Malcolm Ford stood in the center of the room, the encrypted phone pressed against his ear. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling like a man who had just run through a gale.
He had not intended to make the call. He was a man who detested the telephone; he despised the lack of physical presence, the artificial timbre of the line, the way it stripped an Alpha of his immediate authority. Even his own mother, was sometimes relegated to a weekly, highly formal exchange through his secretary. Yet, here he was, pacing the floorboards with the screen glowing against the dark.
On the other end of the line, the line rang three times before the connection clicked.
