Chapter 25

Konner stopped and stood by the window; Terah was outside standing on the shore of the lake. Snow was falling around her, and she just stood there with her face raised to the sky. She wore no jacket or shoes, he noticed. The cooler temperatures wouldn’t bother her, at least if she were at full health they wouldn’t. He frowned and debated on going to explain that to her. His kind didn’t get cold and sick normally, but she’d been deprived of basic health needs her whole life.

She opened her arms out and lifted her face to the sky again and he was struck by the image of the snow in contrast to her jet-black hair hanging down her back. In many ways, she was as pure as the first snowfall before it touched the ground.

“The cold doesn’t bother her?”

Konner jumped and turned to see Calum standing beside him. He’d been so caught up in watching her, that he hadn’t heard him come into the office. “We like cold.” He felt like he should explain why he stood here when he was supposed to be doing other things. “She’s never been in the snow.”

“There’s a lot she’s never done.” Calum smirked. “Like bake.”

Konner grinned. “Yeah, that was something to walk in on.” He looked toward the door. “Shaelan with Rae?”

Calum shook his head. “No, she’s mumbling over the manuals for some of your medical equipment.”

Looking out at Terah once more, he forced his feet to turn and go back to his desk. “I feel like she’s our best chance to both those babies surviving.”

“She’ll move mountains to make it so.”

Konner couldn’t help noticing the expression of pride on the man’s face when Calum spoke of his mate. “We’ll all help.” He motioned to the chair and then went around the desk and sat down. “I didn’t realize until my aunt told us that birth used to be in the water.” He leaned back in the chair and exhaled. “Which makes sense really, that they were.”

“Shae was eyeing up your pool in the middle of your house, so don’t be surprised if the birth happens in it.”

Konner shrugged. “Whatever it takes.”

“She was on the phone with one of our midwives for an hour, discussing water births.” Calum rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Most of our kind wouldn’t be comfortable with delivering in the water, so this will be new ground for many.”

“It makes total sense, now, birth in water.” Konner had berated himself in the last few hours over his own stupidity. “We can’t find our mate unless we’re in the water, same with conception, so the baby being born in water...” He shook his head.

Calum didn’t add anything, just looked at the open folder on his desk. “Have you gotten anywhere with that?”

Konner looked down at the creased papers in front of him. “No.” He picked up the top page and looked at it again. “Puzzles aren’t my sort of thing.” He jerked his chin to the door. “Reeves is going over it though and if there’s a key to figuring it out, he’ll find it.”

Calum grinned. “He didn’t even notice I walked by, he was mumbling to himself.”

“He’s better with something to keep his brain busy.” Konner smirked. “Life is awkward for him, but thinking, that’s his happy place.”

Calum reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Devin wants me to call him. Rayne is demanding an update about the babies.” He smirked as he looked at his phone.

Konner leaned on the desk. “We can call him now. I’ve been wondering if he’s heard from Fallan as well."

Calum nodded and tapped his phone a few times and then set it on the desk. It was answered before the end of the first ring.

“That’s a record, you calling back this fast.”

Calum smirked at the prince’s tone. “I’m here with Konner, he needed to call you as well.”

“Right. I spoke to Fallan.” He stopped; there were voices in the background. “Which I’ll get to in a moment. Rayne’s right here, I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Calum?” Rayne sounded like she was yelling into the phone. “Are you with Konner? Are the babies okay?”

Konner didn’t know how Rayne knew, but with the urgency in her tone, he wasn’t going to question that. “I’m here with Calum. The babies are fine, Shaelan did an ultrasound, and everything appears to be fine with their health.”

“Oh good.” She must have been holding the phone because it sounded like she exhaled into it. “If you need anything, anything at all you call us.”

“Thank you, I think we have it well in hand now that Shaelan is here.”

“Yes. She is amazing.” She said something away from the phone. “How long do we have to be here, Calum? I don’t like being tossed into a helicopter and tucked away safe.”

Konner gave Calum a questioning look.

“I thought you’d like visiting with Shae’s clan now that things have settled down.”

“Of course, I’m happy to see them, but don’t you think you should share evacuation plans with us before we’re whisked away?”

Konner had no idea why the plans were up to Calum; he’d be asking if the opportunity prevailed.

“It was only a backup plan, Rayne...”

