Chapter 256
Arden
46%%%
I am just getting up from my desk to go to bed when my phone rings. When I look at the caller ID, I growl. What does that little prick want now?
I put the phone to my ear. “Alpha Stellan, I’ve already cancelled the payment for the Academy. Cyra should be home soon,” I tell him,
“Soon isn’t soon enough, Arden. The note for the loan we took out to save your fucking ass was bought and the Alpha who bought it will be here tomorrow to take our pack as payment. You need to rally your troops and get them over here. I don’t have to tell you what happens if we go down.”
He’s such an arrogant little shit.
“What Alpha bought the loan?” I ask.
“Alpha Quirin. He’s supposedly very wealthy and powerful.”
I pull up the name on the pack log, then run a search on him frowning when the search doesn’t go through.
“Arden, did you hear me?” Stellan asks.
“Yeah, I heard you,” I murmur, typing in an override to do the search. Nothing.
“Where are you?” I ask distractedly, putting in a different override.
“I’m on my way to get your daughter. I’m going to force my mark on her neck and take over as I should have done already.”
“That was your decision, not mine. Good luck getting past her mate. Didn’t he already break your nose once,” I say snarkily, getting frustrated that I can’t get past whoever has blocked the search on Alpha Quirin.
“Rally your warriors and get them to Christer’s pack tonight. Alpha Quirin will be there tomorrow. If you don’t, Christer send everything he has to the Council and he won’t be the only one without a pack. We’re all in this together, Arden, so get your ass moving,” he snarls before hanging up.
I hang up distractedly, still trying to override the search for Alpha Quirin. Is this guy some sort of tech genius that he’s locked down my ability . to search him?
Rather than searching for data on Alpha Quirin, I begin digging into who is blocking him. Maybe I can find him that way.
I’ve just found the code, when it switches. Switches? That’s impossible!
The numbers and letters begin alternating so fast that I can’t read any of them. Who the fuck is protecting this guy?
I sit back, thinking through Stellan’s demand. If this Alpha Quirin is as powerful as he thinks and from what I can get on the pack logs, he is, then there’s a good chance that Christer won’t survive the battle. It depends on how honorable this Alpha is. But how honorable is an Alpha that buys a twenty–million–dollar loan and calls it almost immediately threatening to take over the pack?
I’ve spent nearly twenty years dealing in risks, measuring them, calculating them, betting on them. Granted, that backfired when Christer found that I’d been skimming off the company, but otherwise, I’d say I’m pretty damn good at playing the odds.
And the odds tell me that Christer won’t survive the battle tomorrow. Eliminating him and Stellan will eliminate all of my problems. Hell, maybe this Alpha Quirin would like to take Cyra as a mate. I could create an alliance bond with him and then figure out who is protecting him and why.
1/5
Chapter 256
Fully intending to ignore Christer’s demand for my warriors, I get back to digging into who is blocking me from getting Information on Alpha Quirin.
Hacker POV
The alarms had gone off the moment Alpha Arden tried to search for Alpha Quirin. I’d been chatting with Sphinx at the time, showing her how I was hacking into someone’s pack information to get something for the Council.
Sphinx: What’s happening?
Her message comes in at the same time my phone rings. Hijack.
I put the ear buds in and answer.
“Yeah, I got the alarm,” I tell him.
“Is someone going to tell me what the alarm is for?” Sphinx asks. I realize this is a conference call and Hijack called all of us.
“It looks like Alpha Arden is trying to do a search on your brother–in–law, Alpha Quirin,” Tracker says as I switch the screen I was sharing with Sphinx to the one I’m pulling up on Arden.
“Does this mean Quirin called the note?” Sphinx asks.
“Probably. He said he was going to but he was supposed to call us after it was done,” Hijack says distractedly.
“Thank goodness you thought to override the override, Hacker,” Hijack says as we watch Arden try to bypass my override.
“You put another one on top of mine, right?” I ask.
“Two, one with Sphinx’s code as well.”
“I put a forth on there and then put a scrambler on it too. You’re welcome,” Tracker says.
“Damn, I thought being newly mated would distract you, but it’s made you even more deadly,” I tease, watching Arden try to bypass our overrides.
“Being mated to a deadly man makes one more deadly,” she says seriously. Of all of us, I’m the least intense. It’s a tie between Tracker and Hijack who is more intense. Sphinx will add a nice balance to our group next year.
“Congratulations, Tracker!” Sphinx says. “Do I get to meet him?”
“The next time you’re here, Sphinx. You actually saw him in court. He was one of the men and women guarding Alpha Leo.”
“The one who couldn’t stop looking at you?” Sphinx asks, making me smile. For someone so young, she’s very observant.
“That’s him,” Tracker says, just as her scrambler goes into effect.
“Damn, Tracker. That’s impressive,” Hijack says.
While the others work to keep Arden away from Quirin’s information, I begin hacking into Alpha Christer’s phone. Something happened if Arden is searching for Alpha Quirin and I want to know what it is.
Once I’m in, I connect it to the video feed that we’re watching, splitting the screen and putting the audio alongside the video of Arden’s attempts to override our override.
“Now you’re just toying with him, Hijack,” Tracker says, but I can hear the smirk in her voice.
