Apprentice to the Alpha 

12: Inside Man

---Evelyn---

At exactly 8, I took a deep breath and entered Nate’s room. I was expecting him to look as bad as he had last time I was here, but he didn’t. Many of his bandages had been removed to show mostly healed skin underneath. The only bandages remaining were the ones where he was bitten. I looked at the machines as the rhythmic beeping soothed my nerves. Nate wasn’t awake, but I had a feeling he would be soon. I’m not sure what made his wolf wake just in the nick of time, but I was grateful. I hoped he didn’t have any long term effects, but I knew better than to hope for that. We were just lucky he was alive.

I heard the door open and turned to see a very tired Daniel looking in at me. “Sorry I’m late, something came up. Actually, I suppose I can tell you since you’re here to learn anyway. We don’t have a lot of leads on the rogue attack, but Doctor Carter did run tests on the Silver-wolfsbane combination he found in Nate’s side. It seems there were traces of vampire DNA in the mixture too. Not much, but just enough to suggest that a Vampire chemist was the one that made the mixture. What do you think this means?” Cool, we’re starting already.

“Um, well it could mean that either there’s a vampire out there selling anti-werewolf serums to the masses? Or Maybe that the brains behind the attack were vampires and it wasn’t actually a random attack?” I felt way too dumb to be having conversations like this. Maybe I should try to talk Nate into agreeing to be Alpha when he wakes up. He’s so much better at this stuff.

Much to my surprise, Daniel smiles. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. It’s entirely possible there’s someone out there making a profit off of our suffering. Or, The real reason for the rogue attack was reconnaissance and whoever planned it simply weren’t ready to show their hand just yet.”

I c**k my head at Daniel, thinking. “One thing I can’t figure out though, is how the mixture ended up in Nate. I get that the rogue bit him, but how did the mixture get there? If the stuff had been in the rogue’s mouth, there’s no way he could have bit Nate hard enough to do as much damage as he did; he’d be suffering too much himself. Also, even rogues don’t want anything to do with vampires. I can see them potentially being willing to buy a black-market serum from one, but that wouldn’t explain why they attacked. It makes a lot more sense for them to be following a leader, but there’s no way that would be a vampire.” Daniel's visible excitement with my answers gave me courage to keep going.

Daniel nods at me. “You’re right. My current thought process is that if it really is vampires behind this, they would have used a middle-man to hide their involvement both from us and the rogues. Whether vampires were involved beyond creating the compound or not, I think that the rogues had an inside man. They managed to sneak by the first set of border patrols, and the only way they could have done that is with inside knowledge. The patrol intervals change daily, so even if they had been doing recon, there’s no way they could have known about that particular day’s patrols unless they were told. Plus, the patrols had been increased due to Marie’s party. It’s customary to increase security when large events are held on our lands. My bet is that the middleman and inside man are one in the same because the rogues would be most likely to follow someone that made them feel confident in whatever they're planning.”

“As for how the poison got in Nate? That I can’t seem to figure out. My best idea is that the rogue had been keeping some kind of capsule in his mouth to release as needed. If that’s what happened I would be surprised though. It would still be very dangerous to do that because it could have burst in his mouth any time, or some of it could have gotten back on the rogue when he opened the capsule. That kind of behavior just seems way too risky, I don’t understand their motive. It would make much more sense to attack in a way that wasn’t as dangerous to themselves.”

I considered everything he had said. “Hmm. Maybe there’s something else to all this. Do you think maybe the leader has something on the rogues that attacked? At least on the ones that cornered Nate? If the leader had been blackmailing them in some way, it’s possible that they never intended on getting away that night. Maybe their purpose wasn’t just recon but also trying to weaken the pack by hurting our future Alpha?”

Daniel grinned at me. “I knew I made a good decision on asking you to be my successor. Your mind is exactly what is needed to run a pack. I hadn’t even considered that not all the rogues involved in the attack were all willing participants. And actually it explains a lot. As for the inside man, I’ve been compiling a list of wolves banished from our pack, or have other reasons to wish us harm, along with lists of both people who were and weren’t on packlands that night. If we figure out who the middleman is, I bet we can bust this whole mystery wide open.”