Chapter 67

Scarlett.

"How did you do it?" Astra asked in the boardroom as we waited for the others to arrive. We had a meeting with the rest of the elders, Laura, and a few warriors, and of course the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. There had been some other rogue sightings around the pack.

"I didn’t break the spell." I smiled at Astra, enjoying how her orbs squinted in question.

“Scarlett, I examined the chain; you not only broke my spell but also cloaked it with yours. I tried de-cloaking it earlier, and it’s even more complicated than the one on the ring,” she whispered the last part, her eyes darting around to make sure nobody was around.

"Exactly. I just figured casting my own spell on it would override yours, break it, and replace it. See, we can do the same to the ring,” I excitedly whisper-yelled.

"Do you know why the owner of the ring didn’t try to retrieve it even though somehow they knew they left it in this pack?" I shook my head.

"I cast my own spell on the ring, but my magic didn’t override the existing one. That way the owner knows it still exists by feeling their magic in it, but can’t trace it since mine is blocking the location,” Astra explained, leaving my mind in a jumble of thoughts trying to understand what she meant.

"Astra, Luna." Jasper entered, almost growling my title. I couldn’t understand what I did to him since the first day he saw me.

"It’s good you’re here before others,” I spoke with a forced smile, observing his every move. My wolf was on high alert, ready to single out any slight change in his demeanor and heartbeat. A guilty person could fool everyone on the outside, but the insides always exposed a person.

"I need to talk to you," I added, making him stand right in front of Astra and me.

“The others will soon be here; please excuse me, Luna." I swallowed the urge to insult him as he turned to go take a seat.

"I just wanted to know about the pack visits you had before the run." His heart audibly jumped, paused for a second, and then pounded a little bit louder with added speed. I knew Astra couldn’t hear the change, but I would fill her in after the meeting.

"Did you maybe visit The Crane Power?" I spoke in an overly sweet voice that he didn’t quite catch on to. His heartbeat accelerated, pounding faster and more powerfully like that of a person caught red-handed in a crime. I knew for a fact there and then that Jasper was the mole, no matter how Jax disputed me.

He had no reason to react that way if his visit to my former pack was purely professional. ”Jeez people, you don’t like wasting time, do you?" Thiery cut the small session off when he entered, high in spirit as always.

"You never shut up, do you?" I teased as he sat beside me, waving his hand across me to Astra.

"Uum." Thiery pretended to scratch his chin.

"How about no?" he answered, turning his attention to Jasper, who sat on the other side of the long wooden table.

"I thought we agreed that you’d pass by my office so we could come together to the meeting," Thiery spoke, looking at Jasper, who had fished out his phone.

"I had something to take care of first. Plus, you know the way." The last bit wasn’t playful, to say the least. Jasper sounded defensive and irritated as he answered Thiery.

"I followed him; he was on a call,” Thiery mind-linked me, startling me a bit.

I looked at the time on my phone screen; it was around 15 minutes after 4 p.m. The same time Thiery had told me days ago, Jasper usually received calls. “Any luck about the contents of the phone call?" I cleared my throat, grasping Astra’s hand under the table.

“Shopping center, the mall, at exactly 7 p.m.,” Thiery whispered in the mind-link just as Astra sparked up a conversation with Jasper.

“Stop whispering, you fool; we are mind-linking,” I teased, earning a chuckle.

"What do you mean by your last statement?" I asked, bowing my head to the former alpha as he sat down. I hadn’t heard him approach, given how my mind was busy at that moment.

"Jasper said that; I couldn’t risk going any closer to try and listen to what the other person was saying,” Thiery explained.

"Good, I think he’s going to meet someone there. Are you up for a ride this evening? Let’s uncover the person he’s been speaking to; maybe we’ll find out why he has been acting weird." When I got a hell year from Thiery, I switched off the mind-link and focused on the meeting.

"Luna Scarlett, have you heard from the alpha? He’s taking too long,” his father asked, looking at his watch.

"He is making rounds at the infirmary with the staff; he’ll be here any minute from now,” I answered in a relaxed manner, throwing glances at the beta.

