The Warrior King's Mate

Chapter 16

Milo P.O.V.

"Sir - Sir, I underst....If I could just...Sir, please lower y-...Alpha, Sir, the Officers are in a meetin-...Sir, I can't pass you straight to the Ki-...Please, Sir, I need - need...Yes, Alpha I understand but -"

Verity's voice was like a pneumatic drill going through my head between 8.30am and 5pm on a daily basis, but even I felt sorry for her - whoever was on the other end of that phone call was giving her one hell of a hard time. She and a new office full of aides had been working here for at least a month now, but the work was relentless. I'd inherited a tyre fire when Fallon took over as King and it wasn't showing signs of easing. If anything, things were blowing up.

We started to feel the trickle down effects of the upcoming war on all aspects of the kingdom - trade deals, security, finances, housing. Every day, more and more coaches full of warriors came to us from all one hundred and fifty packs, some better trained than others. The process we hoped larger packs in each district would help streamline was still a monumental effort at our end, and everyone was feeling the strain. In-fighting had begun, pack rivalries spilling out on to our streets, resentments brewing. Under-agers somehow slipping through the assessment process. Over-eager wolves came swaggering in, looking for a battle when, in truth - there wasn't one. Yet.

What there was, was an overcrowded city and small reconnaissance missions going to and from our borders with Crimson Kingdom. King Rowan was clearly gathering troops at his side as well - that much was clear from the growing population of packs in his lands. Envoy after envoy had been sent from Fallon to Rowan since his father's head rolled on to the table in front of us. None of them came back.

That's why he's gone - Fallon and Dax left with a small covert group of specially trained warriors to gain some Intel from the border packs, and to secretly follow a lead we had found while conducting our own investigations into Fallon's royal house guests from Onyx Kingdom. I didn't agree with Fall leaving right now for many reasons - one: Dax, despite being an arrogant pain in the ass, was actually good at his job. He had trained not only with the elite of werewolf soldiers, but spent time training with human secret services in different countries, and had real combat experience. For someone under the age of 30, his expertise was unparalleled, outranking even the King himself . He didn't need a babysitter.

Two: the rumors of spies and insurgents had started to spread outside of board rooms and now - on almost a daily basis - our intelligence systems were being overwhelmed by calls from paranoid housewives, shady businessmen, i***t teenagers. With the subjects of many rumours currently residing as guests within the castle walls, the King needed to be that reassuring presence for the people, in the way Harrold was. Sure, he was a shitty human being, but the kingdom loved him and the image of a strong King, ruling and managing the expectations of the people was not something to be sniffed at. Image is everything. No spies have been caught so far but today, my main task is to follow up with some intriguing Intel about some of our own security staff. The man, Graham Galloway, had joined our security staff the previous year having completed his education and warrior training. Since then, we've had a handful of complaints about him - nothing too severe, but since Fallon was crowned, the whispers started about him behaving strangely. First, it was that he'd stopped socializing with the other warriors and security staff. As it always is with fighters, the camaraderie is like a weird little culture of its own - six months ago, Galloway cut himself off from that. Last week, he had a small trickle of unusual visitors to his home in Moon Lake - omegas, construction workers, postal workers, all of them entering with packages and leaving empty-handed. Sure, the postal guy was innocuous, but twice in one day? This would be the second meeting about the man in as many days, but this one was requested by our internal investigation team. As such, Verity was told to handle things here in the admin office as best as she could until I had lifted the do not disturb notice on my office phone and email.

Fuck, I was tired. It feels like I've aged ten years in less than one. I feel pretty numb to almost everything due to sheer exhaustion - I don't feel hunger, I don't feel thirst, I can barely feel my face. All day I walk around, barely containing the constant current of agitation, finding it harder and harder not to throw things, snap at people, slam doors. Which brings me on to concern number three: Fallon's wolf is losing control. Kane is a strong Royal Alpha Wolf. He was born to shoulder the weight of the world, but Fallon and he have never grieved the loss of the King. When his father went missing, he certainly searched for him day and night, and each passing day I noticed my best friend getting colder, angrier, older. I watched him stare at Harold's head and saw nothing. No shock, no anger no humanity. Fallon was 26 now, unmated, now orphaned and in the middle of a guerilla war which threatened to spill over any day now. His temper was easier to snap than a twig. More than once, it's come to blows between us all in the past two weeks. It started with small snipes and sighs of frustration. Before they left this morning, there was yelling, swearing and promises to break Dax's legs clean off. Our warriors had laid siege to small unclaimed border packs that had ports along rivers and sea inlets since Harrold's assassination, and tensions were even higher there than in the Capital. I didn't think such a dangerously powerful wolf, showing signs of going feral, should be leading the interrogations there. I was, of course, refused to go instead. I have a quickly healing bruise along my jaw to remind me of my place.

