CHAPTER 200

CHAPTER 200
\[Lexi\]

"Isla?" My mother looked surprised, and then her expression instantly turned dark.

"You mean the girl who tried to poison you and give you to Emil?" Mina's eyes turned wide, and their colors flickered with rising anger.

"Yes, that girl... who also happens to be my best friend," I defended gently.

They both shot me a thoroughly shocked look.

"I know Isla," my mother spat out angrily. "She was always kind of intense, but I never thought she'd hurt you until she actually did. I do not trust her, Lexi."

"I agree with Bethany," Mina added quickly. "You cannot trust her. And now with the cult involved in everything, you really cannot trust anyone right now."

"I am planning on taking it slowly," I said defensively. "It is not her fault that she had such a shitty father and stepfather. They deceived her too, and she was literally under a dark spell at the time."

I don't even know why I was defending Isla. I was aware that everything they said was valid, but it just hurt to see the friendship we'd cultivated since kindergarten be reduced to a ploy. I wanted to believe that we were once genuine friends and that all those times she was there for me were real and not just performative.

"I get it," Mina advised softly. "But you have to be really careful. Thank goodness she is far away from you right now. Please keep it that way."

"Sure," I nodded, my thoughts secretly drifting to the plane tickets hidden away in my desk drawer.

"I find it very suspicious that she suddenly decides to contact you now," my mother argued, her brow furrowed. "The cult is extremely cunning and sly. How are you sure that she is not under another influence?"

I paused and thought about it for a bit. She actually made a very good point. Even though Isla had tried to contact me in the past when I blew her off, I really could not be completely sure that she was free from their control right now.

"You are right," I admitted quietly, and my mother offered me a small smile. "I cannot know for sure that she is not under any influence."
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\[Axle\]

"Is it a good thing that we have not heard anything from the cult lately?" I asked Elric, who was currently staring silently out the car window.

We were currently on our way to meet a very important client to secure a major international deal for the pack. It had recently come to our attention that there were a lot of other shifters stranded in different parts of the world, and we were actively working to help as many of them as we could while keeping our true identity completely secret from the human world.

"I do not know," Elric replied, not taking his eyes off the passing scenery for a second. "But I do know that you do not poke at a sleeping lion."

He paused briefly before adding, "We have put everything in place this time around. We are one step ahead of them, and we will neutralize their plots long before they even have the chance to execute them."

"Fine. Do we have everything we need for the meeting?" I asked him, trying to force my mind off the looming threat of the cult.

"Sure, we have everything we could possibly need," he flashed me a very confident smile. "We are definitely going to seal this deal today."

We met the client inside a private corner of a high-end restaurant, and the very first thing I noticed about him was that he possessed a very unique set of eyes.

His eyes were completely gray, almost silvery, and I immediately wondered what kind of creature was sitting in front of us.

"Please, have a seat," he said smoothly.

We shook hands, and he offered us the plush chairs across from him.

"Thank you for having us, Mr..." I paused, realizing in that moment that I did not even know his actual name.

"No need for formal names. You can call me Alpha," he said, his gray eyes flashing brightly as he attempted to assert his dominance over me.

"Alpha?" I queried, a smirk playing on my lips as my own eyes turned a fierce amber. "Coincidence, because I also happen to be Alpha."

"You do not seem to be a wolf," Elric spoke up, his voice cautious. "I cannot recognize your scent at all."

"Yes, that is because I am not a wolf," the man replied calmly. "I am a black panther."

I stared at him in complete shock because I had never met another shifter species in my entire life. The panther shifters were rumored to have been completely wiped out during the Great War decades ago.

"The panthers were wiped out during the Great War," Elric countered him immediately, voicing my thoughts while I just sat there trying to process what I had just heard.

"Yeah, but some of us survived," his face hardened as he spoke, and for a brief second, I could see the heavy grief he had endured lingering in his eyes. "And we have been surviving ever since."

"I would need proof of that," I told him plainly. Honestly, I just wanted a valid excuse to see his cat form with my own eyes.

"Well, if you will follow me, there is a private forest right behind this cafe," he smirked as he stood up, and I realized in that moment that he was nearly bigger than I was. "I thought you might want some proof."

We followed him out the back door and into the thick treeline. Elric and I stared in quiet awe as the man casually ripped his shirt off his body, leaned forward, and landed smoothly on four powerful paws.

I smiled as I watched the massive, dark beast prance confidently around the shadowy forest.

This was exactly what our pack needed right now, more powerful allies.