CHAPTER 8

KAYE'S POV

The laundry room is in the basement three doors down from my cell, which I suppose is efficient even if it feels like another way to keep me contained in the lowest level of the packhouse. The room is massive, industrial washers and dryers lining two walls, folding tables in the center, and mountains of dirty linens and clothes piled in sorting bins. The air is thick with the smell of detergent and fabric softener and the underlying musk of two hundred wolves whose scents cling to everything they touch.

I have been here for two hours, loading washers and moving wet clothes to dryers and trying not to think about how my wrists scream every time I lift something heavy. The bandages help but they are already dirty from work, spotted with water and soap residue. I need to change them but I do not have supplies and I am not brave enough to ask for them.

The ankle cuff chafes with every step. I have started walking differently to minimize the friction, a slight limp that makes my back ache from the uneven gait. Everything hurts in a constant low-level way that I am learning to tolerate because there is no other choice.

At least I ate this morning. Someone brought food to my room an hour after Ethan left, a tray with eggs and toast and actual fruit that looked fresh instead of canned. I ate so fast I made myself sick but I kept it down through sheer force of will because I do not know when the next meal is coming and I cannot afford to waste it.

The laundry room door opens and I tense automatically, expecting another pack member here to make my life harder. But the girl who enters is young, maybe sixteen, small and thin with mousy brown hair and huge eyes that look too big for her face. She freezes when she sees me, her entire body going rigid like prey that just spotted a predator.

"Sorry," she whispers, already backing toward the door. "I did not know you were, I can come back later—"

"Wait." I do not know why I say it except I am so starved for any interaction that is not actively hostile that I will take terrified over cruel. "You do not have to leave. There is enough work for both of us."

She hesitates, one hand on the door handle, clearly torn between running and staying. Up close I can see she is even younger than I thought, barely past her first shift based on the way she holds herself. An omega, I realize. Her scent is soft and sweet, the kind that makes dominant wolves either protective or predatory depending on their nature.

"Are you sure?" Her voice is so quiet I almost miss it. "I do not want to bother you."

"You are not bothering me. I could actually use the help. These sheets weigh more than I do." I gesture at the pile of king-sized bedding I am supposed to be loading. My wrists are shaking from the effort.

The girl inches into the room like she is expecting me to attack at any moment. She picks up a corner of the sheet and helps me wrestle it into the washer, moving with quick efficiency that suggests she has done this many times before. We work in silence for several minutes, loading washers and starting cycles, falling into an easy rhythm.

"My name is Beth," she says finally, not looking at me. "I have been here two years. I was found as a rogue and Alpha Ethan took me in even though most packs would not."

"That was kind of him."

"He is kind. Most of the time. When he is not, you know." She glances at me quickly and then away. "Dealing with you."

"I understand." I fold a towel with hands that ache. "He has good reason to hate me."

"I do not think he hates you." Beth's voice is thoughtful, like she is working through something complicated. "I think he wants to hate you but the bond will not let him. I can feel it sometimes, the pull between you two. It is strong."

I do not know what to say to that so I say nothing. We work in silence again, the sound of washers filling the space. Beth is efficient and careful, checking pockets before loading pants, separating colors from whites without being asked. She has been doing this long enough that it is automatic.

"Can I ask you something?" Beth says after a while. She is folding a shirt, her movements precise and methodical. "Did your father really do it? Did he really order the attack on Blackwater?"

The question hits like a fist to the stomach. "No. I do not think he did."

"But everyone says—"

"Everyone says a lot of things. That does not make them true." I focus on the laundry because it is easier than looking at her. "My father was not a good man. He was strict and sometimes cruel and he made a lot of mistakes. But I do not believe he would kill children. I do not believe he would burn wolves alive in their sleep."

Beth is quiet for a long moment. "I want to believe you. You seem nice. Sad, but nice."

"I am not nice. I am just tired."

"That is not the same thing."

