Saved By The Alpha
Chapter 8

There was no shouting coming from inside the house, so…that was a good sign, at least. Once we’d gotten outside, I sat us both down in a shady spot, the grass tickling my legs. Summer was well and truly past now but compared to the abysmal weather we’d had over in London, the Texas sunshine was positively balmy today.

Bella sighed, running her hands over the grass as she looked back toward the house. I gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, peanut,” I said, looking back toward the house as well. I imagined she was pretty upset I’d taken her away from her show before it ended. But if there was going to be some sort of brawl between Gage, Brock, and the other alphas, I didn’t want poor Bella to be caught up in the scuffle.

“Do you want to play pretend with your wolf?”

She looked back at me and gave a shrug, pulling the stuffed animal a little closer to her chest.

I’ll take that as a no…I gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s okay. What would you like to do instead?”

Bella shrugged again, looking around at the yard. There were still a few toys left outside from the other day — before we’d left for England.

I hummed quietly. “You can use your words, Bella. It’s okay.”

Instead of saying anything, she got to her feet, going over to a small box next to the stone patio. She pulled something out, and I realized it was a stick of brightly colored chalk. I got up and moved to sit down next to her.

“What color should I use?” I asked.

She looked into the bucket thoughtfully before pulling out a pale purple piece. It had clearly been used already, and I smiled. “Thank you! I love purple. Do you like it, too?”

Bella nodded.

“Is it your favorite color?”

This time, she shook her head. She held up the yellow piece of chalk she’d grabbed first.

I gave a sage nod. “Yellow is very nice, too. Very warm. What are you going to draw?”

Bella didn’t answer, watching me instead. I took this as my signal to go first, so I leaned forward, using the chalk to sketch out a purple wolf. I grimaced. “He looks more like a dog, doesn’t he?” I asked once I was finished, looking over at Bella. “Do you know what a dog is?”

She nodded but still didn’t make a move.

An idea struck me, and I leaned forward again, this time drawing a simple fish. “What about this? Do you know what this is?”

Bella nodded and didn’t say anything. I tipped my head to one side and offered her a warm smile. “Do you know what it’s called?”

“Fish,” Bella said quietly, reaching forward. She began to color in my outline with yellow.

“He looks great!” I chirped. “Now he’s a goldfish!”

We went on like this — I drew a flower, the sun, and a house. Bella began picking out different colors, growing more and more enraptured by our chalk art as we went. Eventually, I relaxed, even as my lower back pinged slightly. I’m not as young as I used to be!

“What should we do next?” I asked. At this point, I didn’t really expect the child to answer me — so if course, this was when she did!

“Butterfly,” she said slowly, stumbling a bit over the word. She looked up at me with big, worried eyes.

“Of course!” I replied, rushing the answer out. I didn’t want her to feel like she’d done something wrong, even if I knew my butterfly was going to look more like a bunch of symmetric squiggles.

Thankfully, she didn’t seem to mind, coloring the wings in with color after color.

“I like butterflies too,” I said, smiling as she worked. “Do you like rainbows?”

I guessed she would, considering the butterfly was practically tie-dye in color are this point — but Bella just shrugged her shoulders.

I paused, trying not to frown. I didn’t want Bella to think I was upset with her for not liking everything — or not knowing. Hmm… “Do you know what a rainbow is?”

Bella turned to look at me and chewed on her lower l!p. After a moment of thought, she shook her head.

“No?” The idea that she’d never seen a rainbow made my heart crack right down the middle — I struggled not to let my shock onto my face. But I didn’t want Bella to withdraw again. “Well, it’s not raining right now…but I’ll draw you one, okay?”

She just nodded and moved to the side, allowing me to reach into the bucket to grab the right colors. I drew a whole scene: the sun, some clouds, and a bit of rain. I drew a hill and finally added the rainbow over it. I pointed to it. “This part. This is a rainbow. When it rains at the same time as it’s sunny, a rainbow appears. That doesn’t happen very often, so not only is it very pretty, it’s very special, too. I’ll make sure we replace you one, okay?”

