Chapter 96
Gideon’s POV
While my guards searched the premises of Darius’s family estate, I stood on the front porch with Darius’s wife, Gladys. If looks could kill, I’d be dead thrice over, but since they couldn’t, I just pointedly ignored her glaring.
“How much longer do you intend to continue to humiliate my family?” she asked me, her voice shrill and pointed. “My daughter is a Luna now. Does that not allocate us some measure of respect?”
Ah. So that was why Gladys was feeling so bold as to talk to me like she was. She was banking on her daughter’s new title.
Daphne might be a Luna now, but she wasn’t my Luna. I’d never forgive her for what she had done to me and my family.
If Gladys thought using her daughter’s title was going to stop my justice, she was in for a rude awakening.
“These are the consequences of your family’s own actions,” I told Gladys flatly.
She huffed. “You can say that, but I don’t believe it. This is retaliation. You led Daphne on for years, and now that she has finally left you and found happiness elsewhere, you are bitter and jealous.”
I was jealous, but not of Justin and Daphne. Thoughts of Ivan and Raven were what sat in my stomach like curdled milk. That was no one’s business but my own, however. Certainly not Gladys. It was also something I was trying to smother, knowing those feelings would only lead to more trouble.
O
So far, I wasn’t having much success in destroying them.
This only made me more annoyed at Gladys and her show of blatant disrespect.
“Your daughter may be Luna of a faraway pack, but I am Alpha of the pack you are in,” I said. I held back my anger, so that my tone was carefully cool. I’d found that, when being intimidating, an eerie calm was often more effective than losing my temper.
I stared hard at Gladys. I might have kept my annoyance out of my voice but I was sure it still shone in my eyes.
She held my gaze for one brazen moment, the length of a few seconds, before she started to pale and looked away. She was a bold woman, I could give her that, but she was also foolish to think she could speak to me that way.
With her husband locked in my jail cell, where her daughter should also be, she had to know she also carried suspicion of wrongdoing. Why she would want to be openly hostile to me, when I was the one person who could make her life even more miserable, I had no idea.
Blind hatred, I supposed.
“Do not disrespect me,” I told her, a warning. I had the power to put her in a cell right next to her husband, and it would be good of her to remember that.
She hung her head in a show of begrudging respect.
“Now. We came here to speak with Gregory,” I said. “Where is he?”
“He’s not here,” she said.
I didn’t believe her before, but I was starting to, especially the longer the search of her home persisted.
“Where has he gone?”
“I told you. He betrayed Darius. He’s abandoned our house and fled the pack,” she said. “The last I saw of him, he was
MON
16:40 Mon, Jan 19
Chapter 96
disappearing into the rogue lands.”
“Tell me a lie that I will actually believe,” I said.
“It’s the truth!” she said, looking up at me again, outrage filling her face once more.
People didn’t just run to the rogue lands on purpose, even if they were fleeing. The rogues were dangerous, pushed beyond the range of human reasoning. They were starving and wild, and would attack most anyone who entered their territory.
“Quiet now,” I told her. “You’ve said enough.”
I tired of her lies. Hopefully the search would turn up what I needed.
Unfortunately, an hour later, my guards returned to me empty–handed.
“He really is gone,” Xavier said.
Out of Gladys’s earshot, I told them what she had said, about Gregory fleeing to the rogue lands. Xavier snorted his disbelief, but Peter was quiet.
As he wasn’t a member of my pack, he was allowed to keep his own secrets, but if it was something important to the case, I was hoping he would share.
“What is it, Peter?” I prompted.
“My pack borders the rogue lands,” he said. “I can’t help but wonder if…”
At just that moment, my phone started to ring. Glancing at the screen, I saw that it was Alpha Ivan calling. I bit back the growl that instinctively leapt to my throat.
A call from Ivan likely meant something other than updates about his romance with Raven. I had to put my personal feelings on hold to properly deal with the matter at hand.
Doing so, I answered the phone, unsure what to expect, but hoping it was good news at last.
“Alpha Gideon,” I said.
“We have a strange visitor here,” Ivan said. As I hadn’t given a true greeting, I hadn’t expected one back. We both seemed fine with getting straight to the point. “A fleeing servant seeking sanctuary.”
I glanced at Peter. “What’s his name?” I asked Ivan through the phone.
“Gregory,” Ivan said.
Every muscle in my body went cold. “I’ve been searching for him.”
“Given what he said, I imagined so. He claims he’s being hunted by Darius.”
“That’s a lie,” I said. “I’m the one hunting him. Keep him there, but be cautious. That man cannot be trusted.”
“He’s being confined to a cottage on border’s edge.”
“I’m on my way. I want to talk to him myself.”
“We’ll be expecting you.”
Claire’s POV
“You didn’t tell him he saw Leo,” I said, when Ivan hung up the phone.
Chapter 96
38
35 Youth
“There will be time for that after,” Ivan said. “If we tell him that before he sees Leo is unharmed, he will act rashly to protect his son. His son is safe here. He should focus on the rest.”
I wasn’t sure that I agreed with all of that, I still thought Gideon should know sooner rather than later. But Ivan was certain and he was Alpha. I had to defer to his judgement on this.
But I would be certain Gideon did know everything before he left the pack again.
“We should get to the cottage house,” Ivan said. “I have a very bad feeling about this, and I’d like to have another conversation with Gregory.”
“I want to be there for it,” I said, firm.
He nodded.
Together, after appointing several warriors to specifically sit and watch the children, Ivan and I left on our own to head to the border.
When we arrived at the cottage Gregory had been assigned, the surrounding warriors greeted us.
“It’s been quiet from within,” one of the warriors reported.
Gregory nodded and we walked through the protective perimeter to the door of the cottage.
Ivan knocked and we waited a moment. There was no answer, or any sound of movement from inside.
“Perhaps he is resting?” I asked, even though my stomach was starting to sink.
Ivan lifted his head and scented the air. Whatever he detected made his face harden. Turning, he kicked open the door and stepped inside.
I followed him, my adrenaline rushing as it always did when I anticipated a fight.
But we didn’t find a fight.
Instead, we found a dead body.
Gregory laid on the floor of the living room, some foam oozing out of his mouth. He was pale, his face turning blue. Ivan leaned down and checked his pulse anyway.
“No one could have come in here,” Ivan said. “This was self–inflicted.”
“Poison,” I said, gesturing toward the foam on his lips.
Ivan hummed.
I noticed then that Gregory had been holding his phone in his right hand. The screen was still dimly lit. Leaning closer, I could see that he had been texting an unknown number.
Seeing his message, I froze.
Confirmed. Gideon’s brat is being sheltered in Night Mountain Pack.
The message was marked read. There was no reply.
Mon,
Chapter 97
