Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

James POV

"Hurry up. We found a dead body." Logan said in a bit of a panicked tone.

"Where?" I asked. My voice came out emotionless and authoritative.

"Carnnia Loch." He replied. And without waiting for anything else, I rushed out of the field, leaving everyone behind. Not caring if anyone was following me or not.

Still, not before I heard Linda ask, "What is Carnnia Loch?"

I raced inside the forest. Going deeper and deeper until I found what I was looking for.

A lake.

It separates our territory with others. This is where our territory ends.

When I finally arrived at the scene my eyes took in my surroundings.

Dad, Michael, Adan, Cory and Dr. Moore was already there. All of them had a poker face and stiff posture. Like they were discussing something right before I arrived here. My dad stared behind me and frowned.

"Why did you bring her here?" Dad asked me through connecting the mind link. I spun around and saw Linda, Janet and Logan behind me, who had just arrived after me.

"Because he is an idiot." Michael's voice came in my mind and I snarled. This fucker.

"I did not bring any of them." I said walking towards my father.

"Yes, you did." Michael said and I cut my mind link with both of them.

"Where's the body?" I asked. Dad pursed his lips, glancing behind me. His eyes flashed when he looked back at me. Taking the clue, I stopped myself from asking anything else.

"Everything here has been taken care of." He replied in a stiff tone. His voice made me stiffen as well. I knew I had angered him. And I know that he will get back to me for it. Dad passed me. All of a sudden a hand patted my shoulder and I gritted my teeth.

"Ready for what's about to come?" He asked. I clenched my fists and glared at him. He maliciously smiled before walking away with his hands in his pockets. He stopped to greet Linda before leaving.

I scanned the whole area, trying to find anything out of the ordinary. However, there was not a single trace of anything out of the ordinary. I did not find any sign of something wrong nor did I feel any lingering scent of an intruder. It must have been a long time before we found his body. Otherwise, I would have felt some type of scent of the intruder.

Anyway, I realized that I was left alone with Linda and Logan. Janet along with others, must have left because she was not here. For how much time, was I lost in thoughts?

Linda slowly walked towards me. Like I would trigger by her any sudden move. With her hands clasped behind, Linda cautiously approached me.

"I messed things for you, right?" She asked me in a low voice.

No.

Yes.

"No. It's not your fault. It's his." I said pointing my finger at Logan. He clenched his fists.

"How is it my fault?" He asked me.

"You should have known better than to bring her here." I told him. He sneered at me.

"Well. I did not intentionally invite her to come with me." He retorted.

Well.

"You did not ask her to stay back as well, now. Did you?" I snapped back. Suddenly, his eyes blackened and he growled.

Wrong move.

My wolf did not accept any disrespect. Especially, when someone growls at me. My wolf jumped in and took control of my body. My eyes turned black and my body expanded on its own. It became more stiff, more refined as my wolf strength ran through my veins.

It let out a heavy growl and took a step forward toward him. Seeing my wolf taking control of my body, Logan's form seemed to shrink into itself. He took a step back but when he heard me growl a whimper broke from him. Right after that, he fell on his knees and let out a weak whimper like a plea, "Alpha."

"James!" I heard a strong voice. It was filled with alarm. With a snap, my wolf became weaker and retreated back, giving me the control of my body, back to me.

I looked at Linda. She looked terrified and startled at once. Like she just had seen a monster. I was not far from it.

"James!" This time came a very heavy and dominating voice. It rumbled from behind Linda.

It was my father.

Father looked furious when he saw me. Behind him stood an always - idiot Michael with a smug face on. With his always pasted smirk. I took a step back.

"In my office. Now!" My dad ordered and I bowed my head. It was an Alpha command that I had to obey. No place for argue.

Without questioning anything, I followed him to his office, but not before I told Linda to go back into her room to stay there. She gave me a look of dismay and I wondered why. I did not ask for something big. I just asked her to go and stay in her room.

Whatever was that about. I will ask about it later.

I had a much bigger problem to solve than this. Hence, I hurriedly jogged to my father's office. The door was opened ajar therefore I only knocked once before entering. I did not wait for an answer.

Dad was sitting on his chair as usual and Michael was standing. As USUAL.

Dad's eyes gleamed when he saw me. My eyes lowered on its own record. I could not look him in the eyes. And I somehow knew that Michael was smirking at my situation. I wanted to punch his jaw so hard that it would bounce on the floor times before settling back down again. I knew if dad was not here we would have been on each other's throat by now.

I cleared my throat.

"You asked for me, Alpha?" I asked him. I would not dare to call him dad now. From the way he looked at me earlier it was obvious that he wanted to talk to me as one of his subordinates and not as his son. My voice was low and smooth but it did not betray the hint of uncertainty that I was feeling.

