Page 133 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

Edward sighed. Now that most of his fellow council members had revealed this information, he was apparently no longer interested in bullshitting us.

“We suspected it was in the hundreds of thousands. But we don’t know where the account is, nor do we have any way of finding out an exact amount.

We’ve never seen a statement from that tax account, which leads us to believe it might not be a wolf account. ”

“Wait…you think he’s got a bank account in the human world?” Bryn asked.

She sounded as shocked as I felt. The Kings had always believed that humans were beneath wolves.

According to Bryn, only Kings’ men were allowed to go into human towns, and they only ever went to get gifts for a female wolf they liked or to have sex with human women.

The idea that the Redwolfs, who hated humans the most, had a financial account with a human bank was preposterous.

Would Gregor have been desperate enough to hide this money in a human account?

If so, we had even more reason to be alarmed.

“We’ve been trying to find the account for years,” Edward said. “We pulled every string we could, but it was nowhere to be found. The only way an account could be hidden so well is if it belonged to a human bank.”

“But I thought we couldn’t transfer money from a wolf account to a human account?” Bryn said.

“No, it’s possible,” I replied. “But you have to withdraw the cash from the pack’s bank, then go to a human town and deposit the cash into an account there.”

“Well, Troy would have had plenty of time to do that—he went into Colville all the time.” Bryn frowned, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “If they were stealing money, why did they record the missing money in the ledger?”

“Alphas have to keep track of every penny that moves in and out of pack accounts,” Ross explained.

“It’s an ancient law to which alphas are bound.

Hundreds of years ago, alphas and the lucky few in their inner circle were treated like royalty.

Back then, they claimed there wasn’t enough money for the entire pack to survive while spending lavishly on themselves.

Packs revolted against their alphas. Riots and infighting made life unbearably difficult, so to bring peace, a new law was created.

All money had to be marked in the ledgers to keep the alpha accountable.

If an alpha doesn’t keep detailed ledgers, they risk being executed. ”

“But there is a loophole,” Grant added. “The law doesn’t expressly state that alphas have to disclose which account the money is going into; just that it has to be noted that it’s gone somewhere. That’s why our hands were tied.”

“That is the loophole,” I said, fury making my voice little more than a growl. “But no alpha worth his salt would take advantage of it.”

The council didn’t have a response to that.

“We need to speak with the Kings’ banker and see what they can tell us,” Bryn said. “And we need to go through everything Troy and Gregor owned. There must be information on this account somewhere.”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. This was turning into a much bigger nightmare than I’d thought. If Troy had used a human bank account, it would be very complicated to gain access to it.

“Don’t any of you have ideas about what the Redwolfs were planning?” Tavi asked. “It’s been seven years—you must have some kind of theory?”

The councilmen exchanged looks. “Well,” Colby began hesitantly, “it’s possible they were trying to expand King territory, but not from neighboring packs.”

“Wait, wait.” I held my hand up. “Are you saying they were after human land?” That was a disaster waiting to happen and much more trouble than it was worth.

Humans were physically weaker than us, true, but they had guns and tanks and heavy machinery—all of which made them a significant threat.

Gregor hated humans, anyway, so why would he be interested in living among them?

Colby shook his head. “No, not human land. I’m talking about land from other realms. From other shifter species.”

We stared at him in puzzlement. “You lost me. Wolves are the only shifter species,” I said.

Colby sighed and rubbed his forehead. “From what I remember, this was a little above my head.”

“I’ll try to explain it as I understood it,” Grant said.

“Around the same time we learned about this tax account, Gregor started collecting old maps of the Idaho panhandle and ancient texts on wolf legends. We have no idea where he got these documents or where he stored them. They’re not in the pack library or his personal library because we’ve had those places checked thoroughly.

We asked Gregor about the books, but all he would say was that they held information that would bring the Kings to new levels of greatness. ”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “How would old texts and maps help him?”

“Well, there is a very old fable about an ancient version of our world.” He glanced at Dana, who had been sitting in quiet disapproval since the others told us what they knew. “Dana, please, you know the story best.”

She heaved a long, exhausted sigh, but she spoke.

“Everyone knows pack mothers started the wolf shifter species, but this legend states that hundreds of years ago, the world was populated with more than just wolf shifters.

Dragons, bears, birds, foxes, and big cats lived alongside us, and each species had their own pack mothers who brought them into existence.

