Page 18 of Having the Dragon's Baby

He rubbed at his forehead. He knew that was going to come up. They had been trying to solve this without people really finding out, but the number of people missing kept growing, and it became a little hard to just brush it under the rug.

Not that he didn't want to tell people … it was more he didn't want to scare the den over something that was simple. But now, that simple problem seemed to be growing.

"How many is that now?" he asked, placing his hands flat on the table.

"That's eight," Zander said, shaking his head. "We've spoken to all the families and tried to calm them the best we could."

Lucas gave him an irritated expression. "Three women and five men. Three were when they were out running, one was driving, and four while they were preparing to take a vacation."

He looked down at the map they had spread out over the table. They had marked Xs on the spots where people suspected something had gone down. They also marked other information, such as where everyone lived and worked. There was nothing that connected.

He remembered when it had just been one person, and now the map was littered with information. His head pulsed with stress as he looked over the still-senseless information.

There was no overlap, and none of the victims had crossed paths before. It was like all eight people were just selected at random. A vein throbbed at his temple as his stress levels rose steadily.

They needed to get a handle on the situation. If more disappeared, people were going to start knocking down his door. He was surprised they weren't already.

"What else do you have?" he asked, looking at each of his men. They didn't call a meeting to tell him they had nothing. He knew there was more.

Lucas and Zander looked uncomfortable, and he narrowed his eyes at them. "What?" he asked, feeling his voice growing clipped. "What now?"

"We know that people are being picked at random," Vincent said. "There's no overcrossing, no one working with another, no one is related. But we did find a possible line of connection."

"Which is?" he asked, not understanding why they didn't just come out with it.

Zander swallowed. "We heard a rumor about an underground trafficking ring."

He stared at them because this had to be a bad joke, even though his dragon was already thrashing, knowing it wasn’t. If that was true, they were in for more trouble than they thought. But none of them said anything, and the silence told him that they were being serious.

He pinched at his eyes, feeling a headache forming at the base of his skull. Just hours ago, he was making love to Rachel, and now he was dealing with the possibility of a trafficking ring. Damn, he should’ve stayed in bed.

He felt he was failing as an alpha, even more so when he looked at his beta and saw the frustration written on his face. He was failing everyone, starting with the missing shifters.

"All right, what do you know about this ring?" he asked, leaning back.

"My informant said they sell shifters to the highest bidder. They go into a building, and they don't come out. Or at least, they aren't seen walking out."

He had twenty more questions blooming in his head with each answer he was getting. "And we don't know what happens to the shifters? Who's attending these events?"

The room fell silent, and he didn't like it. He looked at Vincent, who looked extremely uncomfortable.

Vincent squirmed in his chair before he swallowed. "We aren't sure, but we can guess."

"Which is?" he asked, growing frustrated.

"Sex trafficking. Personal slaves. Take your pick, and you are likely right. Whatever is happening isn't good. People will pay big money for shifters, and they’ll pay even more the younger they are."

He swallowed, not liking how that sat in his stomach. If someone was running a trafficking ring, that was bad enough, but targeting shifters was even worse. He ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, we need to figure out where this is happening and when. We need to contact the other alphas in the area and see what they know. Put them up on the big screen."

A couple of minutes went by, and everyone was in motion, calling and pulling up all the alphas on a large TV screen. He felt his stomach dip, sitting in front of all of them. He hated the fact that he was about to be the bearer of bad news. But someone had to do it.

"What did you call this meeting for?" Liam, alpha of the Boren bear clan, asked, sitting in his office. Liam looked irritated, and he understood that. None of them looked happy.

He looked from him to the other alphas before he pulled himself up from his chair. He straightened his back and took a deep breath in. "I've called you all because we have a situation on our hands. It's just come to my attention that we possibly have an underground trafficking ring picking up our shifters and selling them."

He watched a few of the alphas stiffen, and their nostrils flared. Liam looked at him with a neutral expression, but his hands had clenched into fists.

"My beta and team managed to gather some information about it. Have any of you had any more shifters go missing recently?"

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