Page 51 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

“I tracked down Michael Kingsley,” she began, not wasting any time. “Er, I tracked down the person using Michael’s name. But you’re right, it wasn’t Stanley’s kid. It was a woman. An old friend of Michael’s from grade school. She uses his name when she’s talking to people online—especially if the topic of conversation has anything to do with werewolves.”

Both Andreas and Mikeal stiffened but said nothing.

“Oh yeah, you can drop the act now,” Georgie said to them with a half smile. “I know what you really are. This woman, her name is Steff, showed me video proof and everything.”

“She has video proof?” Mikeal said. “Of us?”

“Yeah. Of the night ten years ago when she and Michael came to the compound with a video camera.”

All three of us sat up a little straighter at this.

“They were teenagers at the time. Michael was sick of being laughed at, sick of everyone at school and his parents thinking he was crazy. He wanted to show everyone he was right. So, he and his friend snuck out one night and came here—but they were caught. They were attacked by a few wolves on the compound, and one of them killed Michael.”

I gasped. Andreas slammed his fist down on the table. “Impossible! That is not our way!”

“Hold on,” Georgie said. “I’m not done explaining. After Michael was killed, Steff was brought back to the leader mostly unharmed.”

“Mom,” Mikeal said under his breath.

“That’s right. Your mother. At the time, your mom didn’t know what to do about the teenage girl, but she decided that sending her away from Silverleaf was the best idea. Steff was an orphan who had been living in her car for the last two years of high school—nobody was going to make a big fuss if she went missing. She was told to leave town and never come back, and never to talk about what happened that night, or someone from the pack would track her down and kill her.”

“My mom would never do that,” Andreas said under his breath.

“Maybe not,” Georgie agreed. “But she just needed Steff to believe that she would. Scare her into obeying, you know? Steff continued to lie low for a while, but when I started doing some digging and asking around at local libraries, she saw my inquiry and wanted to give me more information so that I wouldn’t suffer the same fate her friend did.”

“But I don’t understand,” said Mikeal. “Who would’ve killed the kid? It must’ve been an accident or something.”

Georgie shook her head. “Not according to Steff. She said that everything happened so fast but that it was on purpose. Nobody would own up to taking Michael’s life, but they definitely didn’t have to kill him. He didn’t have any weapons on him or anything. I guess your mom promised her that they would find out which pack member committed the murder and punish them accordingly, but Steff had no way to confirm whether or not that ever happened.”

“It didn’t.”

Andreas was staring at the table. I watched him take this in with obvious difficulty.

“My mom didn’t tell us about any of this,” he went on. “But I would’ve known if she sniffed out who the murderer was because that person would’ve been cast out. That kind of punishment never goes unnoticed.”

“He’s right,” Mikeal said. “I’ll bet she never figured out who did it.”

Georgie sat back in her chair. “Hence why I think you all might be in danger. You’ve got a murderer in your midst, and you don’t even know who it is.”

“And to make matters even worse,” Mikeal said. “We’ve got Michael’s dad sitting in a hospital bed passed out right now. The second he wakes up and starts running his mouth about his murdered son, word is going to spread around the entire compound.”

“If it gets back to the person who killed Michael,” Andreas said as he rose to his feet. “Then who knows what that person might do, but I don’t think any of us have a desire to find out.”

Chapter 25

Andreas

Mikeal decided he would be the one to track down the murderer amongst us. Under different circumstances, I might’ve insisted on doing so myself or at least insisted on helping him, but I had enough on my plate at the moment. Sarafina was barely hanging on by a thread, and in a couple of hours, her brother and father were going to wake up and need answers. They were going to come straight to me and demand to know who had committed this act of violence, why, and how they were going to be stopped. I hadn’t figured out how much of the truth I was going to tell them, but the one thing I knew for sure was that I had to keep Diana out of it.

Her name couldn’t come up even once. And she sure as hell couldn’t be anywhere near the compound when everyone started to wake up.

So after Mikeal took off to start his investigation, I asked Diana once more to step outside with me, leaving her friend at the kitchen table to polish off the rest of our beer. Diana's breathing was shallow as we strolled through the compound in the dark.

“Andreas,” she said, breaking the silence when I thought for sure I was going to have to be the one to do it. “I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am. I brought all of this trouble to your doorstep, and I see now why you have such strict rules regarding the compound. I don’t know how I’m going to repay you, Sarafina, and the rest of the pack, but I’ll find a way. I broke your rules, and I finally get just how important they are.”

“Yes, well… I have a lot of responsibility.”

“I know. More than one man should take on if you ask me. Which is why I’m going to stay out of your way from now on.”

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