Page 67 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

NIGHT

Istood in the conference room in the mess hall.

I had hoped that I would already have Bryn and Tavi back by now, but three days had passed since they were taken and we had no leads.

On top of that, my body felt sluggish, unresponsive, heavy.

My wolf and I felt more like strangers as the days passed, a sensation that was so wrong, so alien.

It felt like I was disconnected from my own soul, and it hurt worse every day.

It made me wonder if this was at all how Bryn felt interacting with her wolf now, feeling a stranger acting independently in your own body. If so, my heart ached for her even more.

I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since that night, and the only thing keeping me from losing control entirely was my determination to get my girls back.

But here in the conference room, I tried to enjoy a moment of peace.

There would be a meeting here soon, but for now, I was alone.

I walked to the wall and looked up at the framed pictures.

Most of them were taken by Mom in the days after I killed Peter to become Alpha.

They were images of Dom and me as teens, heading the construction of new cabins.

Planks of wood, buckets of cement and paint, and felled trees were the backdrop for many of the images.

I remembered the story of each one so clearly.

If I closed my eyes, I felt the blazing sun on my back, the rush of a cool beer after a day’s hard work, and the taste of Mom’s cooking as she and other wolves worked together to hunt and feed our pack.

Things had been so hard, and the work seemed never-ending.

Yet, we Wargs had persevered, and we had survived.

We hadn’t received any help from other packs—Gregor had made sure of that—but we’d done well without it. We thrived.

I had spent so much of my life invested in the health and prosperity of my pack, my wolves, and my people.

Now Troy stood a good chance of taking it all away from me.

I’d wanted to take control of the Kings all my life, but now that things had ended up like this, I found myself questioning every decision I’d made to try and make that happen.

Wanting a better life for my pack was one thing, but it was another for me to selfishly tie my own desires to the welfare of my pack.

I clenched my hands tight, my stomach churning. Maybe I was no better than my father.

I turned to the door when I heard footsteps approach. Dom popped his head in. “Hey, I’ve got a surprise.”

“What is it?”

He opened the door wider, revealing Kai, Redford, Vince, and…

my eyebrows raised when an old friend walked in.

Evan Brandy, a wolf I’d grown up with and someone I considered to be a very close friend.

He looked the same as when I had last seen him: chocolate brown hair, casual grin, and an old, jagged scar running vertically down his left cheek.

I remembered the day he’d gotten that scar.

It had been when we were eleven and an adult thought he could bully us around.

My mother ended up giving Evan stiches because his parents had already died.

Evan wasn’t in the pictures that hung on the wall.

I’d sent him to infiltrate the Kings pack shortly after I became Alpha.

Evan served as a fighter for the Kings, which put him in a prime position to learn the goings-on of the pack as well as strategy for what the Kings had planned.

My trust in Evan ran as deep as my trust in Dom, so he was the only wolf I could have put in this position.

The last time Evan and I had been in the same room together was last December. That was back when Gregor was still alive and my hope of taking control of the Kings pack was still a distant dream.

It felt like years had gone by since then.

I crossed the room and pulled Evan in for a hug. He laughed, firmly patting my back. “Yeah, it’s been a while, buddy.”

“No kidding.” As I pulled back, my grin at seeing my old friend dimmed to a small smile. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

Usually, Evan only came around when there was an obvious threat to the Wargs, which helped to keep his cover so that he wasn’t disappearing from the Kings pack all the time.

Dom, evidently, had brought him in now because he knew that I needed everyone I could trust on deck. I appreciated the gesture.

“Same here, Night.” Evan patted my shoulder, and then crossed his arms. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and ripped jeans.

He wasn’t as muscular as me or Dom, despite being a fighter.

But Evan was wiry and strong. I’d seen him take down wolves twice his size, so his skills as a fighter went unquestioned.

Evan had almost become my beta, but Dom had come out on top in that battle.

“I’m sure you all remember what things were like at the end of Peter’s rule as Alpha,” Evan said. “Food was hoarded, everyone was on edge, construction projects were abandoned, and Peter himself was a ticking time bomb.”

Everyone in the room nodded. We could all recall how difficult it had been to exist in a pack that was run by a selfish, paranoid Alpha, and we’d had to endure it for months.

“Then you all will understand the way things have gone for the Kings. Ever since Troy took over, the Kings have been suffering. The man has done nothing but accuse wolves of being traitors left and right without any evidence. He then challenges these so-called traitors, but before the challenge can take place, Troy and his closest wolves beat him within an inch of his life.”

“So they’re no match for him by the time the challenge happens,” Kai said, his voice dripping with disgust. “The coward.”

Evan nodded. “He’s doing this to show the pack that he’s powerful, but all he’s done is sink pack morale.

The only members of the pack who are doing alright are those who were already in Redwolf’s favor.

Everyone else is struggling to stay alive at this point.

Wolves are trying to leave, but that’s hard to do when Troy keeps his own pack under constant surveillance.

Women, children, it doesn’t matter. If they try to leave, he wants them either killed or captured for interrogation. ”

“Damn,” I said. I hated hearing how the innocent members of the Kings pack were suffering, but this would make it all the better when we took Troy down. His people would want someone better to lead them. “Do you think they would support a change in leadership?”

