There was a long, agonizing silence on the other end. I could hear the frantic scratching of her pen against paper.
"Alpha. The Luna… Elowen never showed up."
I stopped mid-stride. The air in the room felt like a vacuum had sucked it out. "Excuse me?"
"I waited," Aris scrambled to explain, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a panicked rush. "I cleared my entire midnight block. I stayed until four in the morning, Alpha, I swear it. But she never walked through the door. I checked the security feeds, the parking lot... She arrived here but never at my office."
My hand tightened around the phone until the plastic groaned. The image of Elowen scrambling back into bed, smelling of spicy bergamot and cold night air, flashed through my mind.
The delivery docks. The servant's passage. The scent of Jarek Ashthorne.
She hadn't gone to the clinic. She hadn't gone to save our legacy. She had gone to the Rogue King.
"Where did she go, Aris? If she wasn't with you, where was my wife?"
"I… I don't know! She didn't call, she didn't message—"
I hung up on her before she could finish.
The rage hit me then. I didn't love Elowen Goldbane, but she was mine. She was the key to my throne, the vessel for my mask, and the property of my house. The idea of her standing in some gutter-bin Rogue club, letting that bastard touch her, look at her, or talk to her, made my blood boil.
I didn't care about the diplomatic long game in that moment. I didn't care about the Council. I wanted to drag her out of that bed by her hair and scream the truth into her face until she understood that there was no escape from me.
I turned toward the door, my fingers curling into claws. I was going to find her. I was going to break whatever secret she thought she was keeping.
I reached for the handle, ready to barge out and let the Omega roar loose, when the door opened on its own. I stopped inches away from a gray suit.
Vector Harker stood there, his laptop bag slung over his shoulder, his glasses perched perfectly on the bridge of his nose.
"You're vibrating, Gideon. It's a very un-Alpha-like frequency. If you go out there now, you'll look less like a grieving leader and more like a jilted teenager." He pointed out emotionlessly.
"She wasn't there!" I hissed, the words coming out in a spray of spit. I shoved past him back into the study, pacing the floor so hard I felt the floorboards groan. "I called Aris. Elowen reached the parking lot, but she never set foot in the clinic. She lied to me, Vector. She looked me in the eye this morning, sobbed into my chest, and lied!"
Vector closed the door behind him with a soft click. He walked to the desk, set his leather bag down, and began to polish his glasses with a silk cloth. "And your plan is to go upstairs and tell her that? To reveal that you've been tracking her every movement through the GPS in her vintage coupe and that you have the fertility specialist on a payroll of fear?"
I stopped. My hand was halfway to the door handle again. The white-hot fog in my brain cleared just enough to let the logic seep in.
"If you confront her," Vector continued, holding his glasses up to the light, "you break the cage. Right now, she thinks she is the one holding the secrets, and that's going exactly as planned."
I let out a breath that sounded like a tire deflating. I dropped into the leather chair, rubbing my temples. "I know. I know that. But she's making me look like a fool, Vector. She came back smelling like him. Like Ashthorne. The scent was so thick I could almost see it."
"Frustrating, isn't it? She's usually so transparent. A glass vase. You can see the water, the dirt, and the cracks. But suddenly, she's decided to paint herself black. It's annoying to lose the view."
"She's a Goldbane. It's that stubborn, blue-blooded pride waking up. She doesn't hide things from me. She's not supposed to hide things from me. I am the center of her universe. I am the sun she orbits."
"Well, the sun is currently acting like a toddler," Vector adjusted his glasses. He sat down across from me, looking every bit the quiet accountant.
"Relax, Gideon. I told you I would handle the memory issue. The bergamot is a variable. I will find a way to make her believe the scent was a hallucination. She will continue to hate the Rogue King."
I leaned back and exhaled. "You're right. I'm overreacting. It's just... the thought of her with him. It's a breach of contract."
"Then let's discuss the contracts that matter," Vector said. He reached into his bag and pulled out an encrypted tablet. "You asked for news regarding my... extended leave."
My mood shifted instantly. The petty rage about Elowen's scent was eclipsed by the cold, sharp hunger for power. "Tell me. Is it clean?"
Vector's thin lips curled into the ghost of a smirk. "The thirty-two million is no longer thirty-two million. It has been broken down into eight thousand micro-transactions, funneled through the Aris Research Grant and three shell companies in the human sector. By the time the Council's auditors wake up, that money will look like a legitimate expenditure by Aurelius himself."
He paused. "He wasn't just 'careless' in the end; I've made him look senile. I've planted enough digital breadcrumbs to suggest he was losing his grip on the pack's finances months before he died."
I felt a genuine laugh bubble up in my chest. "You beautiful, cold-blooded bastard. And the witnesses from the other side?"
"All taken care of. Nothing can be traced back to us."
"Tragic indeed," I grinned. "And the scapegoat?"
"Already in motion. I've started leaking information to the lower-tier pack members about a traitor in the Alpha's mansion. By the time we're ready to officially name a 'killer' for Aurelius, the evidence will point directly to our target who has a 'history of gambling debts and ties to Jarek Ashthorne's network'. It's a closed loop, Gideon. The narrative is ours."
I stood up, the tension in my shoulders replaced by a buoyant, triumphant energy. The world felt right again. Elowen might be sneaking out to play with rogues, but I was rewriting history itself. I was the architect, and Vector was my master mason.
"Beautiful," I said, clapping my hands together. The sound echoed in the quiet study. "Absolutely perfect. If I didn't know you were a sociopath, Vector, I'd kiss you."
"Please don't," Vector groaned, packing his tablet away. "I'm quite fond of my personal space."
I checked my watch. 8:30 AM. "She's probably already in the dining room, picking at her fruit and waiting for me to play the devoted husband. We shouldn't keep her waiting. After all, I've just promised her a day of 'considering' the surrogacy. We should give her a show."
"A show," Vector agreed, standing up. "The Alpha and his loyal advisor, coming to check on the fragile Luna."