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48
“And say what? That they traced him by smell, tracked him across a hundred miles of woods and they know it was him because they could still smell her blood on her? Yeah, right. They were holding him for the Alexandria Pack, instead he called and told him the rogue had died in the cell. No one will miss him.”
“So you made him look like you, and you looked like the prison guard.”
“Exactly. That wasn’t the best part, though.”
“Really? Fooling the world wasn’t good enough?”
She laughed. “The reward was $25 million. Sven came up with an idea for more. He called Yuri and told him he had me, but I’d offered half of my inheritance if he would protect me until I could collect. He then told Yuri that he’d kill me that night for three hundred million, cash, transferred within eight hours to his Swiss account.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Nope. The money came in just before they pulled ‘me’ from the cells. I now have a numbered Swiss account of my own with a hundred and fifty million in it. Sven and his Pack are rich now, too. They just can’t do anything with their wealth until Yuri is dealt with.” My jaw dropped. “Of course, he had to do a lot to come up with that much cash so quickly. That’s why we want to delay the court proceedings for a few months. The longer he has to wait, the more financial trouble he is in and the more desperate he is. I don’t just want to get the inheritance that is rightly mine, I want to destroy him in the process.”
I just stared at her. “Well, lass, you’ve got the smarts and courage of a great Luna,” I finally said. “I’m proud of you. You’re right, if I had known what was going on, I couldn’t have gone through with it.”
Our meals done, I could see the fatigue in her eyes. “Go get ready for bed, honey. I’ll clean up and join you in a few.” She stood up, kissing me deeply, then walked away with a sway of her hips, pulling her shirt over her head as she walked through the door and closed it. “You’re going to be the death of me, woman,” I complained as she laughed.
There was warm water, and I quickly washed and stacked the dishes. When I knocked on the door, she didn’t answer. I looked in, she was in bed, snoring lightly. I took my shower, putting on a pair of cotton shorts before getting in the other side. I pulled her to me, spooning her with my arm over her hip, and she wiggled back into me. “I love you, Jessie,” I said before I fell asleep.
*****
Beta Female Abigail Clarke POV
Three Days Later
“Beta Abigail, there is a young woman here to see you, an omega I have never met,” the guard posted at the entrance to the St. Croix Pack lands notified her as she sat in the kitchen, preparing lunch for her mate.
“Who is it?”
“She refuses to say, Ma’am, just that she has a message for your eyes only.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I grabbed my windbreaker and walked out the door; the cold front had resulted in the first hard frost of the season this morning, and it was not even fifty degrees yet. It was my favorite time of year; the leaves changing, the mosquitoes killed off by the frost, the fog of my breath in the air as I walked out of the house. I walked up to where the guard was watching over her as she sat by the small gate house; she was a tiny thing, barely eighteen, and looked as harmless as a mouse. Her body was thin, not shapely at all, and her eyes were wide and bright blue as I approached. “You wished to see me, young lady?”
“Yes Beta. I am sorry to arrive unannounced, but I was directed to speak to no one else and not give my name or Pack,” she said as she kept her eyes down on my neck. She didn’t have a dominant bone in her body, so she was no threat.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.
“Walk with me, then. It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it,” I said as I turned. She jumped up and fell into pace alongside me as we walked the trail around the edge of the fenced-in portion of the Pack grounds.
“Yes Ma’am, I love this time of year.” We walked in silence until we were out of sight of the other wolves. “My name is Ingrid, Beta Clarke. I was instructed to give this to you.” She handed me a letter, it had my name on it, nothing else. “Please do not open it now, Ma’am, I do not want to know the contents. My Alpha said I am too curious about things that don’t involve me, and I need to be more discreet.”
“He does, does he? Well, discretion can be a good thing at times.” We walked along. “Are you happy in your Pack?”
She smiled. “I am, although my parents are quite ready to mate me off. They want grandchildren before they get too old. My Mom wants to rock on the porch, looking out over the lake while they all play on the lawn. She didn’t find her mate until she was almost forty, so she is hoping I find mine quickly.”
“Things happen so fast,” I said. I thought of my Patrick, he would be mated in a few months and I was already picking out furniture for the nursery. “Why you?”
“Nobody would miss me, I don’t have a vital job or anything. I help out in the Pack child care, but I’m the junior wolf there. School is off for conferences, so I thought I would enjoy the drive and visit another Pack. I rarely get a chance to go elsewhere.”
“Well, I can understand that. Can you stay for lunch?”
