Page 67 of Knocked Up By My Fated Alpha
The rising discontent and angst her presence provoked was palpable. So much so that Elder Malcolm’s half of the council took advantage of this to begin pushing for more drastic measures against the Sky Pack for ‘framing our pack for the human murders’.
Between that and the recent overhaul and audit of subsidiaries formerly under Elias's control, which had unearthed disturbing debts leveraging the parent company, the past week had been a shitstorm.
But nothing compared to what truly tormented me. The true cost of Rielle's return— Raven.
There wasn't a moment that passed in which I wasn’t consumed by thoughts of her. Where I wasn’t tormented by the potency of her absence.
From the moment Rielle returned, everything had fallen apart and nothing I did seemed enough to bridge the distance that had sprung between us.
…we are co-parents who sometimes share a purely physical relationship…
My jaw clenched at the remembrance of Raven's cold words. How she’d dismissed everything we shared when I'd gone to meet her to explain Rielle, to hold her, to do anything to return us to where we'd been before I left her bed.
For her, this was all transactional. Physical. It hadn’t meant anything to her.
Rielle let out a sharp, pained whimper that ripped me from my thoughts back to reality.
I’d been extracting the glass shards from Rielle’s bloody feet in Gianna's absence. Lost in my thoughts of Raven, I'd unconsciously tightened my grip on her ankle, bruising her skin.
A soft curse died in the back of my throat as Rielle's eyes, glistening with unshed tears, met my gaze. They were the same deep blue I thought I'd known all those years before her betrayal, but now, save for the slight recognition of pain, her gaze was vacant as it had been the day I'd found her in those tunnels two weeks ago.
My jaw clenched. There was no coming back from this feral statefor Rielle. Matthew’s theory was wrong, and all of this trouble was going to be for nought.
“Alpha.”
I glanced up to see Sinclair stepping into the room, the pack doctor I'd requested next to him.
I stood, ignoring the soft sound of distress Rielle made.
“Clean her up,” I told the doctor, then I was out, Sinclair falling in step behind me.
Once we were alone in my study, I turned to Sinclair.
“Do you have it?”
Sinclair nodded once solemnly.
“It was as you suspected, Elder Malcolm and Mia is pushing a motion to replace you with Elias,” He handed over a file and a memory card. “These are the recordings and proof of their treachery.”
I went through the evidence.
Elder Malcom and Mia had been even busier than I'd anticipated the past few weeks. From skimming and misappropriating pack funds to hire out mercenaries in preparation for the coup against me, to spearheading the movement that would see me ousted from the Alpha position in a few hours.
Pain and sadness knotted up in me as I noted the depth of Elias's involvement in the scheme. All this time, even with the embezzlement in the subsidiaries, even after Sinclair's most recent investigations that had uncovered the entirety of Elias’s plot with Ivy against Raven, I'd refused to give up hope on Elias. He was still my nephew. My sister's son. But now…
“Shall I order their arrests, Alpha?” Sinclair asked.
For several seconds, I stared at the screen in front of me without really seeing anything.
“No, I will discuss with Elias first,” I said finally. “I am certain he is being misled by Elder Malcolm and Mia.”
Yes. That had to be it.
Elias was young and misguided, my situation with Raven no doubt exacerbating everything. I just needed to talk to him, and everything would be resolved.
Sinclair paused, then he bowed lower than necessary, his tone almost sympathetic.
“Of course, Alpha.”