It's alright for the likes of me and Dax, but a king shouldn't go this long unmated. Fallon should have done what his father had and taken a betrothal to keep his wolf in check. I and a small group of select officers, including Dax, have had to meet surrupticiously to discuss what to do in the event that Kane breaks through entirely and becomes uncontainable. We had no other heirs to Lunar Kingdom - Rowan would seize control easily without a Queen here to protect the King, and no amount of warriors flooding their way here would be able to stop the mad bastard. So far, none of these meetings had been helpful and, if anything, just set Dax and I at each other's throats. I should, given the circumstances, be glad to be rid of them, but I'm not. Now, I have to babysit Evanard and his precious heir Kendrick - barricaded in an entire wing of the castle, his Queen terrifying omegas who were all convinced she was some sort of witch. I had to force the kingdom's budget into some sort of balance, which it was becoming increasingly difficult to do. I have to attend all meetings and make all decisions in Fallon's stead as his second in command, knowing damn well that when he returns, I will be at Kane's mercy for overstepping. I'd rather they had left this particular mission to the f*****g warriors and done their damn jobs at home. I was beginning to sound like a housewife. I could hear it when I read back my emails.

I was on the way out to my office for the day when Verity finally had enough.

"BETA MILO! A MOMENT SIR!" Her high-pitched trill of a voice cut through me like a spike and I was immediately annoyed. Turning to look at her, she stood in her too-short dress, too-high heels, her normally pristine makeup smudged around the eyes where she was dabbing at them with the sleeve of her cardigan, holding the phone out to me, silently pleading me to take it. Hissing, I dropped my briefcase and jacket as heavily as I could on to the nearest desk, causing the poor guy working there to jump out of his skin, and stormed over to verity.

"This is Milo Ortado, Beta Officer to King Fallon Carnell. Speak."

"This is Alpha John of River Moon -"

"Alpha John, if this is regarding your request for an Investigation Squad regarding the treatment of your niece, then I am ending this phonecall right now. The Crown does not suffer petulance, you have received an answer on this matter already, Sir."

"You WILL suffer me, Sir! You will not fob me off again! We have proof that the entire pack of Silver Shore was complicit in the starvation, s****l abuse and torture of an underage girl! Furthermore, we have proof that the Beta of Silver Shore, Grace Blackwell MURDERED her mate Gavin Blackwell and conspired to murder my niece. I HAVE PROOF, SIR. DO YOUR DUTY OR SO HELP ME -"

"I will remind you with whom you are speaking. You will respect your position, Alpha." My memories of this man were bland at best, and I was taken aback by the way he chose to speak to such a high-ranking royal officer. He could be punished severely for raising his voice alone. In the old days, even an Alpha would have his tongue removed for less.

"My place is to protect my pack and my family! You have three days. THREE DAYS! If no official investigation officers are at my door by then, I will retain every and all warriors filtering through my lands and I will burn Silver Shore to the ground!"

**********************

The phonecall with John held me up. I was forced to run the length of the castle's business wing in order to meet with the investigation team in my office. I was sweating slightly in my suit by the time I got there, my shoes squeaking on the highly polished floor whenever I rounded a corner too quickly. John had me rattled. The man threatened a coup. I honestly felt he was within his rights, but he didn't have to worry about explaining this to Fallon. If we'd only sent members of our team for an inquisition when John's elders requested it....

Apparently, the girl in question was now fighting for her life after a suicide attempt and was, by all means, due the full extent of the King's justice. John had refused to disclose everything over the phone, he wanted to see some action immediately. I couldn't blame him - he was delirious with grief. I remember mine and Fallon's fathers having dealings with John and his sister-in-law before - adamant she had somehow murdered her husband, despite it clearly being a rogue attack. The whole thing was a headache and it was one we needed to deal with before Fallon heard John threatened to remove warriors the King himself had all but conscripted.

As I approached the final staircase that led to my personal office, I made the decision. Mindlinking Elder's Rhona and Jennifer, I ask them to come to the office urgently. My office was a floor down from Fallons and the empty office meant for the Queen. Dax and I shared this floor, although he rarely used his office hours, preferring a more hands-on role. I was a self-confessed control freak, basically assuming that any business item would be incorrect unless I did it myself. Which meant that, as much stress as things such as budgets and trade deals and deadlines brought me, it would actually be worse if Dax was in his office attempting to help. Quickly running my hands down the front of my shirt in an attempt to smarten up, I took a deep breath through my nose before striding, straight-backed, into my office.

