I let out a gust of air and head inside.
The next afternoon,Monroe comes to my office again. He’s in charge of the investigation into the missing hybrids. When he walks in, he’s carrying a folder thicker than my hand.
He sets it on my desk. “You’re going to want to see this, Alpha.”
Frowning, I open it and see a list of names on the first page. The next page is a detailed profile of the first person on the list, including a small photo. As I flip through the rest of the file, I see that the rest of the pages are similar.
“These are all the hybrids missing from our territory and the surrounding area,” Monroe explains.
“Over how long a period?” I study the list, my jaw tense.
“Two years. All from within a hundred miles. There may be more. This is what we have from pack records cross-referenced with missing person reports in the human towns. Most were flagged as runaways or transient workers. A few were never reported at all.”
“Hybrids.” I murmur, my heart sinking. “Why are we only finding this out now?”
“They had no families—or if they did, their family was not likely to report them missing,” Monroe says quietly. “I managed to talk to two family members. They were very reluctant to speak with me, but they both said the same thing: our kind has executed hybrids just for being alive, so why should they help us look for them now?”
I close my eyes briefly before turning my attention to each page in the file.
Faces I don’t know. Faces I should know. Thirty of my own people, taken from my territory. Even if they weren’t all living here, they should have been. “The previous alpha of Moonvale made a hell of a mess,” I mutter, closing the folder.
Monroe silently nods his agreement. “We can undo the damage, but it’ll take decades for the hybrids to trust us again. I’ll keep looking, sir.”
I exhale sharply. “Call Miss Carter into my office. We need to have a meeting with Darius Moonvale.”
I set up the call, and a minute later, there’s a knock on the door. I look up as Sienna enters. She is holding a tablet against her chest, and her hair is pinned up in the neatest twist I have seen her wear since she’s been here. Her skirt falls to her knees, and her blouse is buttoned to the throat. I know from this morning when I saw her in the distance that she’d left the top two buttons open. But for me, she has fastened them.
This is the first time she has entered my office since the day we…My fingers twitch at the ghost of the memory before I manage to compose myself.
“You asked to see me, Alpha Steele?”
Her expression is calm, but her eyes are carefully blank. My mother used to tell me that the eyes were the windows to the soul. “Look close enough, Lucas, and you will see the heart of a person.”
Sienna is concealing her heart from me. All I see when I look into her eyes is my own reflection.
“There’s an update in the hybrid case, and I want you to sit in on a meeting with your alpha.” I try to keep my voice calm.
“I see.” She nods and sits in a chair on the other side of my desk.
I wish she would be stiff, show some reluctance, but her movements are fluid, and a part of me wonders if letting me go was easy for her.
The screen on the wall blinks to life. Darius’s face fills it. Beside him is a man I met when I was at Moonvale last month: Kain Ashford, his head of security. Kain is also a defected member of the Covenant, an organization that kidnapped himas a teenager and brainwashed him into going after Darius’s mate, Violet, who happens to be a hybrid. It was Kain’s fated mate, Anne, who ultimately led Kain to defect. Now, he is one of Darius’s most trusted right-hand men.
“Thank you all for making time.” I hold up the folder. “My investigative team has finished a survey of missing hybrids in this region over the past two years.”
“How many?” Darius’s voice is tight.
When I reveal the number, both Darius and Kain shake their heads.
“The profiles are similar,” I continue. “Unattached. No close family. Nobody looking particularly hard for them.”
Sienna makes a small sound in her throat. Not quite a word. A caught breath.
I glance at her. Her face has gone pale.
“Their bodies have not been discovered,” I continue, “so there is a possibility that they’re alive.”
Darius raises one eyebrow. “You don’t truly believe that, do you?”