2/5
1217 Tue 12 Aug
Chapter 256
“He’ll be here tomorrow. I’ve got Stellan calling Arden. He’ll be here sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning before this fucking Alpha arrives.” Alpha Christer is saying to whomever is in the room with him.
“Where is Alpha Stellan?” an unknown voice asks.
Tracker sends me the coordinates for the phone so I can start hacking into whatever is nearby to watch Christer when another alert pings on.
“I’ve got it,” Tracker says as Hijack continues to play with Arden. I’m surprised he’s wasting his time until I realize that he’s using this as an opportunity to teach Sphinx. I bite back the growl. Sphinx should learn everything she can and honestly, she’s absorbing everything we’re giving her like a sponge.
A moment later, our screen splits again, and Tracker mutes my audio feed as I continue searching for a camera that I can use. I find it on Christer’s computer, just as the audio comes in from Piper’s phone.
“Something is happening. I don’t know exactly what. Something about some Alpha buying the loan that Alpha Christer and Stellan used to blackmail Alpha Arden. The Alpha is threatening to come here tomorrow to get his money or take our pack. Stellan is going to the Academy tonight to force Alpha Cyra into a mate bond. You have to warn her.”
All of us snarl at that.
We listen as Hellfire tells Nickname to get up, that they need to warn Aphrodite and Shakespeare.
“Raptor and I will go find Hellfire and Nickname. We need to alert Alpha Nevaeh,” Tracker says.
“I need to call Yorick!” Sphinx says.
“No, Tracker and Raptor will handle that,” I tell her.
“I at least need to tell Connor or Dad,” she says.
“You’re in Connor’s pack, right?” I ask her.
“Yes.”
“Mind link him,” Hijack says as he cuts Arden off, completely disconnecting him from the internet before muting us to call Alpha Nevaeh.
“Connor is calling Dad. He’s in Quirin’s pack. Hopefully he’ll answer,” she says. I get the feeling she interrupted her brother and his mate and she’s worried that her father and brother–in–law won’t answer for the same reasons.
“Do you know why Alpha Quirin is attacking tomorrow?” I ask Sphinx. That wasn’t the plan.
“No, but if I had to guess, I’d say Alpha Christer threatened our family, or maybe Kennedy or the pups. If he did, Quirin will kill him. He’s intense on a normal day, but when someone threatens his family … you don’t want to be anywhere near him. I’ve never seen it, but I heard about what he did to the Alpha who kidnapped Kennedy a couple years ago,” she says.
Yeah, I did too. I was in my first year when the Council was called in after two Alphas were killed. Since their packs had already been absorbed into the other packs, they didn’t do anything further. But I’d seen the pictures of Alpha Jasper after Quirin had attacked him. It was obvious
that someone else had killed Alpha Brogan. His death was quick, Jasper’s wasn’t.
“Alpha Nevaeh is waking Alpha Michael and they are meeting the others at Cyra and Yorick’s rooms to alert them and come up with a plan,”
Hijack says coming back to the group.
“Is it me, or was Alpha Arden in no rush to pull his warriors together to go to Alpha Christer’s pack?” Sphinx asks.
Hijack finds a single camera that he can turn on in Alpha Arden’s office, watching as he curses and bangs on his computer keyboard trying to
get it to come back up.
3/5
1717 Tue, 12 Aug
Chapter 256
“Nope, It doesn’t look like he’s planning to help in the attack,” I say.
“That’s good for Cyra, right?” Sphinx asks.
“Good for her pack.” I say. “Hijack, we need to send the data on Alpha Arden to the Council tonight.”
*I was just pulling it together. I agree. Things are moving much faster than we planned, but everything is ready. I’ll get it together and send it
over to them.”
“Connor is pulling warriors together to go to Quirin’s pack to help him fight,” Sphinx says. “I need to go.”
“No!” I say.
“Excuse me?” she says.
“No, Sphinx. Our goal is to keep you safe. Letting you go to a war isn’t keeping you safe,” I say, not telling her the real reason I don’t want her going. Instead, I pull up our chat while Hijack agrees with me.
“This is my family!” she says passionately.
Me: You’re not ready. You’ll be a detriment to them if you freeze on the battlefield, Wendy. Stay home. Help Madison protect the pack.
When she doesn’t respond, I flip on the video, needing to know if she ignored me. She knows the tell now, and she looks at the camera. I can see her jaw is clenched tightly.
I mute our conversation with Hijack and call her. She mutes on her end and answers my call.
“You know I’m right. This is why you’re practicing every day. Don’t get one of your family members injured because you’re being stubborn.”
I watch her eyes go unfocused and she huffs before she refocuses on me.
“Fine. Connor basically said the same thing.”
“Thank you. You’re getting better, Sphinx, but you’re not there yet. I know your family is just as important to you as it is to the rest of your family. So do what’s best for them.”
She nods. “I have to go. I need to go help the pack get ready to send their warriors out for battle.”
. “Send me a message later, let me know how you’re doing.”
“I will.”
She stares at the camera not hanging up.
“Thanks, Hacker.”
“Anytime my little Padawan. Contact me later, I’ll update you on what’s going on over here.”
“Will do.”
When she hangs up, she waves at the camera before she gets up and walks out. I finally turn the camera off and return to monitoring everything that is happening all at once.
4/5
