51. Suspicions

Shayde was sitting in the high winged-back chair in his private office, he swirled his liquor around in the sniffer in his hand. As he watched the amber liquid slosh around in his glass, the light reflected in the ripples, he thought about what to do. Despite his best efforts his mind kept taking him back to the town earlier that morning and the rogue's confession.

Fuck, this was bad.

It'd been bad enough when everyone believed that he'd been sleeping with a human, this was a million times worse. Now his people were believing that their almighty alpha king had found themselves taken in by a rogue, that he'd been sleeping with. An unforgivable sin.

A knock came at the door.

"Come in," he called out. Although Shayde wasn't in the mood to be dealing with whoever was outside, he understood that he didn't have a choice. He was still the alpha king, with hundreds of people counting on him and couldn't neglect their needs for his own.

He showed no surprise on his face when the door to his personal office came open, then Justin was admitted into the room. Having expected that his Beta would show up at some point this morning, since the rogues had access to his territory. "What do you want, Justin?"

"We need to talk," he said.

"About what?"

Justin stepped forward. "What the rogue said?"

Shayde groaned in frustration at the demands he'd made of him, though he wasn't surprised at what had brought him there. Of course, Justin would want to know what the rogues could've meant. His beta would seek out his presence, worried that there could be some truth to what the bastard rogues had said this morning. "Come on Justin, there's no need for you to be worried," he tried to convince him, in the hopes of forestalling the blowout. "The man was lying."

"How can you be so certain?" Justin found himself asking, allowing the door to close the rest of the way as he sailed across the private office to him. Stopping when he stood less than ten feet in front of his desk, arms crossed stubbornly across his chest. "Could there be a chance that there is some shred of truth to what the man was telling you? Is there a chance that she's a rogue?"

"She's not," he denied.

"Shayde?" he tried.

"No," Shayde cut him off. "Danika is a human."

His steely gaze met him head-on, unwilling to allow himself to calmly submit to the assurances of his alpha in this regard. "How can you be sure? Is there a chance that she isn't human she's pretending to be?"

Hands clenched into tight fists in the center of his lap, Shayde was less than pleased by his persistent unwillingness to believe him. He'd never been thrilled at people who doubted his word, but he also understood where Justin was coming from. Shayde took a deep breath. "Trust me, Justin. There is absolutely nothing supernatural about her. Neither a werewolf or a rogue."

Justin wasn't mollified as he'd been hoping he would. Standing there stubbornly in his own resolve, his light eyes peered down at the man behind the desk. "How did you cross paths with her?"

Clenching his jaw to keep from spouting off words that were sure to get him in trouble, Shayde leaned forward in his seat. Hands steepled together in front of him. "The night before I returned to the compound I caught her sneaking around inside of my bedroom, trying to fence some stolen goods. As it turned out her sister was kidnapped by a local thug and she needed money to gain her freedom."

What had been meant as a way to reassure his beta that she wasn't who the rogus claimed her to be, only seemed to inspire the suspicions of his beta. Justin lurched forward, his eyes widening in surprise. "You mean to tell me that this supposedly human girl somehow managed to disable a state-of-the-art system, and got passed a yard of traps? Then she somehow gained access to your house, bypassed two seasoned werewolves and got inside your room without raising a single alarm. Something even I'd be hard-pressed to do. And you honestly expect me to believe she's human?"

Fuck!

He hadn't considered how out of the ordinary it'd seem to him, that would only serve to add fuel to the fire that the rogues had set. Now because he hadn't thought of the ramifications before he opened his mouth, he had to deal with the suspicions of his beta. Shayde shook his head. "Listen to me, Justin. No matter how strange it might sound, it’s the truth nonetheless. I had Danika thoroughly investigated before I decided to bring her back here. She was abandoned as a newborn, raised up in the foster system, though she survived on the streets. It was during her time of growing up on the streets Danika acquired some unique skills."

Justin raked his fingers through his hair, a sign of agitation, when he considered everything that his alpha had done him. "I appreciate your certainty, but that doesn't necessarily confirm her species. She wouldn't be the first child that'd been either abandoned or lost to the human world. Especially if she's a rogue."

Shayde grumbled under his breath as he listened to Justin's reasoning, aware it was going to be harder than he thought. It seemed that his beta had lost complete trust in his ability to do his job, second-guessing and questioning his every decision. Hands clenched tighter at the thought, outraged that the man thought to doubt him, when he never had before. "She's not a werewolf, whether rogue or otherwise. I had an entire medical checkup done on her when I'd taken her into town. Every test, examination and bloodwork done on her had come back with all the same results, Danika is completely human."

"Then why?" He persisted, unwilling to give up on his own fears. Justin was determined to find out what was going on. "Why would the rogue claim that she was one of them? That she was family and belonged with them?"

Pushing up from the chair Shayde walked around the edge of the desk, coming to stand at the window that overlooked the compound. "I honestly don't know. Maybe one of my enemies caught wind of her presence in the compound and is hoping to stir up problems." It seemed like a logical explanation to him. That could explain away why someone had thought to target the woman, without going into full detail about what was going on.

Justin frowned. "How would they know? I mean the woman's only been here a couple of days. How would anyone have found out she was here?"

That was the biggest question of all. How had this mastermind behind this known about her presence in the compound? No one outside of the pack was aware of the human girl he'd brought back with him, even less knew any definitive information about the woman. So how was it that the villainous witch had discovered her existence there when not even his own people knew?

This knowledge sparked his own suspicions, to explain how any of this could be possible. Pinpointing the possibility there was someone in his pack that couldn't be trusted. A traitor in his midst was leaking this information to the enemy. It could be the only plausible outcome. Now Shayde was faced with the realization of not only having to protect her from the violent overtures of his own people and the witch determined to eliminate her. But also whoever the traitor could be. As if he didn't already have enough shit to deal with.