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Chapter 3 - Troy

I set the mail on my desk. “I can’t trust her.”

“You just said you trusted her last night,” Wendell called from the kitchen. How much coffee was he brewing? And for how many people? It was just us this morning. “Elias said that—”

“Elias will say anything to get a rise out of you.”

Wendell poked his head around the corner, peering at me over his round spectacles, doing that thing he always did when he was particularly vexed—allowing the wire frames to slide down his nose. Gray eyes

enhanced the gold of his glasses that he rarely wore around anyone else, and never in public.

He wrinkled up his nose. “Boss, with all due respect—” I held up a hand. “Be kind to my cousin. He’s a joker.” “And I’m a very formidable wolf.”

“Who’s softer than fur,” I added.

“Don’t tell anyone.” He tapped his frames as though adding them to the list of Do Not Tell Anyone. “Are you sure you can’t trust her?”

“That depends on what you’ve brought me.”

He shrugged and then disappeared behind the corner to retrieve our coffee mugs. He set mine in front of me and relaxed into the couch, tipping the cushions slightly in his favor. Wendell was short for a wolf, and he

couldn’t help his bulky weight. He often broke any chair in which he sat. My poor friend rarely sat down if he could help it unless he was in my home. The chairs and furniture I ordered were more than sturdy enough to contain his mass.

Wendell grabbed a folder from the coffee table and handed it to me. It was thin. There wasn’t much. This woman wasn’t impressive in the least. How was she fit to be an alpha’s mate when she didn’t even have a record?

Or did that make her more impressive?

I sighed while thumbing through the sparsely filled folder. “Is this really all you could dig up, Wendy?”

“Cross my heart, boss. That was everything on your dear Skye Jervis. No parents. No idea what happened to them. Older brother is Emmett, 41. He fought in the wars.”

“Which wars?”

Wendell sipped his coffee. “Vampire-wolf wars and the most recent.”

“Ah, so he’s a decorated foot soldier.”

“That’s the extent of his duties to the pack other than being a mechanic.”

I studied the pages Wendell had gathered. There were a few

abnormal blood samples taken a couple of years ago, but that had ended up getting cleared by Dr. Windsor, the resident doctor for the Beaufort Creek pack. She wasn’t concerned, so I wasn’t concerned.

But I was concerned how a woman of Skye’s age could speed through so much vet school with only night classes under her belt.

Something was up with her. Either she was a genius, or she was cheating.

I hated to make myself a liar, but swaying her in my favor meant she would keep herself unguarded. I needed that to determine her authenticity.

The next page granted me pause. Betwixt my fingers sat a report done by Emmett Jervis, captain of the squad that had taken the east side of the ranch when the Gilberts had invaded. He created a list of those who

were locked in the bunkers—and among them was my supposed mate.

I set the file aside. “She hid during the war.”

“Was she important to the alpha or something?”

I scratched the side of my neck. “I don’t believe so. Emmett would have documented such a note. He seemed to be obsessed with details.”

“Was she ill?”

“By all accounts, she should have been in the fight.”

Wendell frowned. “She must have a good reason for sitting aside and doing nothing.”

“Unless she was running radios or coordinates.” Another peek at the page indicated the others in the bunker were older women and a handful of children—those who wouldn’t have been able to defend themselves in battle. “Perhaps she was protecting the group.”

“She has no fighting skills, no training, no weapon preference…” Wendell poked the file. “And when asked about the war, she’s on the record as having been against it.”

“Against which side?”

Wendell shrugged. “All of it. She said it was a waste of resources and shifters.”

“I’m not impressed.”

“That seems to be the impression you’ve given me during this meeting.”

Brotherly affection hovered between us as I gave him my best impartial expression. Though Wendell knew me well enough to understand that such a joke was permissible in private. If he had chosen to speak to me like this in front of anyone else, I might have said something—a tap on the wrist, a pat to the shoulder, a glance. My pack knew my gestures.

Or what was left of them.

Wendell rested his hand on my shoulder. “I know, Alpha. I miss them every day.”

“We move forward,” I stated confidently as I shook his hand away. I stood up from the couch and carried my mug to the kitchen. As I rooted

around in the cabinet for a to-go container, I turned my right ear toward Wendell. “Give me a full report later. I’m going to visit my mate.”

“At work?”

I nodded. That was where she least expected me to turn up. The best way to determine her character would be to catch her when her guard

wasn’t up at all.

***

The sun climbed the roof of the stables as I wandered past towering stalks of corn and gentle bristling of leaves. Workers wandered the aisles

and collected produce and checked the soil. Since Skye had taken up post as the field manager, she seemed eager to attend her duties, disappearing

earlier each morning to go in and work on the schedule.

I knew because Wendell had reported it to me. A wolf such as himself was quiet despite his density, and his task since we’d arrived was to watch the shifters in all their activities—those that were visible. I wasn’t a pervert. Nor were my pack members.

Part of my responsibility to my pack—and to Blake’s—was to be prepared. After Blake’s mother had revealed herself to be a mole, it only made sense for security to amplify their presence. Such things could be undetectable at first. But over time, habits and routines would be

established properly and we could pinpoint any suspicious activity.

Paranoia had never been my style. Yet it was worth considering after the four of us got locked up in a basement with a madman doctor

committed to exploiting shifter DNA.

I shuddered to think of what had been done to Isaiah or Elias without my knowledge.

I reached the stable doors and swung one side open, thinking it was slightly strange that the doors had been closed at all, seeing as the breeze today was quite lovely. The moment I crossed the threshold, I dove into

action—for at the end of the stables was my alleged mate, trapped between a rickety back door and a disturbed horse.

She held up her arms in an X shape and shouted, “Whoa!”

Impulse took over when the horse stood on its back legs. It squealed and kicked its hooves at Skye, sending me into protection mode. I swept Skye out of the way just as the horse came down and stomped the ground where she would have been standing—where her skull would have likely

cracked open like a fresh egg on the straw-strewn ground.