Chapter 3

Caleb's room was just as he'd left it.

A half-packed travel bag sat on the bed. His favorite hunting knife was on the dresser, freshly sharpened. The schedule we'd worked out for our escape was tacked inside his closet door, hidden behind hanging shirts.

This wasn't the room of a man who'd decided to give up.

I sat down on the edge of his bed and tried to think.

Caleb hadn't been the type to keep a diary. He was a fighter, not a writer. But there had to be something in here that explained what had happened last night.

I went through the room methodically. Drawers. Floorboards. Under the mattress. Inside the lampshades. Six years of pack warrior training kicked in, and I worked the room like a crime scene.

I found three things.

First: a small leather pouch tucked into the lining of his jacket. Inside were six dried herbs — antidotes for the most common poisons used in pack assassinations. Wolfsbane was one of them.

Caleb had been carrying countermeasures. Whoever poisoned him hadn't given him time to use them.

Second: a note in his handwriting, folded inside the schedule we'd been working from. Just one line.

If something happens to me, check the east wing storeroom. Victor's been in there twice this week and he had no reason to be.

Third: a single long dark hair caught on the corner of the broken chair. Not Caleb's. Not mine. The color and texture matched Victor's.

I sat with the three items in my hand for a long time.

Caleb had known. He'd known Victor was a threat. He'd been preparing for it.

And he'd lost anyway, because nobody — me, the pack, Selene, anyone — had been watching out for him.

That was on me as much as it was on anyone else.

I tucked the items into an inner pocket. The note about the east wing storeroom would have to wait. Victor would have cleaned it out by now, and even if he hadn't, I needed proof Selene and Elena couldn't dismiss.

Time to start gathering it.

I pulled out my phone and made my first call.

The Pack Council's investigator, a Beta named Marcus who'd known my father since they were pups, picked up on the second ring.

"Ryan. I heard about Caleb. I'm sorry."

"Marcus. I need to file a formal investigation request. Caleb didn't poison himself."

A long pause.

"Ryan. You're talking about accusing someone close to the Alphas. You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Bring me what you have. I'll log it."

I told him I'd be there within the hour.

The second call was to my father.

"Dad. I'm severing the mate bond with Elena."

There was a silence so long I thought the call had dropped.

Then, slowly: "Tell me why."

So I told him. All of it. Six months of being treated like furniture. Victor moving into the pack house. The injury Elena hadn't bothered to look at. And last night, what had happened to Caleb.

When I finished, my father was quiet for a moment.

"Your mother and I will back you. Whatever you need."

"They might come after the family. Elena's threatened my Beta position before — yours too, by extension."

"Let her try." His voice was flat. "I was Beta of this pack before her father was even Alpha. The other Betas remember that. She moves on us and she loses half her command structure overnight."

That was more reassurance than I'd hoped for.

"Thanks, Dad."

"Ryan." He paused. "Don't make it ugly if you don't have to. But if she makes it ugly first, finish it."

"Understood."

I hung up.

I sat on Caleb's bed for one more minute, looking at the half-packed bag he'd never get to carry out the door.

"I'm sorry, Caleb. I should have moved faster. I should have made you come stay with me last week instead of letting you sleep here one more night."

The room didn't answer.

I picked up his hunting knife from the dresser, weighed it in my hand, and tucked it into my belt.

He wouldn't be needing it. I would.

I left Caleb's room and walked downstairs. The pack house was quiet. Elena was still gone. Selene was nowhere in sight — probably back in her wing of the house, sulking after our conversation.

I drove straight to the Pack Council office.

Marcus took my evidence, logged it, and promised to dispatch investigators to the east wing storeroom and to Caleb's room before nightfall.

"This is going to move fast once it starts moving," he warned me. "If Victor was involved, the Alphas are going to be in a difficult position."

"That's their problem. Not mine."

I went home.

By the time I got back to the pack house, the sky outside was bruising into evening. I expected the place to be empty.

It wasn't.

A tall figure stood at the top of the stairs, waiting.

Selene.

Her face was grim. None of her usual mocking humor was anywhere in sight. She looked like she'd aged years in the few hours since I'd last seen her.

She held up her phone so I could see the screen.

It was a notification from the Pack Council. An official investigation had been opened into Caleb's death.

"Ryan." Her voice was hoarse. "Why did Caleb take wolfsbane?"

I climbed the stairs slowly. Stopped two steps below her, so we were eye to eye.

"He didn't, Selene. Someone gave it to him."

The color went out of her face.

"What are you talking about?"

I pulled the items out of my jacket — the antidote pouch, the note, the hair caught from the broken chair — and held them up one by one.

"He was carrying antidotes. He left a note about Victor sneaking around the east wing. And there was a strand of Victor's hair on the chair Caleb broke fighting whoever killed him."

Selene stared at the items in my hand.

"That's not — Victor wouldn't —"

"Then who did, Selene? Who else had a reason? Who else was in that room?"

She didn't answer.

She couldn't.

"Pack Council's looking into it now. They'll have evidence by tomorrow morning." I tucked the items back into my pocket. "You and Elena can either get ahead of this or get buried by it. Your choice."

I walked past her up the stairs.

She didn't try to stop me.