We work in comfortable silence after that and I realize this is the first real conversation I have had with anyone in the pack besides Ethan. Beth is not friendly exactly but she is not actively trying to hurt me either, which feels like a miracle after days of constant cruelty.

"Beth," I say carefully, not wanting to scare her off. "Can I ask you something now?"

"Okay."

"Have you noticed anything strange in the pack lately? Anything that feels wrong?"

She stops folding mid-motion and I watch her face do something complicated. Fear, I think, mixed with uncertainty and something that might be relief that someone finally asked.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because someone tried to kill me and Ethan thinks there is something bigger happening. I am trying to understand what." I meet her eyes and try to look trustworthy, which is hard when you are the daughter everyone blames for a massacre. "You do not have to tell me anything. But if you know something, if you have seen something that does not make sense, it might be important."

Beth sets down the shirt she was folding and wraps her arms around herself. She looks even younger suddenly, a scared kid trying to make sense of things beyond her understanding.

"Three wolves have gone missing," she says quietly. "In the last month. Maybe longer, I am not sure. The pack thinks they left voluntarily but that does not make sense to me."

My heart starts beating faster. "Why does it not make sense?"

"Because the first one was Miriam's cousin, a woman named Claire who loved this pack more than anything. She talked all the time about how Blackwater saved her life, how she would die before abandoning Alpha Ethan. Then one day she just disappeared. No note, no goodbye, nothing. Miriam was devastated."

"And the other two?"

"Enforcers. Owen and Marcus." Marcus. The senior enforcer who was kind to me when they first brought me here, who told me he would treat me fairly. "They were both experienced, both loyal. Owen had a mate and two kids. Why would he just leave them?"

She is right. It does not make sense. Wolves do not abandon their mates, not voluntarily. The bond makes it physically painful to be separated for long periods. If Owen left his mate and children, something terrible happened to make him or something forced him.

"Did anyone investigate? Did Ethan look into it?"

"Alpha Ethan said they must have had their reasons. That wolves leave packs sometimes and we should respect their choices." Beth's voice drops even lower. "But I heard them talking the night before they disappeared. Owen and Marcus I mean. They were in the hallway outside the laundry room, arguing about something in whispers. I only caught pieces but I heard Marcus say something about patrol routes not making sense, about patterns he was seeing that worried him."

"What patterns?"

"I do not know. Someone came and they stopped talking. But they both sounded scared, and these are wolves who fight rogues for a living. What could scare them?"

"You said patrol routes," I press gently. "Did they mention who was assigning the routes?"

Beth nods slowly. "Beta Lucas. He handles all security and patrol assignments. Marcus said something about Lucas changing routes at the last minute, sending wolves to areas that did not need coverage while leaving important borders understaffed. He thought maybe there was a security breach, that someone was feeding information to rogues."

Lucas. Again. The name keeps appearing in places it should not, connected to things that feel wrong. I think about what I noticed yesterday, his scent being slightly off in a way I cannot explain. I think about him standing in the hallway watching Ethan and me with an expression I could not read.

"Beth, have you noticed anything strange about Lucas specifically? Anything that feels different about him?"

She is quiet for so long I think she is not going to answer. Then she whispers, "I have been having nightmares."

"What kind of nightmares?"

"About a man with silver eyes who watches me through my window. I wake up and I swear I can feel someone staring at me but there is never anyone there. It started about two months ago and it has gotten worse. Last week I woke up and there were scratches on my windowsill, like someone had been trying to open it from the outside."

"Did you tell anyone?"

"I told Beta Lucas because he handles security. He said I was probably just stressed, that being a young omega in a big pack can make you paranoid. He had someone check the window and they said there was nothing wrong, that the scratches were old damage from before I moved into that room."

But she does not believe that. I can hear it in her voice, see it in the way her hands shake slightly as she folds the next piece of laundry.

"Beth, I need you to come closer to me for a second. I need to check something."

She looks at me with obvious fear but she takes three steps closer. I inhale carefully, testing her scent, and my wolf goes absolutely still.

