39. A Hidden Alpha

39

A Hidden Alpha

GRIGOR

T he voices of the Northern hunters filtered through the pine branches to my ears, carried by a helpful breeze. "Sergeant, we need to get back. A call came on the sat phone from Erik. The Alpha's called a mandatory meeting for the entire pack at noon today. Something big is happening."

Sergeant was in wolf form, but began his shift to answer. It was done as quickly as any I'd ever seen, except my own.

His power bothered me. Who was this man? Where was he from? He had no family in the Northern pack, and I had overheard more than one of the older shifters mention Sergeant coming to them after the war.

He wasn't Russian, like the ones he hunted now. He was filled with real hatred for those rogues; I could smell it on him, sense the rage their attack on his adopted home had kindled. If he had come from one of the other packs, there should have been some added familiarity with my little one's other suitors.

Perhaps he had acted more familiar with her Mountain mate. Could he have defected from that pack? But Mountain was the most insular of all the packs on this continent, keeping to the old ways more closely than any others. It was their greatest strength. I knew they would welcome my mate with open arms, but wondered how they would feel about my presence on their lands.

It would be a challenge to keep from being spotted as I followed her to a new home.

I peered down at the group of six Northern males who were meant to be seeking out the rogues. They had only found one—the body of the traitor, the niece who had betrayed my mate. One of them carried her now over his shoulder, her naked body showing signs of mistreatment.

They'd assumed she had been killed by the rogues and dumped in their haste. But I had been the one to take her life from a distance, with a wave of my diminishing magic. Traitor or not, no woman deserved what the rogues had only just begun to do to her. Death had been a mercy.

Though I had no reason to be merciful. Perhaps my kindhearted little mate was rubbing off on me.

The pre-dawn sky cast just enough light for me to see how my hands trembled as I fought to hold onto the trunk of the vast pine I'd climbed. I'd expended far too much magic over the past several days.

Healing the Alpha had taken more energy than I'd hoped. That and defeating the Russians had left me depleted, though I knew I still had to follow the general and his remaining followers to be certain they were no threat to my little mate.

"Something big?" Sergeant demanded. "What is it?"

"Erik said the pack is being restructured." All the shifters looked uneasy at that.

"Go on," Sergeant prodded.

"He said… they figured out the ranking tests weren't… precisely fair." None of them seemed surprised at that, but when he added, "And that the Southern girl is working with the Alpha Mate to change the way rank is assigned," all of them began to bristle.

Unseen, I smiled. Of course my little miracle of a mate would be in the center of the much-needed revolution. She would be a catalyst in more ways than one.

"Right, you all go back now. I'll be along. Don't worry about me," Sergeant said curtly, taking the bag with the satellite phone and provisions from the man who had spoken.

Defying a command by someone as highly ranked as Sergeant was a grave offense. Most of the others stared, but when one finally raised his voice to argue with their leader, he found himself on the ground, in a chokehold.

"Never question me. Now, all of you, back to the Lodge. Return Vanessa's body to her family, Enforcer," Sergeant commanded. The power in his voice left no room for disobedience, or doubt.

This man should have been an Alpha. Perhaps he was one, in hiding. He was worth investigating.

Or killing. I could just kill him, and go back to my little behrserk 's side. Sing to her before the night had fled entirely.If I had a little more magic, I would have done just that. Or if he hadn't shared so many of the same features. So much of the same pride in their bearing.

Sergeant called out as the hunters ran on human legs in the direction of the Lodge, "I'll keep going north for a bit. Tell the Alpha I'll try to make it back to the meeting."

They were too far to hear the lie in his words, and not one of them looked back to see him face south. If he'd spoken even a little more quietly, I wouldn't have heard what he said before he sprinted away in the opposite direction of his home.

"She's alive. She has to be alive."