean up the mess Bale left behind.”

Leo looked at Royce and grinned. “Sounds doable.”

“We also need to put out feelers to the other packs, see who will talk to us, who knows anything, and anticipate when the Pack Council will come and try to try us all for violation of pack law.”

“I’ve already sent out communications to a few packs,” Royce said.

“I’ve been documenting the shit from the compound,” Ned told me. “It’s in some kind of code. I’ll get it though.”

Kris looked at him. “Code?” He flicked his gaze my way. “We used a code in the security team. I might be able to help.”

Ned nodded slowly. “Appreciate it.”

“You’re wary of me,” Kris told him bluntly. “Cassandra is my mate. She is the only one of Anterrio Pack I am interested in protecting.”

Ned looked around the room and grinned. “Good.”

“I can form search teams,” Leo told me. “Nikan and I have been scouting, but it’s a vast mountain range, and they had those tunnels?—”

“They could be anywhere,” I agreed. “I’ll join you.”

“And the Anterrio Pack?” Royce asked with a glance at Kris.

I met my beta’s stare. “It’s my first stop.”

CHAPTER 28

Cannon

Two weeks later

Entering the house, I stopped short when I saw Cass in the kitchen. Her pregnancy was showing more, and in shorts and a simple T-shirt, she looked healthy. Turning, she jumped when she saw me. Our interactions were tepid at best.

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