Page 45 of The Alpha's Shattered Bonds

“Yes,” both Logan and Tara answered in unison.

I frowned, glancing around at all three of them.

Tyler pulled out his mobile, typing a text. He nodded. “I’ve disbanded the Council.”

Tara opened up something on the laptop, pressed a few buttons, and then said, “All set. Now, we wait.”

“Wait for what?” I asked, getting more and more bemused.

“We planted a recording device in Darius’s house.”

I gasped.

“We need to know whether both Elder Darius and Healer Linda are orchestrating this,” Logan explained. “So, we bugged his house.”

Suddenly, the silence felt loaded and every moment our anticipation grew as we waited. Every creak of the old house caused one of us to start.

Luckily, it wasn’t long before a bang resounded over the laptop speakers. A door closed over the tinny recording.

Not five minutes later, a knock sounded. Footsteps. The creak of a chair or sofa. More footsteps—someone pacing?

“So, the packmates are all on the mend. How can that be?” Darius’s sharp voice flew out of the speakers.

All four of us sitting around the table seemed to hold our breath.

“Seraphina discovered our concealment spell,” Linda said quietly. We all leaned in. “She cleansed the potions.”

“Do we have more poison?” Darius asked.

“No, I used the last of it in this last batch,” Linda answered.

“So, we’re back at square one again?” Darius exclaimed, exasperation evident in his voice as it crackled, increasing in volume over the speakers. “I’ll have to contact the Black Moon Pack for more poisons again.”

“Damn,” Tara breathed beside me.

My heart drummed. It was confirmation that Darius and Linda had been working with the Black Moons and their dark witch to create this illness and weaken our pack. Shock ricocheted through our group. Both Tyler and Logan looked furious, their stony expressions mirroring the sense of shock and anger echoing through me.

“If you’d only managed to get Tyler wrapped around your finger, then we’d be having a much easier time of things,” Darius complained.

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I watched Tyler’s expression darken, his knuckles turning white on the tabletop as his hands curled into fists.

“I would have succeeded in handling him if it wasn’t for Seraphina,” Linda said exasperatedly.

“You’re right,” Darius said, a world-weary sigh trailing his words. “If it hadn’t been for her, you’d have beenmarriedto Tyler, and I’d already be alpha.”

Confusion surged through me as I tried to understand how Darius could have believed he would become alpha simply by having his daughter marry Tyler. There had to be more to the elder’s schemes, but the realization that Linda and Darius’s treachery extended all the way back to two years ago was staggering. Tyler had backed out of the mate ceremony to Linda because of his feelings for me. Anger blazed through my veins. Linda had only stood beside Tyler, the man I’d loved, because her father had wanted to seize power.

As they continued to speak, my heart raced, each word confirming their deception. My chest tightened as Darius exclaimed, “I knew that girl returning would be a problem. She’s as meddlesome as her parents. The day I rid this pack of her will be as great as the day I slew those two.”

“Slew?” I whispered, my gaze finding Tyler’s. His bright blue stare held me with tenderness as I realized, just as Tyler’s darkening face told me he was putting things together, that Darius had savagely murdered my parents. Just as he’dorchestrated their supposed treachery, he’d made their murder look like suicide.

My throat constricted with rage as the truth unfurled before me.

“The Black Moons are going to go back on our agreement if we keep being unable to deliver Tyler to them,” Linda said.

“They can’t go back on it,” Darius said. “Torin swore a Blood Oath that I would be Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack once the Silver Moons’ resources were in his hands. Alpha Marcus reaffirmed the Blood Oath when he took over the leadership of the pack. Besides, with the new mine Elder Tom discovered, Torin’s appetite for our territory has only intensified recently. Alpha Marcus knows our pack’s territory is worth the wait.”

So, this was the truth—a Blood Oath had been brokered between the Black Moon Pack and Elder Darius. The Black Moon Alpha was planning on granting Darius an alphahood over our pack in exchange for our precious resources.

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