I looked around the yard briefly — there was a water spigot on the back, but no hose. I guess that makes sense. There’s only a housekeeper. No one actually lives here. Maybe I could take a quick trip to a hardware store and buy one so I could at least create a backyard rainbow for Bella.

Bella leaned forward, putting her hands on the rainbow. “Colors,” she cooed, a slow smile breaking over her face.

I smiled back, about to explain my idea, when the back door opened. As I looked up, I realized it wasn’t Eli standing there but Luna. I blinked. “Hi, Luna,” I said, my brow furrowing. “What’re you doing here?”

How many people? Well, she is Remus’ mate. She’s probably known about it all along. Don’t get too up in arms, Iris.

Luna gave me a sideways smile, shaking her head as if she’d read my thoughts. “Lexi is going to call in with some information soon. I came over so you could be in the meeting without Bella.” She smiled at the girl and walked over, sitting next to us. “Hi, Bella,” she murmured. Bella smiled back at her.

I felt a stab of jealousy and quickly squashed it away. Luna was such a natural. Luna also has kids — that’s way more practice than I get. Speaking of…

“Where are your boys?” I asked, glancing around.

She chuckled. “Fiona came over to our house to watch the twins. Three is a bit much when there’s a heavy meeting going on inside — especially because Rory and Ryland have entered the ‘hell on wheels’ phase.” Luna shook her head. “I have no idea how so much energy can be packed into such a tiny body, but…mysteries of life, I guess?”

We both laughed before she reached into her purse, pulled out a pink bottle, and handed it to Bella. “I brought you bubbles!” she said, beaming. “Have you ever played with bubbles before?”

Bella shook her head, looking stoic. Luna kept smiling. “It’s a fun game. I’ll teach you how.” She gave her watch a quick glance. “They’ll be starting any minute, Iris. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine out here.”

I paused for a moment more before smiling back. I really did want to be included in this meeting — and I appreciated Luna coming over so I could go. “Thanks,” I said quietly to the other she-wolf before smiling at Bella again. “Have fun with the bubbles. You’ll have to show me when I come back!”

Remus was already settingup his laptop at the coffee table when I got back inside. To my great relief, Brock and Gage were nowhere to be seen, though Eli still looked ready to jump out of his skin — or shift into his wolf skin, rather — at any moment. I hid my concern and headed over, tipping my head.

“How is this going to work?” I asked, frowning. “Are we all going to squeeze onto the couch?”

“Pretty much,” Remus replied, looking apologetic. “Unfortunately, this safe house wasn’t exactly designed for meetings…it was designed to look just like a suburban home. My father hadn’t planned on this sort of scenario, I suspect.”

I paused for a moment, furrowing a brow as I looked over at Nic before it dawned on me — Remus was referring to the man that raised him — whoever ruled the Silver Streak Pack before Remus did — the man Fiona was mated to. I looked away before Nic caught me. I wasn’t sure I could keep my expression neutral, especially now that I knew about Sarah, Fiona, and Viola.

“No big deal,” I told Remus instead, shrugging. “I’ve had meetings in much worse places.”

The screen began to chime. “Ah, that would be Lexi. Eli, Nic,” he called, waving a hand. I sat on the arm of the couch, and Eli sat next to me, allowing me to lean some of my weight on him. Remus sat in the middle, with Nic on the other side.

A moment later, he clicked on the television, and Agent Foxrun appeared on the screen. “Oh, that’s handy,” I murmured as Lexi said hello to Remus.

The corner of Eli’s mouth ticked, and he gave me a sideways look. “Did you really think Remus was going to make us all squint at his laptop screen?” he asked, a hint of tease in his voice.

I fought down a smile, glad some of the tension was starting to leave his body. Thankfully, I didn’t have to say anything else because Lexi was already diving right in with the information she’d dug up.

“Ashley Sanders and Hannah Locke have been close friends since middle school, at the very least,” Lexi explained, shifting her camera to presenter-view so she could share the screen. She began opening images of the two girls together from social media posts going back several years, sometimes in large groups, sometimes just the pair of them. “Of course, that’s as far as the photo record goes, but several posts indicate these girls have been friends long before that. I believe there’s even — yes, here it is. Ashley posted a picture of them in matching Halloween costumes when they were six.”

