Page 49 of Auctioned to the Alpha

“No! How could I have known they weren’t informing the wolves about the disappearances?” She threw up her hands. “Apparently, the FMB leadership were treating usbothlike mushrooms.”

Though she tried to mask it with her outward frustration, inside, she was reeling. The entire complexion of her situation had changed, in ways she was still unpacking. And though she didn’t even trust her own motivations anymore—considering how much her body was completelynoton board with resisting Dmitri, and his wondercock—a grudging, reluctant understanding, if not sympathy, was growing within her.

Be very careful, Stace. That’s exactly what a man like him would want, isn’t it?

“We now have a very serious problem,” Dmitri intoned, steepling his long fingers together. “Vampires are openly killing wolves. In my territory.Thathasn’t happened before.”

“What does it mean though?” She didn’t know what else to say, her head still spinning about his revelations regarding the vampires.

A whole fucking nation of them?

“It means I have to let the other clans know, starting with Kellen.” He scowled, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “That news might, just might, save me from having to fight him.”

“You afraid he’ll kill you?”

He chuckled softly. “No. I’m afraid I’d have to killhim. He’s a good man, a vital leader. Mutual bloodletting among the wolves is exactly what those night crawling vermin want.” He stood then. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to play their fucking game.”

“Uh, what… what now?” She cringed asking it, but she needed to know.

He’d just been informed that the humans were not only breaking treaty obligations, but they were also actively concealing something that was of vital concern to the entire nation of the wolves. While wolves could and did breed among themselves, their fertility in that mode was fairly modest. It was the omegas who were responsible for many of the wolf nation’s total offspring, not to mention the omegas were the only beings suitable to mate with the alphas.

They’d explained at leastthatin excruciating detail in the Academy.

But what most concerned her was that it was one of the FMB’s own—her—who’d been the person to disclose the problem with the omegas. Perhaps it would help her case with him?

And maybe it’ll just make you a target for his vengeance.

(Stasia)

He looked down at her then, a strange smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I suspect I know exactly what you’re thinking, and I want you to rest easy. You do have another correction coming for your impertinence earlier, but you’renotresponsible for the Bureau’s treachery. Someone else will be answering for that.”

She sighed softly. “Thank… thank you.” Though she hated that she’d been so anxious at the prospect of his being angry about what she’d told him, her body didrelaxever so slightly.

He opened the bedroom door.

“Where are you going?” She couldn’t hope to explain why, but the news about the vampires had left her grappling with an unsettling dread she couldn’t quite shake. She didn’t want to be alone, even if the only being who could keep her company happened to be a wolf.

“Now, I have to figure out how to extract my nuts from the fire they’re in.” Pulling himself to his full, towering height, his jaw clenched as he looked upon her. “You’re smart enough to know—just as I do—that this thing with the omegas has got nothing to do with the wolves.”

“Then who?” Perhaps the Bureau already knew? And then again, maybe they reallywerestill coming up empty on determining the perpetrators?

But he didn’t answer her. “Get dressed and meet me out in the living room.”

He paused in the threshold of the door, his thumb tapping against the jamb. “Once all other possibilities are eliminated, what does that leave you with, agent?”

She shivered.

Then he was gone.

CHAPTER20

Stacy

She found him in the huge, expansive living room. For some reason, she’d expected the others would be present too, but seeing him there, bent forward as he sat on the giant arched sofa, she thought he looked both vulnerable and yet almost… regal.

His phone was pressed to his ear, his other hand rubbing his brow over and over as he murmured in that strange wolf tongue into the handset, the waning afternoon sun painted his form in stripes of light through the blinds, rendering the rest of him into deep shadow by contrast.

Suddenly feeling the need to be as unobtrusive as possible, she took a seat at the opposite end of the sofa, curling her bare feet underneath her. She’d donned the pair of black yoga pants and faded cream t-shirt that were the only clothing she could find in the bedroom. She had no idea whose they were, but they happened to fit perfectly.

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