Alpha's Fate (Black Moon Saga Book 2)

Chapter 18: The Intruders

“How did you get here? You’re not w-,” Jonah starts to say, but is interrupted by a mind-link from Kylie.

Don’t, she cautions him, and then proceeds with quickly explaining, Openly declaring that he isn’t welcome here when you have welcomed so many other Alphas is the same as openly declaring him your enemy. He could use it to justify declaring war, and we don’t want that.

“You’re not on the approved guest list,” Jonah switches to saying instead. “You should have had to be approved by me in order to get this far onto my land.”

“True, but I would advise throwing out that guest list, boy,” Alpha Preston tells him with a cocky tone. “Out of concern for the security of a fellow pack, I lied to your guards to prove a point. They don’t know what your approved guests look like. I told them I was Alpha Omar, and they believed me.”

“Bullshit,” Alpha Omar steps forward and speaks up. “I’m already here, and they know that. Plus, the process involves more than just stating who you claim to be. I know, I endured it when I got here.”

“Ah, see, I had banked on the assumption that your pack was far enough away that you weren’t likely to be here,” Preston explains with a shrug. “No matter. Point is I’m here, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out which of your weaknesses I was able to exploit to get here. It was for a good cause, though, I assure you of that.”

“So, why are you here?” Jonah presses for answers. “I assure you, your answer had better be a good one. Trespassing on another pack’s land is reason enough to have my guards forcibly escort you from here.”

Alpha Preston takes a moment to evaluate the young Alpha and covertly catch a glimpse of his sister and their other guests. He does find himself regretting rejecting Abby for a moment. Her offspring are impressive. He can feel the power radiating from the boy, and that’s just his passive aura. It nearly rivals his own. And the girl, well, for the first time he finds himself worrying about what would happen if she ever succeeded at challenging him directly. That’s not a fight he cares to have to face.

“A little bird may have whispered in my ear that I have a new grandchild,” he taunts, mostly to see how his daughter reacts.

What are you doing? Beta Jameson demands through mind-link. Lately he finds himself wondering more and more often if Preston doesn’t have a touch of his brother’s madness creeping in.

At the same time, Kylie links Tian to tell him, Take Margot and my mother to Spirit Moon.

Since Kylie’s eyes do not change much when she communicates telepathically, Alpha Preston fails to notice it out of the corner of his eye. He is impressed that the girl does not even seem to flinch. He congratulates himself for passing down his own iron will and spine of steel.

Kylie and the other Alphas are wondering how he heard the news so soon, where the leak might be amongst their packmates, and how he even knows that she is his daughter. It is now apparent that they have been underestimating both his reach and his ego.

But Kylie can tell that his given reason, although accurate, is a front. She is sensing a lot of conflicting emotions from him and is even starting to tap into a deeper internal conflict of some sort, although she can’t get far enough into his mind to be able to tell much more than that. What she does know, however, is that he’s lying.

You’re not fooling anyone, she attempts to mind-link him. She knows Mirabella could probably do it, but her own ability to connect with people she barely knows has not been particularly successful thus far. It seems to depend on how well they guard their minds against her.

But when his head snaps in her direction and he looks at her in stunned silence, the façade finally dropping from his face for a moment, she knows she has succeeded. Interesting.

“That’s not why he’s here,” she declares aloud. “He’s here to make a fool of himself trying to play mind games with us.”

Now Beta Jameson turns his attention to her, as surprised as his Alpha. But only for a moment, until he mentally scolds himself for not remembering that Alpha Byron warned them that she’s a clairvoyant.

“Three seconds until my guards will be on you,” Jonah threatens. “That’s how long you have to tell us why you’re really here.”

Alpha Preston glances around to see that many of the Tall Pines warriors are slowly approaching him in a familiar formation, the one his own commanders like to call “seize the prisoner” for their own amusement.

“I came to discuss a truce,” he announces finally.

“I wasn’t aware that we were engaged in a conflict,” Jonah retorts.

“A peaceable agreement between two unallied packs, then,” Alpha Preston amends his statement, now growing quite irritated at both of Abby’s offspring.

“It’s another lie anyway,” Kylie confidently declares. She’s a bit disappointed to discover that her own father is such a slow learner.

We forgot to take into account her clairvoyance. Cut your losses and let’s go, Beta Jameson advises his Alpha.

“I think we’ve heard enough,” Jonah decides. “My men will be happy to escort you from my land, Alpha Preston.”

“No need, we’re going,” Beta Jameson speaks up. “We do apologize for the inconvenience, but we did have intentions of sitting down with you to have a peaceable discussion, for the record.”