“Which I do not approve of. I should be at Arcadia, not roaming these mountains.” Devin said something quietly in the background. “We need to be with our people, helping, not sitting on a mountain top like some sort of shifter Buddha statue for all to look at.” From the look on Calum’s face, this outburst wasn’t normal for the princess. “I want off here, I want to meet those babies when they’re born and you are going to make that happen or I’m going to borrow Mari’s fork.”

There were muffled voices for a moment. “I’m sorry about that.” It was Devin now. “She went to go see Billie.”

“How are Billie and Dale doing?”

Devin cleared his throat. “Your guy is losing his mind, mostly, impending fatherhood I think.”

Calum nodded, then leaned closer to the phone, a look of concern on his face. “Is Rayne all right?”

Devin snorted. “No, far from it.” He cleared his throat. “She’s uh... her, um... I’m going to need a week or so off from official duties soon.” His voice was clipped.

Calum smirked and nodded his head slowly. He looked like he wanted to laugh. “You’re welcome to use the cabin if you need.”

“Yeah, uh, that might be a good idea.”

Konner raised one eyebrow at Calum, who in turn held up one finger telling him to wait for an explanation.

“Okay,” Devin sighed. “I spoke to Fallan, she’s confirmed, two locations where the tanks were not used for fish enthusiasts and we’re waiting on two others, the rest have all been vetted and are for normal people that like a lot of fish.”

Konner sat straighter in the chair. “Where are these locations?”

“Four locations, four different states, so it’s going to be a cluster fuck figuring that out because we don’t want to alert the others if we hit one.”

Konner stood up and leaned over the desk. “We’ll need four teams.” He looked up to see Calum’s amusement was gone and in its place was a hard-calculating look. “Have you brought the teams in on it?”

“Not yet. I just found out a few hours ago, I told her to keep it to herself because Raymond and the Alliance headquarters are up to their ass dealing with the windfall of Tomas’ crew we’re dropping on them lately.”

Konner spun around and looked at the maps on the wall. “If you send me the details of where, Calum and I can start coming up with plans.”

“All right, I’ll deal with the teams once we know more.” He sounded calmer when talking about this than he had about his mate. “There’s more, Cal, you’ll be interested in this too,”

Calum tilted his head and looked at the phone. “Fallan’s contacts found two members of Deacon’s clan—or new clan.” He paused for a second. “I didn’t ask details, Konner, I can’t officially be part of that, but we may need a few to go retrieve them, they can’t get out on their own.”

Konner nodded and looked at Calum. “Deacon’s a good operator, he’ll be best to take to do that.”

“I’ll leave those details up to you two, I’m currently being strangled by red tape and protocol to keep the teams in place for when we figure out the encrypted records.”

Konner looked at the office door, the longer Reeves had his head working on that, the better their chances were to figure it out. “I have one of mine working on it as well.”

“There’s a lot of brains trying, so someone will figure it out.”

“Are we going to have enough teams and people to run multiple ops?” Calum continued to sit, Konner didn’t know how, his nerves wouldn’t allow it.

“I don’t think so, which is also one of the reasons I wanted you to call me, Cal, you have more pull with my father than I do on this sort of thing.” He snorted. “And you know every shifter on the planet, so I need you to sit down and come up with a list of twenty or so good fighters you’ve met along the way, we’re going to need them.”

“What are you thinking? Add a few to the teams, so we can have more teams?”

“I don’t even know. You are better to figure that out than I am—” He heard a door slam. “Shit, I have to go, Rayne is raging. Think about it and run it past Dad, okay?”

Calum nodded. “Go deal with your mate, we’ve got this.”

“Thank you.” Devin swore softly. “I’ll talk to you later.” The line went quiet.

Konner looked at Calum and then the phone.

“Her first, uh, cycle I believe.”

Konner opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again; there were no words to say to that.

“I think I have something,” Reeves burst into the office waving a page. “Fuck, wait.” He looked back down at the paper, mumbling under his breath then started nodding his head quickly. “Yes, yes.” He looked at Konner, his eyes huge. “There are common variables in this, took forever to see them, but they’re right in front of my eyes.” He looked from him to Calum, then back to him again. “I need help; it would take me weeks to break it down with pen and paper.”

Konner knew when Reeves got like this he wouldn’t sleep or let it go until he worked it out. “What about with a computer?”

Reeve’s excited look faded. “I’m not that good with a computer.”

Konner held up his hand. “I may have someone who is.” He picked up his phone and brought up Fallan’s number. He hit send and then put it on speaker.