“Absolutely,” Evan said. “The pack has always had some semblance of respect for the Redwolfs because at least the pack was prosperous. They believed that Troy would continue in his father’s footsteps, but obviously that hasn’t happened.

Troy’s run out of all the goodwill his family name had, so yeah, I think they’re eager for new leadership. ”

“Why would he attack his own men?” Redford asked.

Evan shrugged. “He’s always been a little…off, but he hasn’t been the same since Gregor died. It’s like he’s been let off his leash, and no one can rein him in.”

“Sounds like he’s trying to reestablish his Alpha status,” I said, the gears in my mind turning.

“He probably felt pressure to be just like his old man, to provide in the same way, but he hasn’t earned the respect that Gregor had.

So he wants to prove to the pack that he’s the strongest to compensate for that. ”

“The only way he knows how to rule is through fear,” Dom said.

I nodded. “He’s also probably trying to weed out those he thinks are weak so he can try to take us down.”

“I see what you’re saying.” Evan scratched his chin.

There was a five o’clock shadow growing along his jaw.

“Troy has been snapping at just about anyone and has shifted and killed countless fighters from his own pack, especially in the last few days. He walks around like a fucking maniac, and even his usual group of followers are avoiding him. Well, aside from Harlon and Samson.”

The changing dynamics of the Kings pack meant that the information Bryn had given me before wouldn’t work for us now. Evan’s being here was perfect timing. Without him, I risked going in blind.

“Our priority should be to rescue Bryn and Tavi,” I announced. “I’ll deal with Troy after they’re safe.”

“But taking the Kings over is still part of the plan, right?” Kai asked.

I felt a flash of annoyance, but I quickly tamped that down.

I couldn’t get frustrated with my own people for asking clarifying questions.

“Of course. The plan hasn’t changed, we’re just taking a slight detour.

Once Tavi and Bryn are safe, I’ll kill the fucker, and the Kings pack will be ours.

” As I finished speaking, the room began to spin.

I steadied myself by placing my fingertips on the table. My body was growing weaker by the day, which made our window for making all this happen much tighter. If we didn’t find Bryn and Tavi soon, I’d be too weak to win against Troy.

“Are you alright, Night?” Kai asked.

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

Thinking of Bryn made my wolf whine, and I felt an echoing ache in my chest. Bryn. I missed her so fucking much, I could hardly stand it.

I pushed away from the table and addressed Evan. “What about Bryn and Tavi?” I asked. “Has there been any talk of where Redwolf is keeping them?”

Evan shook his head. “I’ve tried to look around, but it’s impossible to dig too deep because of Troy’s state of mind as of late. There have been talks of him coming for you, Night, but no plans have been shared with us yet.”

Dammit! I resisted the urge to take out my frustration on the table.

Evan’s intel on the Kings was vital, but his lack of information about my mate and my sister almost rendered that intel useless.

My own trackers hadn’t found a trace of them because their scents had been too closely mixed up with Troy’s and the other wolves’.

We weren’t going to give up. I knew in my bones that Bryn was still alive, but I had no idea how long that would last. I hoped against hope that Tavi was with her, too, and that she was safe.

“If he’s so unhinged, maybe now’s the time to strike,” Vince said. “He won’t be expecting it if he’s this unbalanced.”

“No, that won’t work,” I said, almost snapping at the young hunter.

“Just because he seems insane doesn’t mean that he’s an idiot.

He’s paranoid and unhinged, but that can work to his advantage, too.

For all we know, he might already be thinking ten steps ahead of us.

” I shook my head. “We can’t underestimate him at all, and we need to be prepared for anything that he might throw our way. ”

The silence that followed my words was deafeningly sober. The Wargs were still on our back foot here, and we needed to shape up if we wanted to be on equal footing with the Kings again.

“Night,” Evan was the first to break the silence. “You talking about your mate has got me thinking about something I saw this morning.”

“What is it?”

“It’s not uncommon to see Troy walking around the territory splattered with blood, but today was different.

I hadn’t seen Troy for a while until this morning, shortly before I left the Kings compound.

His hair and his clothes were a mess, and there was blood all over his hands and on his shirt.

Usually the blood on him smells vaguely familiar, like someone in the pack, but I knew this blood wasn’t from any wolf that I’ve met. ”

My wolf reacted before I did. The table split right down the middle before I knew what I’d done.

As the wood came apart, sending splinters and sawdust through the room, rage blazed through me.

In the seconds that followed—seconds that would have seen me letting my wolf take control and wreak fucking havoc—I wrested control back.

The room was still, everyone watching me with wide eyes. The only one among them who didn’t seem surprised was Dom, who stared knowingly, stoically, at me. He alone fully understood the toll that this had taken on his Alpha.

I walked around the mess to stand in front of the group. I towered over them, showing myself to be every bit the commanding presence my weakening power had prevented me from becoming.

“It’s time to stop talking and start acting,” I said. “Gather the others here. I want this room filled with my best fighters. We’re finalizing a plan of action tonight because tomorrow, we’re getting them back.”

Dom nodded. He and the others filed out of the room, which left me alone again, though it wouldn’t last long.

I looked at the ruined table and closed my eyes. I had built this table a decade ago, and now it lay ruined at my feet. I hoped that this wasn’t a sign of things to come.