"Please, remain seated," I held up a hand to the group sitting at my round, mahogany table. "And forgive my lateness. An urgent matter required my attention and, as such, I have mindlinked two elders not of this council who will be here in five minutes." I took my seat next to Dax's second in command, a tall, olive-skinned guy called Vito, handing him a pile of plastic-bound folders to pass around. "In the meantime, I'd like caught up on Mr Galloway's movements since yesterday. Who will begin?"

"Me, Sir," said the woman sitting across from me. Nessa was older than me by at least fifteen years, so calling me Sir seemed ridiculous. She shuffled forward in her chair and tucked an unruly blonde curl behind her ear as she turned on the projector above us. An image of the east wing residency suits came to life on the opposite wall, showing the long corridor of floor to ceiling sashed windows, each draped with heavy blue velvet trimmed with gold. It was clearly nighttime in the footage, and the bright blur of what I knew to be gold and pearl chandeliers bloomed along the high, painted ceiling. At the end of the corridor, an ornate white and gold door was opening - a slim, blonde-haired man exiting. He appeared to check thoroughly for any signs of movement along the corridor before turning and gently closing the door. Nessa paused the footage. "This was last night at 2.00am. Here we can see Galloway leaving the suites the Onyx King and his family were residing in as of yesterday at 7pm, where - upon your orders, we had them moved. I can confirm that Galloway was not on shift for the entire 48 hour period leading up to this footage, and so his presence at the suite on his night off is....troubling." I had indeed ordered King Evenard and his family be moved to my personal suite, choosing to sleep in a guest room closer to work. Galloway had been working with the team responsible for guarding our guests at their own request, and until we could uncover what was going on with him, I wanted to know he had no access to them.

"As is the fact that he's clearly been inside," Elder John remarked, watching the footage with closely knitted brows. John had been great friends of my father and uncle when they both lived, despite being nearly a decade older. The man was in his sixties now and had seen it all. "It's an offense to his position as high security detail to be in the private residence of a visiting royal family."

"Just wait," Nessa said, fast forwarding though the tape. Cartoon-like, Galloway sped along the corridor and disappeared out of sight. The scene suddenly switched to the view of the adjoining corridor, heading back towards the Great Hall. As he passed the windows flanking him on either side, he would occasionally pause, head twitching inhumanely as Nessa sped through the footage. He appeared to be checking the windows. Then, he continued moving away from the east wing. Nessa pressed play and we watched as Galloway suddenly resumed a more normal walk, occasionally checking his surroundings. "Here," she said, indicating the footage. We watched in silence as Galloway stood in the hallway, looking around him once more and then directly at the camera. He stared at it for a few seconds and then nodded once. Instantly, all the lights in the hallway shut off. Nessa flicked through the other footage of the adjoining corridors and saw their lights still working, before returning to the long corridor now bathed in darkness. After several moments, the lights suddenly turned back on - but Galloway had disappeared.

"Wait, where did he go? He wasn't caught on either of the other two cameras?" I asked, pushing my glasses to the top of my head. As a werewolf, needing glasses was very unusual - and I normally didn't. However, with the stress of the last several months, even before Harrold had gone missing, the combination of fatigue and constantly being sat in front of a screen meant that I needed the extra help not to strain myself. But glasses or no - I couldn't make sense of what I'd just seen.

"We don't know, Sir," Nessa replied, rewinding the footage to show Galloway staring up at the camera. "We've searched the corridor ourselves this morning after reviewing the footage - the windows are fastened, there are no fireplaces in this wing, there are no cupboards or rooms. For context - this is one of the connective corridors, below is nothing but water."

Selinis Castle was a 13th Century building. The combining of the fortified castle building at the front (which now was a business Centre for the kingdom) and the grand residential palace was a later addition by one of Fallon's ancestors. The entire residential palace sits in the middle of a large lake in the centre of what is officially known as the Moon Lake Pack, as no matter the time of year or the cycle of the moon, on a clear night the lake reflects the moon as it follows the perfect natural arc of the water. Over the centuries, the capital of Lunar kingdom sprang up upon the water as a floating city, stretching up on to the cliffs and into the forests of the shore. In more modern times, the capital of the kingdom was more commonly referred to by the name of the castle itself, with Moon Lake becoming the reference for the land around it. The castle's huge sweeping front connected the old fortified castle to Moon Lake like a road made of manicured gardens, fountains of handcarved white stone, white stone paths and an incredibly long driveway which curled around the largest fountain of all, right outside the front doors. The entire building was designed to reflect the light of the moon in the sky above and the bright navy water below, splashed with gold. Long corridors, such as the one we now considered, were built over grand arched bridges that connected the residential buildings cut from glittering quartz. Each arch was large enough for boats to pass through easily, their white reflections on the water making perfect little full moons. The drop from the windows to the waters below was substantial - enough to break bone. As such, these grand windows were unable to open. Unlike the rest of the building - these long corridors had no rooms coming off of them, and without him appearing back on either side of the arched bridge - it was as if Galloway had disappeared into thin air.