How cu— I stopped myself before I could think about how cute Hannah was, but the photo still made my heart wrench. It made Hannah seem more like a person and less like the witch trying to terrorize me at a social gathering.

“They had a large social group, as you can see from the variety of people in these images, but it seems they kept in touch despite graduating high school. Hannah was attending the Art Institute of Austin for a degree in fashion design, while Ashley was attending the McCombs School of Business at the Austin branch of the University of Texas. Ashley also worked part-time to help fund her degree and lived at home to defer the cost.”

She paused, sighing heavily. “For better or worse, there is nothing outstanding at all to be found from their online history. No red flags yet. We’ve started to look into the people who appear the most in their group photos, but as you can see, that’s about twenty different people. It’s possible that one of these men wiggled their way into one of the women’s private lives, but we haven’t found anything that would warrant concern yet.”

The screen shifted again. “Remus, would you mind looking through the group photos? I understand Silver Streak is quite a large pack, but if any of these people stand out to you for some reason, that might give us a good place to start.”

“Of course,” Remus said, leaning forward so he could reach his laptop and start flicking through the files Lexi had sent earlier. As he leafed through them, his frown grew deeper and deeper.

“I recognize some of these people as shifters — but there’s nothing outstanding about any of them,” he said, blowing out a frustrated noise.

As he flicked past a group of people posing in front of a lake, something caught my eye. “Wait,” I said, leaning forward as Remus moved on to the next photo. “Go back one.”

Remus raised an eyebrow at me and did as I asked. I leaned forward, squinting at two of the men in the second row. A bolt of cold concern lanced through me, and I pointed to them. “I know them,” I said quietly.

Remus’ eyebrow jumped up even higher, threatening to disappear into his hairline. “You know them?”

I nodded slowly, swallowing down the lump already starting to form in my throat. “Yes. They were both guards in the Project Night Moon facility. One of them was the one who was always there when I was taken back and forth to Dr. Brenner.”

The room went so quiet that you could have heard an ant walking across the floor. You could have heard a ghost whisper. I wouldn’t say that Remus went pale, exactly, but his expression went icy. I could feel the chill even where I was sitting.

Lexi cleared her throat. “Iris, could you identify the two for me? I can’t see where you’re pointing.”

It was enough to startle us all out of the shocked silence. “Oh, sorry,” I said. “They’re the two on the top right side. They’re standing next to each other, both wearing black tee shirts. One has a red ball cap on. The other one doesn’t.”

A moment later, two red boxes appeared around their faces. “These two?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, nodding.

Nic scowled. “These must be the traitors,” he growled, tearing his gaze away from the screen to look at Remus. “Do you recognize them?”

“The one with the red cap is Derrick Cooper,” Remus growled, red tinging the corners of his vision. “I don’t recognize the other one. He was either presumed dead when the Lupus Claw Pack was attacked, or he’s just a ‘friend’.”

Lexi made a thoughtful noise. “Hm, looks like no one has tagged them. I’ll do a deep dive to see if they have any social media, though if they’re actively working with Project Night Moon, I doubt it.” She hummed again. “Just as well. We have facial recognition software if nothing comes up. I’m sure we’ll know exactly who he is soon. It’s just a matter of time.”

“You’re sure they’re the ones that took Ashley and Hannah?” Nic questioned.

“No,” Lexi replied simply, shifting the screen back to her camera. “But it’s the best lead we had. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a man befriended a woman with ulterior motives.”

I grunted, scowling at the thought. “Definitely not,” I agreed. “So, what can we do while you check that out?”

Lexi made an apologetic face. “Unfortunately, not much. Both Hannah’s and Ashley’s families were quite cooperative with us when Remus introduced us. I’ll let you know as soon as I have more details on these two.”

“Understood,” Remus said.

I sighed, sitting back as the two of them discussed a few more details. I didn’t want to wait — the longer we did, the more time Project Night Moon had to disappear into the horizon as if it never existed. But there was nothing else we could do just yet. Chasing my tail would get me nowhere.

You’re a good detective, Iris. Sometimes patience is just the name of the game.

At the very least, we had a new lead, and I’d have to be satisfied with that…for now.