"Next time, make sure not to bring her anywhere near where it concerns our pack matters." He said in a plain tone that made my ears perked up. I looked at him, and he was looking at me expectantly. Waiting for an answer. I nodded my head and he looked satisfied by it.

"Good. Now let's move on to the real matter." He said.

My eyebrows shot up in surprise and so did Michael's. We looked at each other. The way dad saw me using my alpha power on Logan and the way I brought Linda with me to a crime scene (Even though I did not), should have made him angry with me.

But 'Let's move on to the real matters?'

I was not expecting that. And by the looks of Michael, I knew he was thinking about the same thing.

He's letting me off without any profanities or punishment?

That's a first.

"Whose body was that? The one who died." I asked dad. Dad folded his arms around his chest and leaned back on his chair.

"Philip." He said in a calm but serious tone. My eyes widened at his shocking answer. What did he just say?

"Logan's dad?" I asked in surprise. He nodded. And I shut my mouth, trying to wrap my mind around what he had just told me. Abruptly a question popped in my mind.

"Logan did not know about this, does he? He did not see the body, then?" I asked him. Dad shook his head.

When Logan came to inform me, he looked normal and not a person who would go batshit crazy over his father's death. Even, if he did not get batshit crazy, I would understand.

His dad was a sadistic pig, who liked to beat his own son, not only to get the frustration out but also for fun. Logan was not his real son. He was found abandoned on our side of the forest. He was rescued by the father and given to Phillip's wife, Angela, who took him as her own son because Angela and Phillip were unable to conceive one. Phillip blamed it on Angela. But I knew it was because Phillip was firing blanks. It was his default that enabled him to have a kid. Despite knowing that it was his fault that they could not have kids, he blamed it on Angela. She used to get beaten by him every day. Until one day, when we were woken up in the night and had to bury her body secretly. Phillip had beaten his own damn mate, to death.

We hid Angela's death and told everyone that she ran away with her lover. Leaving his kid and husband behind. We hid her death because if anyone had found out about it then we had to answer about her death in the Alpha conference also we had to answer our pack members. Which in return would have made us look weaker. It would have made us look like we were unable to give a safe environment to our pack members and that we were weak. It was also for the fact that Phillip was one of the main and important pack members who, just not helped in pack related work but also helped us make secret treaty with other packs as well.

From the day Angela died, Phillip's all anger and frustration was transformed onto Logan. He used to beat Logan in the name of making him strong and training him but it was all just an excuse for the way he abused his son. We use beating to train kids. To teach them how to deal with pain but what Phillip did was completely different. One time, he had beaten Logan half to death. It was then when Dr. Moore warned dad if he did not interfere in this matter he will quit and leave this place to never return. It was then when my father took some steps and told Phillip to keep it calm. He never really said that Phillip should stop beating his son altogether but only advised him to keep it down.

Which he did. From then on, he did not beat his son half to death, but he still practiced his skills on him now and then.

And from the way Logan turned out to be, a bully, I could clearly see where it was coming from.

"Any sign of the culprit?" I asked dad. One thing was for sure that it was not the work of a vampire or a human. Vampires stink badly because they are dead and their smell lingers for almost more than five hours, in the air. It was also not a work of humans. First, humans do not come into this deep inside the forest and if they do then they are simply too weak to fight our strength. However, there are incidents, where they were able to manage to injure wolves badly. Almost to death, but they never managed to kill one.

So it was safe to leave them out of this discussion. My assumption would be that it was a hunter's work.

"No. But our guess is that it was a hunter's work." Michael said. I turned to him.

"Possibly. But didn't just Alpha Elijah tell us that there was no threat of the hunters." I asked him. Just for curiosity. To see how he would reply to that.

"Don't try to act like an idiot when you are not. Everyone knows that Alpha Elijah tries to downplay the serious situations. And if not a hunter then who?" Michael asked me. And I knew he was right. Alpha Elijah was always like this. Trying to act like nothing was going on when the whole world was on fire.

I breathed deeply and nodded.

"Right. So what now? How are we going to break this news to Logan?" I asked. Dad shook his head at me.

"Don't worry about that. Leave it to me. I'll handle it." He said.

"How he died by the way?" I asked. Michael sneered at me. Probably thinking, how stupid I am. Not that this fucker's opinion matters to me.

"Melted silver." He answered. Oh! shit. Now, it was definitely a possibility that it was done by a hunter. It was one of the ancient and most efficient ways to kill a wolf. Forcing them to swallow pure melted silver. Only a few species knew about this method.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the door. All of our eyes moved to the door of the room.

"Come in." Dad answered in an alpha voice. The door creaked open and Adan came in. He bowed his head to dad.

"This invitation just came right now." He said and I moved to take it from his hand. He gave it to me and bowed to dad before disappearing. I gave it to dad.

He tore open the seal of the envelope and opened it.

When he saw what was inside, he smirked.

"Prepare for another dinner party." He said.