Page 87 of Crossed Fates
I mentally snorted.Baby, after last night, I think we both know our best life is when we’re fucking.
One-track mind,she mumbled.I’m going back to not talking to you.Then I sensed her mind drift somewhere else.
I refocused on the meeting. Jude clearly did the same, because he addressed me and asked, “Have all the packs done a head count?”
I nodded. “Gloria is still missing, and one of my pack is now, too. Savannah. Tyler’s consort. No other reported wolf-related disappearances.”
Jude’s wrinkles deepened as he pursed his lips. “The vampires have taken to counting their nests as well. So far, they’ve reported three names of missing female vamps. With the leaders being picked off, the city is a mess of chaos, at least in the underworld.”
“That’s to be expected,” the alpha of the Montauk Pack said, his tone annoyingly smug for someone who had yet to be impacted by these events. He was only here since his pack existed in the Northeast. But they were notorious for looking out for themselves and themselves alone. “The leeches don’t have a clue how to handle hierarchy.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that claim. Vamp nests were notably unorganized, making them easy to pick off.
Jude continued as if the alpha hadn’t spoken and gave us a rundown of a few non-Bitten wolf clans who were also missing girls. Bringing the total to eleven. And we had no way of knowing how many more human females had been taken—too many missing person cases to link them all.
The number eleven reverberated inside me. It might as well have been a thousand. It didn’t matter how many had been taken; I would be equally as angry and determined to kill the twisted bastards holding them hostage.
Jude smoothed a hand over his beard. “I put feelers out to some contacts, and I’ve assigned a few slayers to search for information on any upcoming auctions. They’ve already gathered a few potential leads.”
He shared them, but to my disappointment, none of them were familiar to me. I wondered if Makayla had knowledge about any of them and again thought about how she should’ve been here for this.
“Send me copies of the files,” I requested of Jude. “I’ll have Makayla review them.”
“Why?” the newly ascended alpha of the Weiser Pack inquired. The curiosity in his voice told me it was an innocent question more than an accusatory or derogatory one. As the only other alpha here missing a wolf, I decided he deserved a thorough response.
“Makayla’s my mate,” I started, ensuring the respect was given where due.Say something bad about my woman and you won’t like my reply, I added with my eyes. “She specializes in trafficking cases and has experience locating missing persons. She also helped expose Alpha Bortex’s involvement in that incident a few years ago. So she’s very familiar with all the players on the board and how cases like this usually work.”
That seemed to impress the Weiser Pack Alpha because he nodded in approval.
Good boy, I thought. Had he given me any other response, I might have reached through the screen and throttled him.
As it was, I still wanted to punch the alpha from Montauk. He looked bored out of his mind, making me wonder why the hell he’d even chosen to show up.Go back to your pansy pack, I wanted to say to him.
But Jude distracted me with a nod. “She’ll likely have good insight into some of this information. You should bring her to the meeting next time.”
A few of the leaders—primarily the older alphas—scoffed at the idea.
However, the young alpha heir of the Beaver Creek Pack said, “I’d like to meet her.”
“Me, too,” Beta Mavi added.
A few others nodded in agreement, then the alpha of the Shokan Pack—another area of wolves untouched by all this—yawned and asked, “What’s next?”
It’d been a long day, and we were running into the later hours of the night.
“We need to try to get into one of the auctions,” I stated.
“If it’s at all possible to secure an invitation to one, I have the connections to do it. So leave that to me,” Jude said.
I agreed, and no one else questioned him. After a few more minutes of strategic discussion, I thanked everyone for attending and ended the meeting.
Jude air-dropped the files to my tablet, then turned to my father. “I believe I’m long overdue for that scotch.”
My dad smirked. “Everly will love seeing you, too. She prepped the guest room for you as well.”
“You knew he was coming?” I asked, looking at my dad. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“You didn’t ask,” he replied.
