Page 22 of Her Reborn Mate

“What is it, man?” I asked. “Where are you? Are you safe?”

“I’m safe, but the pack isn’t. It’s Maurice. He’s doing something drastic. I fear that he’s going to kill all the pack members. I spied on him after you left. He was talking about taking the entire pack somewhere. The culling fields, he called it,” Vince whispered.

“Do you know who he was talking to?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

“No. He was on the phone, Will. I don’t know who was on the other end,” Vince said.

At that moment, Alexis started waving at me, signaling to her phone that she was holding in her hand. She mouthed Maurice’s name and then signaled to her phone again. I didn’t understand what she was saying.

“What do you think that means, Vincent?” I asked confusedly.

“What else do you think it means? With you gone and Alexis nowhere to be found, he’s in charge with no one to stand up to him. He’s just said to the entire pack at this hour of the night that he wants to take us somewhere in the woods where he’s going to have an initiation ceremony to usher in the new days of the pack. A dawn of a new era, he said. I call bullshit. There’s something rotten going on here, Will. If you’re nearby, you should come. Please. Save us…”

With that, Vince hung up the call.

“What were you saying, Alexis?” I asked distractedly as I wondered what fresh hell Maurice was going to unleash.

“This is the phone that Maliha cloned Maurice’s phone on. I still have it. It was on me when we were about to attack Beckett Pharma. I never turned it on afterward. I can find out what Maurice has been doing,” she said.

“I don’t even need to find out what he’s doing. His intentions are clear as day to me. He means to end the Grimm pack and then hand the commune to the vampires. With no more werewolves and with that much land available to them, the vampires will move inland and start their operation anew on our land with Maurice’s blessing. He’s been planning this for a long time. This time, he means to follow through. I can feel it in my bones,” I said.

“The pack’s not blind. They’re not going to just follow him to their deaths,” Alexis said. Sometimes, she let her naiveté get the better of her. This was one of those times. Of course, she hadn’t been an Alpha in her life and thus was unaware of the unsaid rules that came with alpha-hood.

“You can’t just disobey your Alpha. If you do, it can have negative physical and psychological consequences. The wolves know it. There’s a reason the Alpha wolf has so much power, to begin with. His word is the law. Knowing that, I can’t have my pack members follow him into the culling fields,” I said.

I took one last look at Alexis, not knowing whether I’d see her again, and waited for a brief moment for her to say something or for the courage to say something to her, but when neither thing transpired, I left abruptly, realizing that time was not my side.

Chapter 9: Alexis

How incandescent were the lies that men told, so full of light from afar yet hollow when I saw them from up close?

The lies that Lawrence had told me to gain my confidence…

The lies that Maurice was telling the pack to lead them to their doom…

Were the things that Will said to me lies?

I hadn’t decided upon that.

All I knew was I needed to see for myself what Maurice was doing. I turned on the phone that had Maurice’s phone emulated inside it, hoping to God that it would still be working.

When the phone came to life, I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly accessed the recorded call sessions on Maurice’s phone. Maliha was an excellent hacker and ensured that her scripts were foolproof. Even after my immense failure at Beckett Pharma, the phone worked, and it seemed that Maurice was none the wiser. Or perhaps he had forgotten that his phone was tapped. In either case, I could use this to my advantage.

I played the latest recording.

“That Lawrence is no good,” Maurice said.

“Calm down. The biggest thing was whether he could find her or not. He found her, didn’t he? He’s one of the best hitmen in the country. I should think he’s equipped to handle our runaway wolf,” Blair said.

“Still, I can’t help but wonder…” Maurice said.

“Will you just do as you’re told, please?” Ralph chimed in. I didn’t realize this was a conference call.

“I’m taking them to the culling fields, as we agreed. Ralph’s men will take it from there. With no more wolves, the town’s going to be all yours. Hopefully, that’s going to help you two gentlemen expand your operations. Grimm Abode has acres of land. All of that can go toward expansion. The vampires won’t have to use the cove now that they’ll have all that land available,” Maurice said.

“And as for me, let’s just say that I’m all too happy with Will’s death that I’m not going to pester either of you while you work your criminal empire of drugs, blood, and smuggling,” Blair said.

Maurice and Ralph laughed loudly in unison.

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