Chapter 8

The account was just as he said, and I almost laughed.

“I suppose his wife cleaned him out during the divorce?”

“I don’t believe so,” George said. “I am looking into the circumstances around it based on some reports regarding his relationship with Amy starting while he was still married.”

Adultery. I set my jaw and looked back at the television.

“I want to know as soon as you know something.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” He took his tablet back. “As for the woman you met at White Claw, I have not heard anything.”

I growled. My power stirred in my chest with frustration. When I called the number she’d given me and got a rejection hotline operated by the Mooncrest Pack’s Police, I had been stunned. She had been so willing, melting in my arms. The look in her eyes, as I was about to pull that little scrap of lace down her thighs and devour her, had been full of heat and wanting. She’d wanted me, so why blow me off?

Maybe I had been too forward and spooked her. She had young children and was just out of a divorce. Maybe she’d felt embarrassed. I wouldn’t know until I found her again. My blood was still burning with desire for her even several days later. I hadn’t been able to get the scent of her out of my mind. Every instinct was pushing me to scour the city for her. As an alpha lycan, my senses were several times more powerful than a beta lycan, let alone a werewolf. I was stronger and faster, too. It would have been the work of a day or two to catch even a whiff of her scent in Mooncrest’s city and find her, but I hadn’t. That wasn’t how I wanted her. I wanted her willing, but I was a damn impatient man. I’d find her in good time, and approach her properly, gently. I’d romance her to seduce her if I couldn’t seduce her to romance her.

“What about Wolfe Medical?”

“That was the primary reason I came in,” George said, swiping through documents. He handed it back to me. “Wolfe Medical and, by extension the Mooncrest Pack is in dire straits. I believe the original investment amount will be over-offering.”

I frowned and looked down at the tablet, and hissed as I saw the loan amount and terms. Why would Mooncrest and Wolfe Medical have signed a loan with the Lycan Clan Bank? How would they have even known about it? It wasn’t as if werewolves knew much about how the Lycan Clans’ economy operated. They generally just knew Lycans to be a source of protection.

I opened the original documents and frowned at the name attached to the application.

It was Devin, signing as the alpha of Mooncrest.

“Leave this with me for a moment. I want to make some calls.”

“Of course.”

I started to call the other banks throughout the Lycan Clan lands and my contacts within the Werewolf States. Within a few minutes, reports started to flow in of every loan originator I’d had at least some contact with who was willing to sell me Mooncrest and Wolfe Medical’s debts. The amounts owed with interest and all totaled more than the assets that had been listed for collateral. A lot of the properties had been listed twice over. How the hell could Devin do this to anyone? Let alone his wife? I made a note to get the Lycan Clan lawyers to start drafting a case against him under my rule and the Werewolf States. It would lead to more additions to the Ordinances, but I didn’t care.

It was unfortunate, but it was an opportunity to get a stake in Wolfe Medical with ease and starting to undo more of the old lycan clans’ way of doing things.

Especially my uncle and his cronies. Thoughts of him brought up more thoughts about Devin and Devin’s parents. I owed them so much for laying their lives down for me and thwarting my uncle’s coup, but I couldn’t allow Devin to get away with insulting my care for him all these years and his parents’ honorable memory. I couldn’t allow him to undo all the work me and my father had done to ease our relationship with werewolves.

We have to stand together, son, he’d said to me once. We have to stand together, or we will all fall.

I still didn’t know what he meant, but I believed him. I started to compile notes for whom to pay off and how when I found an old article covering Devin’s wedding nearly five years ago. I could hardly breathe from the shock. There, in his arms, smiling and looking so very happy was the woman I hadn’t been able to get out of my mind.

Grace Wolfe, Alpha of Mooncrest…

My adoptive son’s ex-wife.