A peaceable discussion as a front for gathering intel, perhaps? Kylie questions him over mind-link, which earns her another surprised look from Beta Jameson.

Her intent at this point is simply to convey to them that she can get in their heads so that they know their lies will continue to be unsuccessful here. She can’t be certain of their true purpose, but it makes the most sense that they’re scouting and fishing for whatever information they can glean about their enemies. The look he gives her only confirms that she is on the right track.

Once Alpha Preston and his men are far enough away, flanked on all sides by Tall Pines enforcers, Kylie exhales a breath and releases some of the tension she has been holding, leaning against Adam for support.

“That was intense,” she admits, mostly to herself. It was probably more intense for her than for anyone else, considering that she has never even seen her father’s face before now.

And to Adam she mind-links, I told Tian to get Margot out of here. I’m sorry. We didn’t even get to say goodbye.

I’m glad she’s safe, and it’s probably better if she’s not here since we don’t even know how Alpha Preston got in, Adam tells her, though it pains him to know she’s gone. Hopefully, Tian can take us to visit her sometimes, he adds, hoping the idea of it will console them both.

She hopes so as well and knows that her absence will hit them both even harder once they go back in the house. For now, she distracts herself with the issue at hand.

“So that you all know, his Beta confirmed without meaning to that they were actually here to get an inside look at us,” she announces to all the men gathered around, now whispering tensely amongst themselves. “The good news about that is that it means they’re scared. The bad news is that they obviously know, or at least suspect, what we’ve been planning.”

“We need to tighten up security within our own packs,” Jonah points out. “I need to find out how he got in here, and we all need to make sure we’re surrounding ourselves with people we can trust. How did he even know what he knows?”

“We also need to call another meeting with all the allies,” Alpha Clayton declares. “We need to discuss our plans and how this development might change things.”

*************************

“How does she get in my head like that?” Preston demands an answer angrily, slamming his hand against the dashboard.

Jameson is glad to be the one driving, considering how riled up his friend is.

“I don’t know, but we knew better than to go there with a half-c****d plan. I can’t believe I forgot about Alpha Byron’s warning, though. If I had, I wouldn’t have encouraged you to go in there with anything but the truth. I have a feeling we did more damage than anything.”

“I’m not even talking about that!” Preston yells. “She was in my head, Jamey. I heard her voice before she ever spoke. How did she do that?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t just you. She spoke to me, too.”

“She did? What did she say?”

“She called me out on the shoddy patch job I tried to do at the end. She knows exactly why we went.”

Preston sighs, slumping down in his seat. This whole trip turned into such a mess for him, and now his wolf is even more on edge than before they left. He knows he only has himself to blame, though. The witch told him not to do anything. But he can’t help but wonder why she would tell him something like that if she didn’t expect him to do something about it. And the most frustrating thing about it all for him is the reason why the girl even exists in the first place, as a result of the last time he made an impulsive trip to Tall Pines.

“I made one mistake, Jamey. One stupid mistake, and it’s coming back to haunt me forever. Why? Why did I ever have to find my stupid mate? I didn’t even want her. I’m happy with Summer. She’s perfect for me. It’s my wolf who always urges me toward these stupid impulsive plans that always backfire, and it all comes back to the fated mates baloney.”

“I don’t disagree with you but philosophizing about it doesn’t help us. What we need is a new plan. What do we do about the girl and her pathetic little army? Did you see the way those Alphas circled behind her? She has them all whipped. I believe you’ve been absolutely right this whole time, and there’s no doubt about it anymore.”

Preston sighs, finally calming some as he considers what they need to do.

“Well, Alpha Byron did say that Hidden Moon was most likely to be prompted to war, and I did notice Alpha Clayton there with her today. I think that’s where we need to focus our eyes and ears. We should probably also send more teams to Scarlet Dawn. That’s the closest region of our territory to Hidden Moon and our other enemies.”

Though no official declaration of war has been made, this encounter confirmed for him that he should consider Tall Pines and its allies his enemies.

Jameson considers what Preston said for a moment before a potential solution occurs to him.

“Kyle knows that area the best and he’s been really distinguishing himself with our elites,” he points out. “I think we can trust him if we send him back to his home turf. Plus, his sister is still there. He’ll defend with his life if we tell him she’s at risk.”

Preston nods a few times, liking the sound of it.

“I was considering that, too. I think you’re right. I think I’ll make him a commander and put together some teams for him and dispatch them as soon as we get back. We don’t know when the girl is coming, but we can assume we’ve only encouraged her along today. We need to be ready.”