Page 2 of Hidden Nature

“My contact started to ask more about the pack and how things were going than about you. Soon it was like you were an afterthought and all they wanted to know was what Colt and Lane were up to. Especially when Mason, Noah, and Elias started to take on more responsibility. If Mason ever became an alpha, they wanted to know right away, something about them wanting to nurture the new alpha.”

That sounded about right for the others from my mother’s pack. They were so good at faking good intentions, but it’s how they got where they were today—letting people walk into the trap themselves, none the wiser. “What happened last night?”

“Those were different people, but they said they were told to find me, and I would help them,” Peggy explained. “There were three of them, two women and one man. They refused to tell me their names. When I was leaving the other night, I caught a name, Tabitha. She was the leader of the group and seemed to know Finley personally by the way she talked about her. They told me she was an assassin and got bit on a job, turning her into a werewolf. I didn’t think that could happen with omegas...”

I waved off her implied question. “We aren’t going to talk about that. What did Tabitha want from her?”

“They said she had a job to finish and wanted my help to get her out of the pack lands unnoticed. I was made to promise that I wouldn’t say anything to anyone, not even my sisters or they would kill them. Being an omega must have really changed Finley because that woman was void of emotion. She said that to me like it was no big deal to just end their lives because I told them something. I didn’t even know what the job was or anything important!”

The fear written on her face told me it was the fact she thought her sisters were going to die that kept her quiet this whole time. So Peggy wasn’t some super spy like I thought at the beginning. She was just scared and didn’t want to lose the last part of her family.

“Let that be a lesson to you, Peggy. Finley was trained just like Tabitha,” I warned, wanting to instill a sense of respect for my mate. “Elias told us he found you out in the woods past the pack lands. What were you doing there?”

“They were holding me there to ensure everything went according to plan. If I’d managed to tip anyone off or lied to them about what would happen when the pack was attacked, they would have killed me. Once Finley showed up, my life was safe,” she answered, hanging her head low. “I hated the fact Finley got everything I wanted the second she showed up in this pack. Everyone fawns over her and the look you all have when you see her is what every woman hopes for. I thought if I could just send her back to wherever she came from, life could get back to normal for us here.”

“Do you know if the vampire was part of their plan?” I asked.

Peggy shook her head, shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. They never told me what was going to happen. I was the one who gave them the evacuation plans and that they would send all the women and children to the tunnels. They seemed to think Finley would be able to figure out the rest because, after that, they went silent.”

“They said the job was for the Senate? I need you to be absolutely certain about this.” I growled, adding my alpha energy to the question. Depending on how this was answered, we would at least have a guess as to what was going on.

“Yes, they said they were sent by the Senate and told to find me. That the Senate needed her to finish a job, one she started before coming to our pack. I did ask them why they couldn’t just come in and ask you guys to let her come with them. The only kind of answer I got back was that the rules were different with an omega,” Peggy answered.

My hands clenched into fists hearing this. Of course, those selfish bastards would send my mate after the Dark Ring regardless of her being an omega or not. They knew the Dark Ring’s threat to the whole supernatural community and wanted it to be taken care of silently so no one knew humans could enslave supers. It would throw the entire world into chaos, and that’s something the United Senate couldn’t allow to happen because an assassin missed her target. The trouble was, now I had this information, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. None of this told me where she was or had been taken to. She could be on another job on the other side of the world for all I knew and that pissed my wolf and me off to no end.

Part of me wanted to call my mother and demand answers, but she wouldn’t give them to me even if she knew. The Senate always came first and the fact Finley was my mate would have no influence on the choice of the full Senate. Of course, if my mother had told them she was also a Light Elf, it might have changed matters, but she promised me to keep that secret from the rest of the Senate. That was the trouble out of the seven members—my mother was only one vote. Yes, she had ruled over all domestic shifters, and the dragons had mythological shifters, but Modeos and Mother hated each other, so they never agreed on anything.

Knowing that I’d gotten everything I could from Peggy, I stood and started out of the cell.

“Wait! Aren’t you going to let me out? I told you everything I know!” Peggy yelled after me.

Spinning on my heel, I looked at her with the fury I’d been holding back during this whole situation. “Let you go? Why the fuck would I do that when you led my mate into a trap! I don’t give a damn about your reasoning. You don’t turn on your pack like that. You put everyone at risk and not just in this one event. The whole time you’ve been giving the Senate the information they wanted. So no, I’m not going to let you out. Maybe you’ll have better luck with Lane or Colt, although it’s their mate that is missing now too.”

Done talking to the rat, I left the shed where the cells were located and stormed up the steps to the pack house. Tossing open the door, it slammed into the wall, causing a dent, but I didn’t give a shit. I got the information we’d been trying to get and it does nothing for us.

“Fuck, man, who pissed in your cereal?” Mason asked from his spot at the kitchen island, nursing a cup of coffee.

None of us had been sleeping or functioning well in our efforts to find our mate. We’d promised her that nothing would happen and that we would protect her, but then when it came time to do that, she slipped through our fingers. Granted, from what Peggy said, Finley left us, but she’d warned us from day one that she would finish the job she fucked up.

Finley didn’t know the meaning of failure. I could see it in the way she took the whole situation of being an omega and an elf head-on. Finley wanted knowledge to understand every facet of who she was and what it meant. Now that I knew she was most likely on her way to kill someone from the Dark Ring, I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than knowing she was simply missing. Missing meant she might be in less danger. Going after a Dark Ring member, she was absolutely in danger.

“Peggy finally talked,” I answered through gritted teeth.

Mason shot to his feet, knocking the chair he was sitting on to the floor. “What the hell are we doing standing around? Let’s go!”

“Go where?” Noah asked, coming out of the walk-in pantry.

“Zander got the bitch to talk,” Mason said, pacing as I saw his wolf flickering in his eyes.

Noah all but chucked whatever he grabbed from the pantry into the sink and ran upstairs to grab Lane and Colt. They would all be pissed when they found out that I didn’t have good news for them. How do you find an assassin who was trained to go unnoticed as their job? I saw Mason heading down the hall where the betas’ room was located.

“Mason, wait,” I called. “If Elias is sleeping, let him sleep. He hasn’t gotten more than a few hours over the last two days.”

The beta frowned at me, clearly not agreeing with my order. “Why the fuck should I do that? If I were him, I’d want to know what the hell is going on.”

“If I had anything helpful to share, I would make sure that he was here for it, but as it stands, I’ve got less than nothing. We spent two days wasting time on a woman who knows practically nothing,” I grumbled.

“Practically nothing is still something,” Mason argued. “Besides, you’re not my alpha.”