Chapter 465: Beta Visit
"Maggie said something is coming," Graeme paced in his office with Sam watching him.
It had been days since Maggie mentioned that she felt a threat coming, but Graeme was increasingly on edge. Since Maggie was unaware about the nature of the threat, he and Sam were trying to prepare for every possible scenario.
"We know. Brother, we have been over this. Everyone is training multiple times a day. We have tripled the number of perimeter runners. We have security set up around the pack house. We are ready for whatever comes," Sam reassured him.
It was getting exhausting watching Graeme slowly unravel. He needed his mate so badly.
Greta had been trying to get him to sleep at the house and take some rest from the continuous stress and pressure of the office, but Graeme had yet to give in and return with them at night. He told them he felt better being at the pack house where everything was concentrated in case something happened. So every night, Greta brought him a meal and sat with him to make sure he was at least eating. It was the most she could force him to do.
Lucas knocked on the door frame and walked in when both males gave him the nod of approval. After everything they had all been through together and the ways in which Lucas had proven his loyalty to both the Alpha and Luna, Graeme decided to put him in charge of security.
Lucas gave them reports about the status of the perimeter and their runners, scouts, and other security detail multiple times a day now. But there was something different about this visit. Graeme could see it on Lucas’ face—the way his eyebrows were knitted together slightly as if he were puzzling over something.
"What’s up?" Sam asked, glancing back and forth between Lucas and Graeme who was suddenly rigid with acute concentration on the frowning male standing before them.
"The Beta from Thundering Falls is here," Lucas told them, glancing up at his Alpha.
"From Thundering Falls?" Graeme repeated, his eyebrows pinching together. Lucas nodded. "Where is he?" Graeme asked.
"A few runners spotted him and stopped him at the west perimeter by the lake. He says he needs to speak with you," Lucas said.
"Tell them to let him in. Meet him out front and then show him up here yourself. I don’t want him snooping around," Graeme instructed.
When Lucas left, Graeme returned behind his desk, sitting heavily in his chair and reclining in deep thought as he stared at Sam.
"What do you think he wants?" Sam asked.
"The Thundering Falls pack. From what I remember of Andreas’ records there have been no significant dealings or trouble with them in the past decade. Am I forgetting anything?" He asked Sam before folding his hands in front of his face.
A visit from a representative of any pack without prior announcement was odd, and Thundering Falls was a trek from where they were located in Vermont. What had brought their Beta all the way there without so much as a phone call?
"They were not among those outraged by the disconnection of the alyko map," Sam mumbled to himself.
When Graeme initially told him about Maggie’s prophetic slip, Sam thought it may have to do with packs rallying against them in anger over their loss of that priceless resource. The alyko map was something that had been shared with their allies, and now that it was decommissioned they had received a lot of upset calls from those packs wondering why they no longer had access. But Thundering Falls was not among them. In fact, now that Sam thought about it, it was odd that they had not heard from Thundering Falls. They were their closest neighbor.
Graeme’s stomach turned when a thought occurred to him. "Sam?" He asked, leaning forward in his chair and resting his arms on the desk.
"Yeah?"
"Sylvia was never able to find out what pack Violet had been to when she was attacked. Am I wrong?" He asked, a muscle feathering in his jaw as he did.
"No, you are not wrong," Sam answered, understanding lighting in his eyes.
There were a number of packs in the Northeast, but Thundering Falls was the closest. So much was happening that Graeme had not specifically set out to investigate what pack it was that Violet had wandered into despite the fact that she had been assaulted. She had not wanted to share that information with Sylvia or anyone else as far as Graeme knew, and he certainly wasn’t prepared to initiate a quarrel with another pack based on Violet’s willful error when she purposely sought out trouble—especially after the bullshit that she had pulled with her ’announcement’ after Samhain. But perhaps the quarrel had come to them.
"Violet did mention to me that the male who marked her was acting like he was part of the pack of wolves he was with," Graeme said.
In fact, she had said that he was acting like their Alpha. And that could only be possible if Cassian had killed the Alpha of Thundering Falls. With the way he had fought and almost eliminated Graeme, Lucas, and Sam, it was not a stretch to believe the male could have accomplished that with another Alpha. And if that was in fact what happened, then Graeme could have a serious problem on his hands. Because that would mean that they had killed the Alpha of Thundering Falls.
"So you think the Beta is here to find out what happened to him?" Sam asked.
"I have a very strong sense that it is a distinct possibility," he groaned. "I think he may have been their Alpha."
"Their Alpha?" Sam frowned. "Their Alpha is Galen."
"I think it’s possible that he may have killed Alpha Galen," Graeme muttered.
"You think?" Sam gaped.
"Can you imagine the male that we fought in this office coexisting peacefully with a lycan pack?" Graeme scoffed. "It makes sense that he would have killed Galen if he was an outsider and was made to feel threatened."
"No way," Sam muttered, his eyes growing large.
"Is this what Maggie foresaw?" Graeme huffed the question that was directed toward no one in particular.
