The Alpha's Luna Of Vengeance

Episode7

Zian’s POV

I've been staring at the Eastern border coordinates for the past twenty-five minutes. Anyone who'd see me right now would think I was searching for errors–weak points or anything within that line. But no. That's not it. Vivienne had drafted these coordinates, and even though it's expected of me as Alpha to cross-check things like this, I trust Vivienne one hundred percent–she was that good at doing her job as Beta.

But this was different, and very frustrating–every time I tried to make the information stick, something shoved it out.

The steady beat of her heart that was in sync with mine. The feel of her skin when I held her against me last night, scared shitless of the worst, and then her body being so calm and relaxed against mine despite her being on the brink of death, like it had chosen, even in that barely conscious state that my arms were the safest place she could ever be.

She was perfect. She was….

“Jeez Varric! That's enough already!” I growled, slamming my palm on the table.

Varric hasn't stopped feeding me images of Lalita every chance he's got. It's infuriating at this point. I can't even concentrate long enough to achieve anything of value–I’ve practically been rendered useless at this point.

“s**t!” I hissed under my breath as my eyes landed on the clock on the wall. The weekly meeting with the Pack’s Elders and Council members should have started about ten minutes ago. Where did all the time go? One minute it's the start of a new day and in the blink of an eye it’s already noon.

I exhaled slowly to let out all this pent-up frustration as I stood up from my desk and made my way to the third floor conference room.

The Elders and Council members were already seated by the time I arrived, alongside Vivienne to my right who had a laptop in front of her, and Alaric directly across from her, leaning back against his chair with his arms folded.

“Greetings Alpha Zian,” they said one after another, bowing their heads slightly in courtesy. I responded, and also nodded in recognition, and the moment I sat down the meeting took off.

We started off with the rogue sightings in two weeks. The GPS data from our patrol unit showed a pattern. Someone was mapping our blindspots, running the same route we ran but slightly outside our detection range, testing response times, seeing how long it took us to notice.

Elder Crest, one of the council members, pulled up the overlay on the wall.

“They’re not here to attack,” he explained, as he walked us through the timeline. “They’re measuring.”

Alaric leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the overlay. “Whoever is behind the attack is still deciding if we’re worth the cost,” he said.

"Then we make the cost obvious," Vivienne added. "Double the eastern rotation, randomize the intervals, so the pattern can't be predicted. Pull the data from the last two weeks and use it to identify exactly which blind spots they've been exploiting — then cover them."

I nodded in approval, and we went on to other issues–StarRidge, trading route with some other Packs, and nine out of ten times my thoughts kept drifting.

Again.

Just as the meeting was about to come to an end, Elder Stephen, the eldest man on the council, cleared his throat–a gesture we’ve come to understand as him needing our attention for a matter of significant importance.

“There is one more important matter,” he said, in that slow, meticulous way of his. "The woman brought in to the Pack last night…” he said with a pause.

“And what about her?” I found myself asking before I could stop myself. I could feel Alaric’s gaze on me, but I kept my expression as neutral as possible.

“Words going round is that she came with a witch assassin on her trail,” Elder Stepehen continued, and some of the other Elders exchanged confused glances, but I kept my gaze on Elder Stephen. “And last night they not only broke through our security defences, but–”

“It's been dealt with,” I cut in. It’s no news that Elder Stepehen had eyes and ears on every corner of the Pack–which is a good thing, but now I’m not so sure.

“Good,” Elder Crest said, with a satisfactory nod. “But we still need to find which coven the assassin works for, and respond appropriately.”

"Agreed," I said.

"Then the response is straightforward," Vivienne chipped in. "The woman is the target. Wherever she goes, they follow. Keeping her here doesn't protect her. It turns Darkharrow into a battlefield for someone else's war."

Three council members nodded already.

"We know nothing concrete about her," Vivienne continued. "No Pack affiliation. No verifiable identity. No memories —" a small pause, precise as a scalpel, "— allegedly. And we are weeks away from a conflict we have been building toward for months. We cannot afford to redirect our resources and our attention toward a stranger's problems."

She wasn't wrong. I know she wasn’t. It was the right thing, and most rational, to do in this situation–remove her, escort her to the nearest neutral territory, and let whatever was hunting her follow her away from DarkHarrow, and my people, and my increasingly infatuated ability to think in straight lines.

But I can’t. Not when I know there’s something, or rather someone, who I don’t even know how many there are out there hunting her. If there’s anything I learnt from the assassin last night, it was the fact that they’d rather die than say who sent them. That kind of devotion wasn’t random–they believed Lalita had to die for whatever crimes she committed against them. And just the thought of that makes my chest constrict so painfully hard, that I had to lock my jaw to keep my expression where I needed it.

“Alpha Zian,” Vivienne’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and that’s when I realized all eyes were on me waiting for a verdict about Lalita’s situation.

I exhaled slowly, my expression as Stoic as ever. “The situation needs to be properly reviewed before making any decision,” I said in a dismissive tone, pulled my seat back, and made my way out.