Chapter 16 Chapter 16
Max's POV
My name is Max and currently I am the beta of the Wolfalpine Pack.
The Alpha I serve is powerful and considered to be one of the most beautiful men among Our Kind.
He is also potentially the next Alpha King.
But in the last two days, my Alpha’s mind was in a strange place shown his mood.
For instance, as he was having his lunch he suddenly went into a daze looking up at the blue sky, and the Alpha was also irked this week during the meeting, which made the elders and the pack members were thinking maybe they had made a mistake.
"...that's all for this month's meeting," I said as I came to a close with month overview, and the important events for next month in my Alpha's study, standing respectfully.
But that’s the view my Alpha obviously didn’t get. He was leaning back in his chair in a daze so I loudly cleared my throat before speaking again.
"Alpha?"
“Yes, Max?” Thank god he knew it was me standing here and hadn’t completely zoned out.
“I was wondering… ” he began as I opened
my notebook and pen and got ready to write down the duties he was going to assign me.
"I had... " I wanted to know why she didn’t take the necklace with her I gave her."
"...I don't know, sorry."
I almost broke the pen I was holding as I worked out who the “she” the Alpha was talking about was.
Ethan had been like this since he returned from the Darkridge Pack.
I sighed and shook my head.
Two days ago, I had been sent to escort Miss Sophia back to the Darkridge Pack to attend to her father, and when I returned at night with Ethan, I noticed that the necklace Ethan had given her was on the table in the room, and Miss Sophia had not taken it with her.
"Max."
"Yes?" Ethan abruptly rose to his feet, causing him to further surprise me.
"Bring me the finest jewelers in the continent.”
"Yes Alpha."
I obeyed his command, but I couldn't help but pray with all my heart that Sophia would accept my Alpha, and it would be soon.
It they went on like this the Packs affairs would be chaos in a matter of days.
Sophia's POV
At that time, Kira and I were frantically looking for the tanzanite necklace in our room.
The day after he helped me save my father, Ethan hurried back to the pack. The next Pack Alliance meeting was coming soon, and he had a shit ton of business to take care of, but before I could thank him, I was already watching him and Max walk off.
My father's health had not been good since the poisoning incident and he was now confined to bed.
He had to be confined to his bed and I cursed Lila yet again in mind for her cruelty because I would have to start dealing with the pack' affairs once more.
I just had some free time today and only then I realised I had lost the necklace which Ethan had given me. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw it.
I rounded up the staff to join me in scouring the pack grounds but even after a day of looking, I was still not able to find it.
Then, Kira screamed in my head.
“Fuck Kira! For what the hell was that?! I thought I was going to have a heart attack!”
“Sorry, I just... I remembered where that necklace was...”
“Seriously?! Where?!”
"After a little while I was reminded that we had been with Ethan when we received the news that my father had been poisoned and I just ran out without thinking. The necklace was making me feel a bit claustrophobic around my neck when I was having a panic attack so I took it off and left it on the table in the room."
"Oh god... you're not worried that Ethan will think I'm turning my back on him if he comes across it, are you?"
“Miss Sophia?” Beta Thorne’s voice was heard along with the sound of his sharp knocks on the door.
“Come in!” I called as I snapped my seat back at the desk. I didn’t have time to wallow about the necklace now.
The thing you asked me to look into,
I've already got the answers you wanted.
Here is the record of visitors to the pack for the past few days including some of the staff's entries out of the building.
I took the file from him and examined the information that had been gathered on it.
After my father has been poisoned, it just buried at the back of my mind.
Regardless of Lila and Marcus's act, I couldn’t believe it had anything to do with my father’s poisoning. I knew Lila was a witch, and it was only natural that it was her.
But how had she done it? None of the visitors or my father’s travel records contained an individual that had been close to him who was suspicious. My dad’s dinner
was prepared by our Pack’s kitchen and had been carried from it to him by Thorne himself.
Thorne has been with my father since my father was a child.
He could have hurt my father anytime, if he truly wanted to and there wasn’t really a need to wait until then now.
I leapt toward the kitchen instinctually and see what I can see.
I talked to Thorne, and he was fine with that, so I went ahead to the Pack's kitchens. But as we approached it, we heard a raucous argument from within.
“The food we give away every month is fix! That's the maximum quantity!”
“Our pack is on its way to extinction soon
enough, who gives a shit about you?”
Before Thorne even opened the door, I spotted two members of the pack in the kitchen squabbling with the staff of the kitchen.
“Miss Sophia!” As they said changing gaze into beg eyes. “My father is only ill, not dead.” I said quietly as I looked straight at the two pack members with intent.
As soon as they had noticed us, they bred obtained to do what? with polite nods down until question. When Thorne moved forward and gave them a cold much crisper expression.
"What happened?"
The kitchen staff spoke first. "Miss Sophia,
the two of them were intending on stealing the food from the kitchen and escaping from the pack."
The heads of the two men lowered even further and I approached them slowly with a frown.
"Why are you running away?"
They spoke quietly.
“Everyone is aware of Sophia poisoning Marcus’s new Luna, and now all our fucking supporters are gone! With the Alpha sick, I’m concerned..”
"Oh shut the fuck up." I cut their impatience.
Goddamn, who the hell was saying this bullshit to my pack members.
I turned to look at the other staff in the kitchen who also seemed to be convinced about that from the pack members.
At last I knew why the Pack's members had been gazing at me with odd eyes ever since I'd entered.
I took a deep breath and met everyone’s eyes with a steely glare.
“Now you listen to me and listen well. I am the only Alpha heir to the Darkridge Pack and I will never allow this Pack to be shattered in my hands as its leader or until the day I die! Do you understand?”
My confident and firm words did not have any significant effect as the two attributed members including the servants-in-waiting in the kitchen averted their glances from each other and dared not speak.
Nobody among them appeared noticeably moved by the little oration that I had made.
I know what they’re concerned about.
How was a woman who had been betrayed by her husband, and had been rumored to have poisoned people when she got jealous... How would she ever be capable of leading a pack? I needed to find a moment for everyone to at least in some way connect with me.
It was the only way that I could be sure the Darkridge Pack would never decline.
I suppressed the anger in my heart and took a deep breath, using my mind link to send a message to the entire pack, "I, Sophia Evergreen, will find the person who poisoned the Alpha in no more than three days and have definitive answers about what happened.”