"Who was logged in to the surveillance room at this time last night?" I asked. Each member of the royal guard accessed buildings and software via a digital swipecard. Depending on their rank and credentials, some of them were able to access more sensitive surveillance systems such as the powergrid, the cameras and the servers. In order to access these, security staff needed to have the correctly coded swipe card, and a scan of their iris and fingerprints was necessary, as well as a personalized passcode. The security of the kingdom was one of the best in the world thanks to Dax and his connections, not to mention the huge financial input from the King himself. It was impossible for Galloway to have accessed either the power or the cameras himself. He simply didn't have clearance - and as only myself, Dax or his Highness could grant such high level clearances, I knew the list of possible allies was incredibly low.

"Sir, the system only had one name logged in for the entire 24 hour period - " Vito began, but the sharp knock at the door silenced him. Nessa turned the projector off as another soldier at the table rose to open the door. Elder Rhona and Elder Jennifer looked sheepishly inside.

"Beta Milo, you called for us?" Rhona asked.

"Yes, come in please, and close the door," I began rummaging in the briefcase for the file I'd grabbed from the admin office. "The information I'm about to give you is highly sensitive and the details of it do not leave this room. Before any of you leave, you will need to sign the NDA I have here," I placed the forms on the table, and handed Rhona the file.

"About a month ago, Alpha John from River Moon and his elders applied for an emergency investigation team to be dispatched there to report allegations of abuse to his niece, Nova Blackwell. As we had no record of a Nova Blackwell, nor did the request meet the criteria for emergency dispatch, His Highness refused the request and urged John to use his own investigative powers." I explained. "However, this morning John has been back in touch demanding a inquisition squad attend immediately. His niece has since attempted to take her own life after disclosing to her cousin, the soon to be Alpha-the details of torture, physical abuse, psychological abuse, s****l assault and neglect that were inflicted upon her from a young age by all members of the Silver Shore pack, including her mother, Beta Grace Blackwell. John is adamant he also has evidence Grace has caused the death of Gavin Blackwell, the former Beta of Silver Shore." The room collectively gasped and Vito ran an agitated hand over his face. The accusation was incredibly severe. "He has given us three days. If the deadline lapses and we have not acted, John has announced he will stage a coup, retaining the warriors he was sent for the selection and assessment procedures and turning them away from Selinis Castle, towards Silver Shore. We need to get there quickly to hear the accusation, and then - once we know how bad it is - an official envoy needs to be sent to diffuse the situation. You leave immediately."

Silence followed. Then,

"How old is she, the girl?" Jennifer asked, her eyes filling with tears but her voice strong.

"Nova? Nineteen, we think. Should she survive, it is important to note that she is technically a ranked wolf, her aunt being Luna Margot of River Moon and her late father having been Beta. She must be brought here to be given sanctuary. But first, damage control."

The two elders nodded and signed the forms before leaving the room. Having contacted our private airport to ready a plane, I was reassured that they would arrive in River Moon before nightfall. I passed the rest of the non-disclosures around the small group remaining and replaced them back in the suitcase, satisfied enough to carry on the Galloway discussion.

"So" I said, returning to the group and our conversation about Galloway. Whoever had been logged in to the system needed to be found and questioned immediately. The Onyx King was an incredibly paranoid man, who had his poor wife taste all his meals (which he insisted be delivered by his own omegas to his rooms every mealtime) before he would allow a bit to pass his own lips, clinging to his precious heir, Kendrick. If something were to go even slightly awry with his security detail, for all we knew, we might end up fighting a war on two fronts. I would not allow such a fiasco whilst Fallon was away playing soldier boy and ripping people apart for information. I refuse to give Kane any incentive to lose his cool with me. "Who did we say was accessing the surveillance room at 2am this morning?" I asked the group.

Vito looked at me cautiously before answering, "Yours, sir."