Page 143 of Gift from the Tree

“East side. Ry, take Caspian. Go get a signature read. See how many are there. Now,” I order and they disappear immediately.

“Draken, Nikoli, and San, stay with the girls.” I turn on my heel, Corentin beside me as I make my way to my men, who are waiting for orders, holding out my uniform.

Ry and Caspian pop back not even three feet from me.

“How many?” I ask as I pull the vest over my head.

“One,” Ry replies.

“What?” I pause, looking at him for confirmation.

“There’s just one rebel member working through the ward. There are no others in the forest behind him or within my radar. Just him. Shifter from what I can tell,” Ry reports.

“Team one, go retrieve him. Alive. Bring him here. Go,” I order, and they all nod and as one, transport out.

“That makes no sense. Why would only one member be trying to break in?” Corentin snarls.

“The fucker from when we were taken had ordered his guards to find out from me where the academy was and how to get into the wards. This one must have stumbled across us and is trying his luck, testing the strength of the wards,” Caspian muses aloud.

“If that’s the case, he’ll need his memories wiped after we interrogate him. And we’ll need to add reinforced layers to the wards. He isn’t making a dent right now, but an army of them would be a problem,” Corentin says, already mulling over his next steps once we have this guy.

A few minutes later, Team one reappears, dragging along a large, burly fucker. They’ve got his hands encased in ice, which is a go-to for individuals with an earth or air element. The man lifts his head and lets out a menacing growl.

A much deeper, forceful growl sounds a few feet from behind me, indicating Draken’s stepped forward, sensing another shifter. The shifter’s body trembles before his head is forced into a bow and he tries to thrash around and free his arms, unfruitful, though.

Draken lifts his nose and sniffs the air around him. “Wolf. An alpha too, strong one. Why the fuck is an alpha wolf attempting to break into the academy?” he asks, staring the shifter down.

The wolf scoffs, not bothering to acknowledge Draken’s nicely asked question.

“Answer me,” Draken orders. You can feel the dominance rolling off him with his command. A few of my guys who have shifter blood shake, but I can’t hold them at fault for that. Draken’s the top of the food chain in the shifter world and that’s how their DNA works.

“We all have locations to search. This was my assigned one,” the shifter bitterly answers, trying his best to fight the command.

“What’s your name?” Draken follows up.

In the beginning, when we first started getting him to interrogate shifters, it’d drive me crazy that this was one of his first questions, but I soon learned about the hierarchy of shifters. They answer with title, name, and pack or whatever the shifter side deems to call their group. It gives us a huge lead on corrupt groups and has narrowed down plenty of searches.

“Alpha Jerod Terr-Ter-Ter…” he continues to growl, trying to fight off saying his pack name, but one growl from Draken cuts that shit off. “Terravile pack.”

“As in the largest pack of wolf shifters in Terian?” I ask, eyeing Jerod, who gives me a curt nod.

“So is the entire pack working for the rebel group or just you?” Draken asks, but Jerod’s obviously tired of answering his questions. He’s thrashing around, trying to sling my E.F. members off him, head butting one in the face closest to him, but before he can get free, Draken partially shifts his hand into a claw, slicing his shirt, and sticking his claw to Jerod’s neck.

“Tsk, tsk. Bad wolf,” Draken mocks.

A gasp sounds from behind me, and then Willow pushes her way between me and Corentin, running straight up to the guy.

“Where did you get that?” she asks hurriedly, pointing to his chest.

“Willow, back up now,” Caspian orders, taking a step toward her, but she ignores him.

“Tell me right now, where did you get that?” She’s yelling at Jerod, shoving her finger into his chest.

“Willow, I said—” Caspian raises his voice, but Jerod cuts him off with a dark, booming laugh.

“Willow, is it? Well, well, well. It’s my lucky day.” Jerod smiles down at her like he just hit the royal chance.

“Don’t fucking look at her,” I bark, but he ignores me.

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