Xias raised an eyebrow. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but you have friends?”
Zhuang chuckled. “Yes, I have friends.”
“Will I get a chance to meet them?”
“Just as soon as the cubs are safe.” Zhuang pressed a kiss to Xias’s forehead. “Now, quiet for a moment. I need to speak to Tao.”
It was interesting watching Zhuang’s face as he used his alpha link to talk to Tao. If he hadn’t been watching so intently, he probably wouldn’t have known the man was doing anything but standing there. Not a muscle on his face moved. Zhuang just stood there, staring off into space.
It was weird.
Chapter Twelve
“How can someone escape from council headquarters and no one see a fucking thing?” Zhuang shouted the words, slamming his fist down on the table. He was beyond pissed.
Osamu had disappeared. There was no sign of him anywhere on the entire estate. The grounds had been searched. The mansion had been searched. The surrounding countryside had been searched. Osamu was simply gone.
It just didn’t make sense.
Zhuang had always seen council headquarters as a safe place. It clearly wasn’t. Despite all of their security measures, not only had someone been killed, but the murderer had escaped unseen. It had been several hours. Osamu could be on the other side of the country by now.
“Could someone be helping Osamu?” he pondered out loud. It was an honest question under the circumstances so he didn’t understand why his father shot him a dirty look. Zhuang lifted his eyebrow at the man. “You seriously think he disappeared in a puff of smoke all on his own?”
“Everyone here is loyal to the council,” Elder Shen replied.
“What if whoever helped him didn’t know they were helping him?” Xias asked.
Zhuang glanced at his mate. “What do you mean?”
Xias’s head cocked to the side as he stared back. “Exactly what I said. Osamu is an alpha. He leads his own clan. I’m sure a number of people saw him arrive and be admitted into the mansion without any fuss. If he played the nice guy, what’s to say someone didn’t help him because they didn’t know what he had done?”
Zhuang narrowed his eyes. “I really hate it when you make sense.” He’d said it before, but it beared repeating.
Xias smiled.
He glanced back at his father. “You might want to start questioning your people.”
Elder Shen grimaced. “Yes, it would seem that the situation is not as clear cut as I would have liked.”
Zhuang knew it came from years of being an elder and diplomat, but just once, he wished his father would speak plainly. He smiled because strangling his father wouldn’t get them anywhere. “Do you think you could do it now?”
He really just wanted this whole thing to be over with. He was tired of his mate being scared, of his cubs being in danger, and of not being able to start a life with Xias and his new clan.
While his father got up and went to do whatever it was he needed to do to figure out what was going on in his house, Zhuang turned back to his mate. Xias was so pale he was ashen white. He wasn’t shaking anymore, so that was something. Sadness made Xias’s pale-green eyes even paler than normal.
“I’m going to fix this, Xias.”
“How?” he asked in a low tone. “We don’t even know where Osamu is.”
Zhuang frowned because Xias was right, but there had to be some way to locate the guy. People couldn’t just disappear, especially clan alphas. Even if he was nowhere to be found at the moment, eventually he’d have to show himself. They just needed to figure out how to make him do that.
“Is there anyone you can contact in your old clan?” he asked.
Xias’s eyebrows lifted. “Why?”
“Because we need to find out if he returned home, and if he didn’t, we need to find out if anyone knows where he is.”
Xias sighed and glanced toward the window. He was silent for so long that Zhuang grew concerned. He reached over and rested his hand on Xias’s shoulder. “Baby?”