"One pack member was attacked just outside the border yesterday night. We assumed it was a rogue because of the recent sightings." Thiery cleared things up for the former alpha. The rest of the elders and warriors arrived almost at the same time, apologizing for their tardiness.

"Or so they thought,” I added, making the former alpha turn and look at me with his eyebrow raised.

"Rogues are known to be careless, ruthless, and dirty," Jasper clarified things, getting attention in the boardroom.

"When we found the man, he was bloody all over and unconscious. There wasn’t anyone in sight; it seemed he had spent some time bleeding out there alone,” Laura continued, narrating the same information Jax had given me the previous night after the attack.

"Because of the rogue sightings, we reported it to the alpha as an emergency. He went out there with his best trackers, but they didn’t find any scent around the place, indicating that there had been rogues,” Laura explained, flashing a glare or two my way. She had never accepted that Jax was my mate and that she had no chance of ever becoming the Luna of the pack.

If she had another chance to attack me, I knew she would have, except now I was already mated. She had no idea just how easily I could put her in her place with just a snap of my fingers. “They did find something, though."

Thiery stepped on my foot to snap me out of my thoughts, making me swallow a hiss. “What exactly is this, and why are we being told this just now?" Mrs. Hudson reprimanded, earning support from the rest of the elders except Astra, who already knew.

“The alpha didn’t want the information to cause a frenzy in the pack. The last thing he wants is for his community to start panicking again,” Jasper answered, stressing the last part, indicating what happened when I was kidnapped.

I was finding it weird how he was contributing nonchalantly. He was even attempting to hide a smile as he explained. Maybe he was a sadist, or there was something more to it. I didn’t have a nice feeling about it or his sudden investment in the meeting, even though he was the beta.

"Right," I seconded Jasper, even though all I wanted was to torture him and have him admit the truth to Jaxon.

“The trackers picked up a scent, a very minimal one that the average werewolf couldn’t. From what my mate told me, the werewolf who attacked the pack member is a normal one who had his scent masked,” I explained.

"Ooh, I get it now. Even when we mask our scents, a whiff can still be detected. But does that really explain why the alpha ruled out the rogues?" Jasper’s father finally joined in as we waited for my mate.

“That’s not all. I told you Jaxon passed by the infirmary because, after cleaning the man, they found out that the wounds inflicted were intentional," Thiery added.

"By intentional, do you mean they weren’t just random?" Mr. Weller, the lawman, asked.

"Yes, they were too specific to be from rogues. Like we said, rogues are not organized creatures. They just attack; they don’t have the sanity to carry out well-spelled attacks,“ Laura spoke on behalf of the warriors again, her voice making my wolf suppress a growl.

I felt Jax even before he came in through the open door, eyes directed at me. ”Alpha." They acknowledged me. Everyone stood, including Jasper, whose chair scraped on the floor a little louder.

"You can sit. Sorry for coming late. I assume you are being filled in?" he addressed the elders, bowing as a show of respect, before he sat at the head of the table. He looked so hot when he meant serious business. I couldn’t wait to have him fuck me once we came back with Thiery later from the mall.

"What did the doctor say? If it isn’t those vile creatures who attacked the pack member, could it be someone from this pack?" Astra finally said something to avoid any unnecessary suspicions.

“The man doesn’t have any defensive wounds. Weird for a grown werewolf in his prime, yeah? So the doctors did tests on his blood and found traces of the same herb that was used on my mate. He was incapacitated first, then got the wounds inflicted by some kind of weapon."

“So it’s safe to say that whoever did this wanted it to be blamed on rogues?" Mr. Weller enjoyed every bit of conspiracy case material in the pack. He solved them single-handedly; no doubt ideas were already filling up his mind.

"Not only that, but the weapon used wasn’t recovered. I have handled weapons long enough to know which inflicts specific injuries. In this case, my favorite one was used—the breast ripper. It took out chunks of meat from the chest and the throat, then he was left to bleed out to die." Alpha Jaxon paused, and what he said next, even I didn’t know.

"My breast ripper was in my office yesterday before I left; it wasn’t there this morning."