“If it wouldn’t be an imposition, Beta Clarke. I can delay my return for a few hours.”
I fingered the envelope in my pocket, wondering why an Alpha would send someone like this to deliver it. “Peter, change in plans, we’re eating lunch with the Pack today.” I shifted to the Pack link. “All unmated males, we have a visitor, I suggest you eat lunch in the Pack Dining Hall.” I looked back to our visitor. “It’s no trouble at all, I can’t imagine you eat too much and there’s always plenty of food.”
We had made our way back towards the buildings and it was getting close to lunch time, so I led her to the dining hall. The place quieted as we entered, and the single men were trying to get her scent without being too obvious about it. She was doing the same, her nose taking deep pulls as she sought her mate. Her face fell when nothing happened. “Come on, I need to introduce you to the Alphas and my mate.”
I walked her to the main table, where the Pack leadership was already eating. “Alpha Stan, Luna Larissa, Beta Peter, this is Ingrid. She delivered a message for me and I invited her to lunch to see if her mate was here.”
“Welcome, Ingrid. I’m sorry you did not find him, but you are young, you have plenty of time.” Alpha Stan smiled at her, seeing her disappointment as she walked over.
“Thank you, Alphas, for having me for lunch.”
I guided her to the table and sat her next to me. She was clearly nervous, but as a guest she belonged at the main table. The door from the kitchen opened, and I heard a plate of food hitting the ground. Everyone got quiet as Jerry Connery rushed the table, snatching Ingrid off her chair and pulling her into his arms. Their noses were buried in each other’s necks as the clapping began. I leaned back into Peter’s arms as we watched; there were few things in life as beautiful as watching mates find each other.
Jerry was an omega who was working in the kitchen, learning how to be a Pack Cook. He was a good kid, and his parents ran in a few minutes later to see their new daughter. They finally stopped kissing long enough to thank us, then he carried her out of the dining room to the cheers of the Pack.
Peter had to work with the Alpha after lunch, so I walked home and sat on the front porch. Pulling out the envelope she had given me, I opened it and pulled out the form.
It was from Jessie. Enclosed was a power of attorney, granting Patrick the ability to act for Jessie in her lawsuit, and a letter. Both were dated five days ago. “Dear Patrick and Abigail- John and I are going into hiding, the threat from Yuri is too great. We won’t tell anyone where we are, so the attached is to allow Patrick to continue my court case in my absence. I will be watching the news and will know when I need to return. You’ve been great friends to me, and I trust you both with my life. May Luna bless and keep you, Jessie.” I looked at the legal form, it had been notarized and looked official.
I put it back in my pocket and walked over to the Alpha’s office. “I have news,” I said.
“I hope it’s good news,” Alpha Stan replied as he pulled his mate into his lap. Jessie’s execution video had been released onto Youtube yesterday, and the press were all over it. The Russian media was going wild, and speculation was rampant that Yuri had killed her over his brother’s estate. The American media had picked it up as well; Jessie was an American citizen, and photos of her at college and in her Hooters uniform were all over television. Nothing got more coverage in the press than a beautiful young woman in a murder mystery. The news had hurt all of us deeply who had gotten to know they young woman in her time here.
“I don’t know. Ingrid delivered this to me.” I handed it to the Alphas as I was pulled into Peter’s lap. “It was dated five days ago, before this video came out. I don’t know what to do with it.” I read the letter that came with it. “But, if she’s dead, does it matter?”
“I don’t know,” Stan said. “No one knows where the video was taken, and no body has been found. There hasn’t even been a missing persons report filed, since she had no family. When the FBI visited this morning, I told them she left for Russia to find out about her birth parents and I hadn’t seen her since.” Technically, this was true as she was in hiding by the time we got to Russia. “They are still searching her house. I’m glad we had the paperwork to show we were renting it to her.”
“We should get Charles in here,” I said. “I can’t navigate the legal implications of all this.” It took a half hour for Charles Thompson, the lawyer who had defended Beta John for us, to show up in the office and review the paperwork. “What do you think?”
“Well, the form is legitimate. If we get it to Patrick, he can legally act in the place of Jessie for all of the court proceedings in Russia.”
“Wait, won’t those stop because Jessie is dead?”
He shook his head. “There’s presumed dead, and legally dead. Right now she’s missing, and the video indicates she has been killed. However, there is no body, no death certificate, and no court has declared her dead, so the courts have to assume otherwise.”