CALLUM’S POV
"ㅡ third time this month, Alpha. We can’t keep letting it slide."
"I hear you." I nodded.
And I did hear him. I heard every word Elder Bran said about the eastern perimeter, the irregular scout movement and the pack’s response protocol. I was present. Completely present.
Damon snorted in my head.
"Shut up." I communicated back to him.
He settled back down with the smugness of someone who knew better and I redirected my attention to the council table where four elders were looking at me and waiting.
"Double the rotation on the eastern stretch." I said. "Document everything. Nothing escalates without my call. It’s still not a big cause for alarm."
There were nods of agreement around the table. Good. Moving on.
The bond hummed somewhere in the background of my head like a sound I couldn’t locate the source of. Low, constant and entirely indifferent to the fact that I was supposed to be running a council briefing right now.
Could it just let me breathe for a day? Like... Go away?
But no. It was always there.
The briefing wrapped as chairs scraped back and packmates filed out. I gathered my papers and was already thinking about the administrative records I needed to review when I noticed Osric hadn’t moved.
He was still in his seat, turning his pen over in his fingers with the leisurely patience of a man who had nowhere to be and wanted me to know it.
"Alpha." He said pleasantly, looking up at me.
"Osric?"
"Busy morning?"
"Always." I kept my voice even. What did he want?
He smiled but it was the kind that didn’t move past his mouth. "I imagine so. Especially with everything on your plate lately." He paused just long enough. "The pack has noticed you seem a bit...preoccupied. Nothing concerning of course. Just an observation because you’re our Alpha and we want to be sure your mind is here with us."
I looked at him and he looked back at me with those steady, filing-everything-away eyes. I held his gaze for exactly as long as was appropriate and then gathered the last of my papers. "The pack is fine." I grunted. "As am I."
He inclined his head slightly. "Of course, Alpha."
"Good day." I didn’t say anything else before I walked out.
Damon was quiet for once but I could feel him thinking and I didn’t particularly want to know what about, because I was thinking the same thing.
The records office was a short walk from the council hall and I had a routine administrative matter to handle there that could have been sent through the usual channels but I had decided to do it in person today for reasons I wasn’t going to say.
Reasons like Keisha.
She was at her desk when I walked in. I knew she was there before I saw her. The bond told me that the way it told me everything now ㅡ matter of factly and without asking my permission first. I kept my eyes moving normally and went straight to her, nodding slightly at the pack members who greeted me as they moved about their jobs.
"Alpha Callum." She forced a professional smile.
"I need the inter-pack correspondence files from the last quarter signed off." I said, my voice also professional.
We were both very good at this.
She pulled them up, I reviewed them, and I signed where I needed to sign. Three exchanges of genuine necessity, then it was done and I picked up the folder, turning to leave when I noticed something.
Her desk had a flagged query sitting in the top corner of her screen. I caught it in passing ㅡ just a glance. A gap in the archived inter-pack communication logs.
I stopped. "This query." I muttered, nodding at her screen.
She looked at it. "I flagged it yesterday. I was going to submit it formally todayㅡ"
"I’ll take it."
She blinked surprised. "Oh. Okay."
I picked up the printed copy from the edge of her desk and walked out before either of us had to say anything else.
I’m not sure what exactly it was but something had snagged my attention to it. And I was going to go through it.
****************
It was late when I sat at my desk in my quarters and stared at the flagged query in my hand without really reading it anymore. I had read it four times already and I knew what it said.
What I was actually thinking about was last night.
I had gone to her house. Stood outside on that porch in the dark like a man who had misplaced all of his good sense and then stood there some more because I couldn’t knock and I couldn’t leave either so I just...stood there like an idiot. Until I heard movement inside and the bond told me she was at the window so I left before the situation could get any worse than it already was.
Goddess, maybe I was an idiot.
"You should have knocked," Damon muttered, his presence overwhelming.
Shit.
I set the query down on the desk.
The photograph of my late wife was where it always was ㅡ right side of the desk, same spot it had been for eight years. I looked at it for a long moment. Audrey. I could still recall the exact sound of her laugh if I tried hard enough. The way she always had an opinion about everything and delivered it with such complete certainty that you believed her before you’d finished processing what she’d said.
She would have had an opinion about this.
Probably several.
I reached over and turned the photograph face down.
Not because I felt guilty. I didn’t. She was still very important to me. Just because I couldn’t hold both thoughts in my head at the same time right now and that felt like the most honest thing I could do about it.
I sat there for a while in the stillness of my quarters, my gaze drifting back to the query.
Maybe I needed to bring it up with the people who worked there. Maybe they would understand how and why there was a gap in the correspondence.
****************
In the morning, I checked the system out of habit before breakfast.
The flagged query was gone.
What the— Gone. Like it had never been submitted at all. I stared at the blank record for a long moment and felt something cold and specific settle at the base of my spine.
Someone had pulled it in the night quietly and without a trace. And whoever had done it knew the system well enough to leave nothing behind.
My mind worked fast as I thought about the short list of people with that level of access.
Then I thought about Osric and his pen and his pleasant smile and his carefully timed pauses.
A frown pulled at my lips.
What exactly was someone trying to hide in my pack?
And who?