The Alpha King's Princess
The Alpha King’s Princess – Chapter 35

Seeing Bella coming into the room, though, made a lot of sense. Who else would be petty enough to ignore the facts and have such a grudge against me? She sneered at me and rounded the table to take her seat. Another person entered just behind her, but he wasn’t familiar to me. He looked tired and irritated. He sat beside Bella, turned to her, and glared at her.

She flinched away from him.

“For what reason did you reject Claire and Hedy’s applications?” The man that had come in after Bella asked. “Their try-out results were better than the people that were accepted!”

Bella lifted her chin. “As the vice president of the team’s administration, I’m responsible for making sure costs are kept down. We would have had to buy new uniforms for Hedy.”

The rugby captain hissed. “What the—are you f*****g serious? One set of uniforms when we buy new uniforms every year?”

“The amount of money in the budget—”

“Shut up,” the man said. Bella flushed. “You have no right to talk about the budget that you can’t even read. I saw the disciplinary notes regarding your academics. You lied your way into this position and every other you have!”

I hadn’t even known that Bella was a part of the administration of any sports team. While it probably looked good on paper, Bella had no real intention of ever doing any work.

Bella stammered. “That’s not true! I—”

“Shut up,” the president of the student council hissed. Her eyes flashed with anger. “As president of the student council, I am stripping you of your position.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Shows how much you know,” she said and looked at the rugby captain. “I know we’ve already ordered uniforms for the year, but I will approve a budget expansion if needed if you want Hedy and Claire on the team.”

My eyes widened. I really thought I’d have to fight some more, but the man that was glaring at Bella shook his head. He scoffed, gesturing vaguely.

“There’s no need. We have a good relationship with the provider, and we always order extra. Besides, when Bella and the Wolf Fang Pack return all the money she’s embezzled from the rugby budget, we’ll have plenty to cover any extra costs that might come up!”

Claire gasped. Everyone in the room turned to look at Bella. Bella turned bright red as she glared at me. Before anyone could say anything, Bella jumped to her feet, covered her face, and ran out. I could hear her running down the hallway, and I thought of what her parents would do when they got word from the school about her embezzlement. A lot of the funds of this campus of the Noble Academies came straight from the Full Moon Pack’s donations. Candido would be pissed when he found out.

How interesting that she just couldn’t let her fiancé’s scandal garner her some sympathy. I wondered how long she’d been embezzling and how much she’d taken. Would it bankrupt the Wolf Fang Pack?

Having no money to sustain the pack would certainly be a reason to defect to the vampire side. I never thought that they were involved, but looking back, I couldn’t rule it out. Why else would she do something like that? Was she just greedy? Had she been ordered to steal the money?

The president looked at him. “Is that true?”

“I just came from the meeting with the Treasurer and the full board,” he said. “They’re making it a criminal suit and taking it to Inter-Pack court. The rest is done. I’ll be representing the rugby administration along with the Treasurer to get a full sense of where all the money went and who all was involved.”

She nodded. “You’ve done well. I’m glad we have you as the president.”

He nodded. “I just wish I had caught it sooner. We’ll be audited heavily, and I definitely don’t want the Alpha King thinking I had anything to do with it.”

If that was all true, Candido would be presiding over the case. His information team would get all the facts of the case one way or another. As a member of Moon Shadow, I should probably look into it in case the money had been funneled into an of the vampire’s efforts.

I could only imagine the kind of punishment he’d dole out against Bella and the Wolf Fang Pack. If anyone but Bella was tied to this, they might even be executed. I shuddered at the thought. Though I didn’t like Bella or many of the other people in the pack, I hoped they would just be imprisoned, banished, or something like that. Knowing Candido, so long as there wasn’t a greater conspiracy behind it and the money could be retrieved with interest, everything would probably be fine.

I guess Bella was falling off her pedestal faster and faster by the minute. Maybe Eric would be a bit relieved that he wouldn’t be tied to her of the Wolf Fang Pack after all of this got out.

“Claire?” The rugby captain said. “Hedy? Are you still interested in joining the team?”

“Yes,” I said, and Claire nodded.

He nodded. “Good. Come to the field after this, and we’ll get you measured for uniforms and assign you lockers.”

I blinked at him. “Just like that?”

He smirked. “Well, you outran of striker, so yeah, just like that.”

I had never imagined that anything in my life would ever be that easy. Looking back at my life in the Wolf Fang Pack, nothing had ever been that easy. All of this had to be because of my connection to Candido. There would be a new vice president over the team’s administration soon, but Claire and I were on the field with the rest of the team within the hour, running drills and meeting the team.

They were mostly nice people, but there was a bit of tension as we were in lower grades, but that didn’t matter. Getting in with the older classes was part of the plan too. I had no idea who in the school might have some sort of tie to the vampire forces.

When practice was over, we headed back to the locker room. My phone chimed inside my locker. It was a text from Candido.

Claire leaned around the edge of the lockers and grinned. “Shall we go out and celebrate?”

I read the text from Candido that said that he’d left the car for Claire and me and that he would see me later.

Congratulations on making the team. Bring us a championship.

I smiled at the words and replied. I think my alpha would never accept a loss.

I worried my l*p, wondering if he would take that bit of flirting well. He was everyone’s alpha. He was the alpha king, but he had to know that I meant it as more than just a member of the Full Moon Pack.

“Sounds like we’ll have free use of Team Gamma.”

She squealed and hurried off. “I’ll be out in a second!”

I headed towards the showers after her and stopped as something caught my eye. I approached the area and drew my hand across the long claw marks on the bench. They had the same character as all the other marks.

This locker room was used by a lot of sports teams. It seemed like I had narrowed down the attacker of the Moon Shadow headquarters to an athlete, assuming there was only one person in the school with ties to vampires.

A few days of practice passed without much interest. I hadn’t seen Bella in the hallways, and there didn’t seem to be much in the rumor mill about what was going on with her either. Claire was chatting with someone else in the locker room as I got ready to leave just behind her.

“I’m heading out to meet my team, okay?” Claire called.

“Good luck on getting done early!”

Claire left, and I heard a few other people leaving until I was alone in the locker room. I got dressed in my jeans and tied my hair up before closing my locker.

Bella was standing there with something in her hand. I quirked an eyebrow at her.

“What are you—”

She darted forward, her eyes narrowed and furious, and she thrust her hand out as she sprayed something in my face. My lungs seized, and everything in me screamed not to breathe in. I held my breath and fell back, choking as I felt it enter my eyes.

I screamed and felt a force shove me back. The can hissed again as she held it in front of my face.

“I told you I’d make your life hell!”

I tried to shove her off. The glint of my mother’s necklace caught my eye. I reached out, closing my hand over it as my vision went black, and I heard nothing.