Page 22 of Beyond the Grasslands

“I can send Alex to look after them. He seems to be popular and well liked amongst the women who came back from Mirage Island.”

I nodded and he immediately used the pack link to have Alex go look out for the two women. When he was done, I groaned and looked at my best friend with regret. “You should have already gone to Mirage Island to see if you have a mate there as well.”

Warren shrugged his shoulders. “Fate hands us what we’re meant to have. If I haven’t gone to the island yet, it probably means my mate is not there.”

“I wish I had your faith in the gods and fate. As of late, I wonder if they’re all just playing a big game with us and we keep obliging instead of questioning things.”

“Would you turn away Nika as a mate?”

“Never. She’s perfect.”

“Okay, then maybe the gods do know what they’re doing.”

I punched the fucker in the arm and waited for him to join me in the hall, so I could lock my office up. It wasn’t something I used to do, but after seeing how much treachery had gone on within my own pack, I no longer felt secure leaving things to chance.

There was a contractor coming from one of the human towns to set up a security system for me. He knew of our kind, so it wouldn’t be alarming if he saw a wolf run by while he was on our land. Having cameras and security set up might feel invasive to some, but I wanted to be sure that there were certain places within the pack that were off limits to others. My office and my suite of rooms were among them.

I had valuable information stored there, but more importantly, there was my mate to protect. After what happened before, it seemed imperative to make sure she was protected. I made a mental note to add cameras to the kitchen as well.

“Any word on my cousin?”

Warren shook his head. That was worrisome. They’d been even closer friends than we were as we were growing up because I was always in my father’s shadow as I learned to be an Alpha while they had more time to go do things most pups enjoyed when growing up in a thriving pack. I had moments where I was able to fuck around and have fun too, but they definitely had more time to spare, and as a result they grew closer to one another.

It wasn’t until my father passed, and I took over the pack, that Warren and I grew closer. It was around that time that my cousin started to grow more distant as well. It had only been in the past year that he stopped coming home as much though. In the past six months, he had started to ignore direct orders from me. I never gave him a full-on Alpha order, because it shouldn’t have been necessary, but I started to wonder if I’d been too lenient with him. Then again, there had been so much going onover the past year that it was partially my fault that my cousin had slipped through the cracks.

“Nika told me that the day she was attacked and kidnapped, she felt funny.”

“Funny?” Warren questioned.

“She said it felt as though someone had slipped a tranquilizer of some sort in her food or drink. She was off balance and out of sorts when Miriam attacked her.”

Warren gave a thoughtful nod and stared off toward the door we would go through to get down beneath the pack house and to the cells kept to house rogues that needed to be questioned. At least, that was what they had been used for previously. They were filled with our own pack mates of late and that made me angry all over again.

“Something is going on.” I lowered my voice before we opened the door to descend the steps. “Nika shared her idea that something else is going on, maybe a power grab for someone. She asked who stood to gain the Alpha position if I was taken out of contention.”

“That would be Vik.” Warren scrunched his face up and then heaved out a deep sigh. “If you had mentioned that a year ago, I would have vehemently denied the possibility of Vik being behind a coup to take over the pack.”

“His behavior lends credence to the theory, though.” Warren gave a quick nod of agreement. “Hell, if he wanted that badly, he could have challenged me for it when my father died.”

“We both know he wouldn’t have won. Vik was never meant to be Alpha, and I never thought he had any designs on the position. He always pitied you a bit when we were able to go fuck around while you had more to learn from your father.”

“People change, I guess. Nika had another theory about Vik.”

“If she were any other person, and you continued to offer up their theories, I would think you’d been snowed over.”

“But?” I asked, knowing there was more to what my Beta wanted to say.

“But, I trust and respect her. Nika has a sharp eye and wonderful intuition. If she thinks there’s something about Vik we need to pay attention to, then let’s hear it.”

“She thinks there may be another involved.”

Warren’s brows rose nearly to his hairline. “What does she mean by ‘other woman’? That would entail that there was a main woman to begin with.”

I nodded my head and opened the door to go down into the cells. “Janella and Vik seem to be moon-blessed. Janella has nearly confirmed it with some of the things she has said about him, but Vik refuses to have anything to do with her.”

“That’s strange as fuck, considering I wouldn’t think he would be too keen to repeat mistakes that almost cost you your mate. Although, he hasn’t been around lately, so he doesn’t know about Bethany either.”

“Or maybe he does know,” I muttered.

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