Page 217 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

“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. “Ifthis 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.”

84

BRYN

After that strange meeting, Night and I headed to the commons. We were determined to get more of our questions answered. Tavi had opted to look through the Redwolfs’ belongings to find some link to the missing account.I knew being alpha would be hard, but I wouldneverhave thought I’d have to deal with a financial mystery. Andof courseit all goes back to Troy.

It was so like Troy to be the bane of my existence even when he was nowhere to be found. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be free of his chokehold on my life.

The commons had shops on either side of a wide walking path. People were selling all sorts of jewelry, clothes, salves, sauces, groceries, drinks, street foods, and toys. It was a bustling place, and a few wolves played music for money. I’d rarely gone to the commons because I felt exposed, but my mom went all the time. She said her favorite thing about the market was haggling down the prices.

I grinned as I recalled how she’d gush about talking down the price of a dress or a new pan. But the memory also angered me. Ross had made it sound like the monarchical system was a thing of the past, but Mom and I never had much money. People had treated us much like the “peasants” Ross had talked about.

I shook my head and focused on the task at hand. Let the past be the past for now. We needed answers.

The Kings’ bank was in a red brick building at the end of the long strip of shops. People crowded the inside, either withdrawing or depositing money into their accounts. But when the doors shut behind Night and me, the chatter stopped immediately.

I didn’t have time to be offended or embarrassed by the attention—what we had to do was too important. I took advantage of the quiet to announce, “I want to speak to the owner.”

There was a pause, and then one of the tellers spoke up. “I-I’ll go get him, Alpha Hunter,” she squeaked, scurrying off to do so. We waited for just a few seconds, and then the teller returned. “He said he’ll see you now in his office, Alpha.”

“Great.” Night and I followed the teller to the back.

The owner’s office had a window that overlooked the tree line. A scent of vanilla wafted from the candles burning on his desk, giving the room a relaxing vibe. The shelves to the right of his desk held binders of the pack’s financial information, and on the left of his desk were some dried snacks and candies. I wondered if they were for him or the people who came into his office.

The owner, a scrawny man in his early seventies, sat behind his rectangular oak desk. The nameplate revealed him to be Jefferson Boyle. The top of his head was bald, while white hairpuffed out at the sides. He wore a black blazer over his eggshell-blue button-down shirt and black slacks.

“Greetings, Alpha Hunter and Night Shepherd,” he said, bowing to me before sitting again. “To what do I owe the honor of seeing the two of you?”

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone missing over the last seven years,” I said as Night handed over the ledgers. “We know they’ve gone into a tax account, but no one—not even the council—knows anything about it. We’re hoping you could give us more information about it.”

Jefferson took a few moments to skim through the ledgers. He set the papers down and reached into one of his desk drawers for a large black binder. “Let me double-check something.” The binder was labeled “Pack Accounting.” He opened it, flipped through the binder, then nodded to himself.

“It’s just as I thought,” he said, flicking the binder closed again. “We don’t have an account with that name.”

“What? How do you explain all of these transfers, then?” Night asked.

“Well, I see in these ledgers that these transfers were indeed labeled for some kind of tax account. But Alpha Gregor told me to officially mark them down as ‘community expenses.’”

“What is that?” I asked.

“As you’ve seen, we keep multiple accounts, and one of those accounts is called ‘Community.’ It’s used for events and parties within the pack. Alpha Gregor had me mark down the withdrawals as being for the community.”

“But there weren’t any events around the time of these transactions,” I said.