Page 75 of Rejected Mate's Baby for the Alpha King

Tears filled his eyes, and I reached across the table and took his hand. He couldn’t even look at us, but his hand squeezed mine. “I confronted him, and he just laughed. He could have killed me, would have killed me, but Letty begged for my life. He dosed me for the first time that night and told Letty that if she tried to leave him, he’d kill me. He kept me so high that I didn’t even know when time was passing, and when it started to wear off, I’d go looking for it. I was so hooked. I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t stop.”

He paused, and I squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, Paisley.”

Finally, he turned his head and looked at me. “It’s not okay. Letty died four months ago. I know that bastard broke her neck, but no one would believe me. Or no one cared. They all thought she was a whore. She was fourteen years old. I didn’t break into your cabin that night for your fucking amulet. I broke in that night because you were the first outsiders that I’d found. You were a lifeline. I needed help.”

I thought back to that night. The fear in his voice. Suddenly, I knew who he was scared of, and when I turned to Rhyson, I saw it in his eyes too.

“Say his name,” Rhyson said flatly. “Give me a target.”

“Gideon,” Paisley whispered finally. “Gideon is the one making and distributing the drugs.”

40

Rhyson

“Is this Gideon?” Jax slid a photo across the table. It was blurry, but there was no mistaking the face of the man who’d saved Maya.

Fury had filled me with Paisley’s words and had yet to abate. It was hours later, and Maya and I were in Jax’s office with Anna, who’d promised to explain everything.

“You’ve known that he’s a drug dealer, and you didn’t do anything about it?” I snarled.

“Gideon is more than just a drug dealer,” Anna said, a note of anxiety in her voice. “It’s not easy for us to investigate things that happen within the rogue community, and we have been looking for him, but we were looking for someone by a different name. When he was part of Indigo Peak’s pack, he went by the name Jefferson.”

“Great. Get Indigo Peak’s alpha on the line. I have some questions for them.”

Anna and Jax exchanged a look. “Indigo Peak has currently closed off communication with us. It’s been a month, but this is the information Finn sent us before he felt he had to close the doors, so to speak.”

“All right, there’s something that you’re not telling me, and I want to know what the fuck it is right now.” The time for tiptoeing around the alphas here was done. I wanted my information, and I wanted to get off this mountain so I could kill Maya’s father. The sooner the better.

Anna took a deep breath. “The previous alpha of Indigo Peak was an older woman by the name of Maeve Frost. She’d been told a prophecy decades ago by a seer who claimed she would take all the magic of the mountain and be the queen. It’s a long story, and I won’t go into it, but one of the tools in her arsenal was a drug that she’d had created off the mountain and shipped in. That’s one of the reasons we know that some wolves have been able to contact others outside the mountain. The drug was made to grow the wolf into a monster and diminish cognitive capacity, making them susceptible to commands. She was, essentially, growing her own monster army.”

“What the fuck,” Maya muttered. “Are you serious?”

“She was delusional,” Anna admitted. “As, unfortunately, were many who served under her. It took us too long to realize what was happening, and we did stop it. She is dead, but several in her inner circle escaped. When we started hearing reports of the drug in the rogue community, we knew it had to be someone in her circle. Someone who’d tampered with the toxin to make it an addictive drug. It still triggered some of the wolves, morphing them, but only a small percentage. The rest were, well, what I suspected Paisley turned into.”

“Why is the new alpha operating behind closed doors?” Rhyson asked suspiciously.

“Finn is a powerful wolf, and he’s Maeve’s son,” Anna said carefully. “Unfortunately, he was also very close to Jax and me, and his pack was not responding well to our alliance. He’s closed the door to garner their trust.”

“And get the pack under control,” I finished. “Fine, but I feel like there’s more that you’re not telling me.”

Jax cocked his head. “We’ve told you all that you need to know. You came here for information on your brother. The rest of this mountain is none of your concern.”

My anger grew, but I kept it in check. He wasn’t wrong, but I hated that. “What will happen when I kill Gideon? He has a pack. Maybe not a formal one, but there are wolves under his protection. What happens to them?”

“Someone will likely step in to take his place,” Anna said simply. “The truth is that his second and third mostly likely work with him, so the cycle could continue. Because they are not taking an alpha role, there’s no need for a challenge. It’s probably why Gideon is still alive. No one can challenge him for the pack because it isn’t a pack. You can kill him, but that doesn’t mean you get the other wolves. It’s a difficult situation.”

“Jenson will go with you and help assess,” Jax said. “He’ll report back to me, and I’ll get involved if I can. Offer sanctuary.”

Anna nodded. “I’ll be going as well.”

“The hell you are,” I growled. “You’re pregnant.”

“So is Maya,” she countered, but smiled. “I won’t be there to fight. Janelle and Irene will come with us, and we’re going to use the witch’s den as our home base. I can get you through the surrounding area without triggering a spell trap. I would like to point out that I am perfectly capable of fighting, but I promised Jax to only be the guide.”

Maya stiffened. “Janelle and Irene are going? Does that mean they think there will be something at the coven that can help me?”

“She’s just not ready to give up yet, and neither am I.”

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