“Fishman, hold on.” That was how she answered the phone. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t bother to mute the call. There were loud voices in the background, they could hear her clicking on the keys. “Grab that one, Dane, yeah, okay, I got it.” More clicking. “Another second...” Shouts and cheers erupted. Konner looked to see Calum and Reeves were both fixated on the phone. “Holy shit, Konner, we did it. We tracked them and now they will forever be blocked from accessing anything of ours.”

Konner put his hands on his hips and looked down at the phone, “the breach? You’ve figured out how they did it?”

“Yeah. Damn, they were good too, like epic greatness, it’s no wonder it’s taken us this long to find them.” She laughed, “Woo, I might sleep for a week after this. Or more than two hours.”

Calum was grinning now. “Do you know where they are?”

There was a pause, “Calum?”

Konner grinned at the phone, “Sorry, yes I’m here with Calum and one of my clan, Reeves.”

“Uh, yeah, Nate is informing the leader of the special ops right now, they’ll go round up their asses and hand out some justice, or whatever it is they do.” There was still a commotion in the background. “So are you calling about the tanks?”

“No, actually, the prince just told me about that.”

“Oh, right. He’s cool to talk to, nothing like I’d imagined. So, what’s up then?”

Konner sat down, relief filling him to know that they had figured out how the Alliance databases were breached. A thought hit him. “First, do you know how they got in?”

She snorted, “it came from the inside, not in this building, but someone with a password and access, so yeah, we’re still hunting them down.”

Konner nodded and looked at Reeves, who looked shell-shocked, he’d never bothered to bring him in on any of that. “Reeves has been going over the records found, the ledger one.”

“It’s all mumble jumbo to me, I took a quick peek, if it’s on paper it just doesn’t grab my attention.”

Konner rubbed his hand over his forehead, “do you know anyone that excels at that sort of thing?” He looked to see an expectant expression on Reeves’s face, “Reeves believes he’s found common variables...”

“No shit. That’s awesome, uh, Andi, you need him to talk to Andi. She’s like a puzzle master or something. My brain does ones and zeroes. Andi can do those anagram things and puzzle stuff so fast you can’t even blink before she’s solved it.”

Reeves looked excited and leaned over the phone.

“Is Andi part of your team?”

“Yeah, she’s due back here in about an hour.”

“Is there any way Reeves could talk to her about his discovery?”

“I’ll get in touch with him, she just started working on it, so if he has figured something out, that’s good for us, we’ll have that deciphered in no time.”

Konner grinned. “I’ll text you his number.”

“Sounds good.” She paused for a second. “Did the prince tell you about the maned wolves our contacts found?”

“Briefly. Send me more details, so I can see what’s involved.”

“Will do.” She laughed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, we’re going to go do a victory lap and then buckle down on finding out who left the door open in our system.”

“Thanks, Fallan.”

“You scratch my back and all that, my friend.” She hung up.

“There was a breach at the Alliance?”

Calum stood up and turned to Reeves. “Yes, very few knew.”

Reeves looked at Konner. “You knew?”

Konner nodded. “Yes, but as we’re not on the record in their system, it was no threat to us.”

“Just all the rest of the clans in the Alliance.”

Calum patted his shoulder. “It was handled fast, and everyone is safe.”

“Jesus, I’m so glad I just sit in my office.” He put his hand over his heart. “I’m not cut out for the action stuff.”

Calum smiled, “no, but your brain is very much appreciated.”

Konner picked up his phone, he wanted to send Fallan the number so as soon as possible that coded ledger was unraveled. Hope filled him for the first time in decades. Hope that more of his kind would be found. He looked at the window, thinking of Terah. Sending the number, he put his phone in his pocket. “I’m going to go check on Terah and then work on that.” He glanced from Reeves to Calum. “Those plans for Devin.”

Calum nodded. “I’ll go track down Shae and see how things are and then meet you back here. You can help me when I call Deacon, he’s going to need some reassuring on that front.”

Konner wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but he turned to Reeves. “Are the plans for the Parrish build ready?”

Reeves nodded. “I didn’t know if it was one house or two, so it’s flexible, but the plumbing part is all ready to go.”

“Good. I’ll let him know they’ll be there for that soon.” He was anxious, worrying about Terah, but he needed to settle down and focus on coming up with plans. The sooner they came up with more teams and plans to hit four states at once, the better the chances were that more of his clan and others were brought home.