“Each shifter species had their own territory to rule over, but over time, some of them became greedy.

Dragons descended from their mountain caves to seek out treasure and hoard wealth, leaving nothing for the others.

Smaller species like the birds and rodents were hunted while in their animal forms, powerless to stop it.

Bigger species like the cats and wolves became increasingly territorial as their populations grew.

“Wars and deep blood feuds broke out, and before long, all shifter species were getting closer and closer to extinction. To stop their children from killing each other, the pack mothers came together and used their magic to open portals to new realms. They created one for each species and separated them forever. We wolves were the only ones who remained in the original realm.”

Tavi, Bryn, and I exchanged glances. It appeared none of us had heard this story before, but it sounded far too crazy to be real. No wonder Dana had called it a fable.

“What does that have to do with the Redwolfs?” Tavi asked.

“I don’t understand why everyone is struggling so much with this,” Dana huffed. “It’s clear—Alpha Gregor believed that if he opened those portals, he could travel through different realms. When he arrived, he could use the might of our army to expand our territory.”

Silence followed her words, then Bryn spoke up. “You supported this?”

Dana’s lips twisted with annoyance. “I supported the spirit of it. Everyone seems to be forgetting that we are Kings. We are meant to have kingdoms. If Alpha Gregor believed he could make it happen, why should I care if his methods are unorthodox?”

“He was screwing over this pack in the pursuit of something impossible,” Bryn argued. “And what did it amount to? Hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen? A divided council? You should care a lot, Dana.”

She scoffed. “He was working in service of the greater good.”

This conversation was getting so frustrating. I hated sharing blood with a man who’d been crazy enough to believe such a story. Dragons? Really? It was far more believable that Troy had used the money to build himself an army of ferals.

“I can believe that Gregor and Troy would want to get more land,” I said. “I simply can’t wrap my head around the possibility that they would believe in some ridiculous bedtime story. There’s no proof that those events ever happened.”

“It’s one of those things that can only be proven when achieved,” Ross replied with a shrug. “We didn’t say it was reasonable for them to believe it was possible.”

“But we have to admit it’s possible that they believed the story was true,” Bryn said. “If Troy and Gregor believed in other realms, that would explain the ancient maps and books Gregor collected. He needed some intel on the locations of those portals.”

This was all so ridiculous. I was on the verge of storming out, taking my mate and sister with me. But Bryn was right. We had to consider every avenue to track down this money.

“Do any of you know how a portal could be reopened?” she asked. “Or even where the closest portal is supposed to be?”

“Of course not,” Dana snapped. “We didn’t give it any thought because we don’t believe it’s possible. There are so many myths about the ancient world that most wolves don’t know. None of them have been proven true, and there’s no reason for anyone to take them so seriously.”

“If your precious Alpha Gregor was determined to find out if it was true,” Tavi began, glaring at Dana, “at least one wolf took it pretty damn seriously.”

“Maybe the idea of more power and control was too appealing for them to resist,” I replied. “If this is what they were doing with the money, it’s because the chance to conquer foreign land was too good to pass up, no matter how far-fetched it sounded.”

“If Troy is the only one left who believes in this story, couldn’t we just find some way to cut Troy’s access to the account?” Bryn asked. “No money, no way for him to fund his army or open a portal, right?”

“I doubt it’ll be that simple, Bryn,” I said.

“We need to find the account first, and if it’s in the human world, there will be a lot of hoops for us to jump through before we can close it.

It could take a lot of time.” I paused because something Bryn had said filled me with unease.

“Troy might not be the only one who believes this story. There could be wolves in your pack who are loyal to him and want to open the portals. Wolves who might be helping him from the inside.”

Bryn clenched her eyes shut briefly and addressed the council again. “I know it’s a long shot, but are there any records that would tell us who would be most loyal to the Redwolfs?”

“We don’t keep records like that,” Edward said. “You’d have to ask around. As far as we know, the ones who were most loyal to Troy left either when you were appointed alpha or shortly after the feral attack.”

She sighed and nodded. “I should have expected as much.” Looking from Tavi to me, she said, “We’ve asked them what we needed to ask, so let’s head to the bank to see what they know.”

“That sounds like a plan.” I stared hard at each member of the council. “If we have more questions, we’ll be back.”