There. Underneath Beth's natural omega sweetness, underneath the laundry soap and fabric softener, there is something else. A wrongness. Not a bad smell exactly but something that does not belong, like her scent has been altered or layered with something foreign. It is subtle enough that most wolves would miss it but it is definitely there.

The same wrongness I noticed on Lucas.

My stomach drops. "Beth, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Have you felt different lately? More tired than usual, weird aches, anything physical that does not make sense?"

"I, yes actually. My joints hurt sometimes even though I have not been training. And I have been so tired I can barely stay awake during the day. I thought maybe I was getting sick but it never develops into anything, it just stays at this low level exhaustion."

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"Beta Lucas said it was probably growing pains, that young wolves go through phases. He gave me vitamins to take."

Vitamins. Given to her by Lucas. After she started having nightmares about silver eyes and someone watching her window. After three wolves disappeared who were all asking questions about patrol routes and security patterns.

"Where are the vitamins now?"

"In my room. Why? Kaye, you are scaring me."

I am scaring myself. Because I am starting to piece together something that makes no sense but also makes horrible, perfect sense. Lucas changing patrol routes. Wolves disappearing. Beth having nightmares and being given vitamins that might not be vitamins at all. Her scent being wrong the same way his is wrong.

"Beth, I think something bad is happening in this pack. I think the wolves who disappeared did not leave voluntarily. I think someone took them."

"Who would take them? We are Blackwater, we are strong, no one would dare—"

"Someone inside the pack." The words feel like poison in my mouth but I force them out anyway. "Someone everyone trusts. Someone who has access to everything and everyone."

Beth's face goes pale. "You think Beta Lucas is hurting pack members? That is insane, he has been with Alpha Ethan since they were kids, he is the most loyal wolf in the territory—"

"I know how it sounds. But think about it. Who assigns patrol routes? Who handles security? Who would know exactly how to make wolves disappear without raising suspicion?"

"No." Beth backs away from me, shaking her head. "No, you are wrong, you have to be wrong. Beta Lucas saved my life. He found me when I was dying from exposure and brought me here and convinced Alpha Ethan to let me join the pack even though taking in rogues is dangerous. He has been nothing but kind to me."

"I hope I am wrong," I say honestly. "I really do. But Beth, please, do not take any more of those vitamins. Hide them or throw them away but do not put them in your body. And if you notice anything else strange, anything at all, you need to tell someone. Tell Ethan directly, not Lucas."

Beth is crying now, silent tears running down her face. "I do not understand what is happening. I just want to be safe. I thought I was finally safe here."

"I know. I am sorry." I want to hug her but I do not think she would accept comfort from me, the daughter of a monster, the prisoner everyone hates. "Just please be careful. Watch who you trust."

Beth wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and nods shakily. She finishes folding the load she was working on and then practically runs from the laundry room, leaving me alone with piles of dirty clothes and the horrible certainty that something is very wrong in Blackwater Pack.

I need to tell Ethan. I need to tell him about the missing wolves, about Beth's nightmares, about the wrongness in her scent that matches the wrongness in Lucas's scent. But will he believe me? His best friend since childhood versus the prisoner he is forced to protect by biology?

The mate bond pulses and I feel Ethan somewhere in the packhouse, feel his attention turned toward something else, distracted by whatever Alphas deal with during the day. I push at the bond experimentally, trying to send urgency through it, trying to make him understand that I need to talk to him now.

Nothing happens. Either he cannot feel what I am sending or he is ignoring it because he does not want to deal with me right now.

I turn back to the laundry and try to focus on work but all I can think about is Beth's terrified face and the way she smelled wrong and the fact that three wolves have disappeared and no one is asking the right questions.

I think about the man with silver eyes in Beth's nightmares.

And I wonder if she is dreaming about something that is not a dream at all.

If someone is watching her.

If someone has plans for her.

If I just made everything worse by telling her the truth.