Chapter 6 Come with me.
Chapter Six
Come With Me
I went off to find kael and l found him near the eastern fence.
He was standing with two of his senior warriors, surveying the damage the Ashgrave wolves had left behind. It was a real disaster.
Broken timber, Torn ground. and a broken fence that will take so much effort to rebuild.
He crossed his arms and his face wore a sad expression. One thing I've seen in kael despite the fact that we are not in good terms is that he wasn't really heartless.
I stopped a few feet away and waited for them to finish up. My mind was racing but I had to try.
He noticed me not long after. He has quite a strong instinct.
"You should be inside," he said without turning around. "Your arm is injured and needs to be looked at or it will get infected."
The claw marks had already stopped bleeding but the sleeve of my jacket was stuck inside. It went deep but I had forgotten about it.
“It will heal.” I said knowing fully well it will take time cause I didn't have a wolf yet.
"I need you to come with me," I said walking towards him.
That made him turn and looked at me for a moment, reading my face the way he always did, trying to figure out what it was.
"Come with you to where."
"The Alpha quarters."
Something shifted in his eyes not suspicion exactly but more like alertness. He was going to say no.
"Why."
"I just need you there," I said. "I am not asking you to do anything for me. I am asking you to come with me."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Behind him his two warriors were watching us with blank expressions of men who knew better than to look interested in the Alpha children's business.
"Fine," he finally accepted and uncrossed his arms. "Five minutes."
Five minutes.” I nodded.
We walked straight to the Alpha quarters without speaking to each other.
Which was a normal thing for us.
Kael and I though brothers, we had never been easy with each other.
ever since I was born and the prophecy made me the center of everything and pushed him to the edges of his own inheritance.
The silence between us was heavy, not really hostile exactly, but just loaded. Like two people who had a lot to say and had both decided years ago that saying it would not help.
I was conscious of every step.
Because every second that passed was a second my father could return.
I did not know where he was or went.
I had not seen him since I slipped out of the back window and I could not ask without drawing attention to the fact that I was tracking his movements.
The front door of the quarters was unlocked. It's always open during the day.
I pushed the door and walked in. Kael followed me without any comment.
I led him straight down the back corridor to the private office.
I pulled the key from my boot.
Kael was surprised. He didn't know I had the key.
I saw his eyes drop to the key and come back up to my face. I saw the question form behind them. Though he didn't ask and I didn't bother telling him anything.
I just put the key in the lock and turned it and pushed the door open.
The room was wrong the moment I looked inside.
The shelves were still there. The desk. And the chair.
But the bottom shelf looked different.
Like..
When I had been here hours ago the record books were lined up in tight order, spine to spine, organized by year going back decades.
Now there were gaps. Not too obvious gaps, not the type a careless person would keep, there were Careful gaps.
The spaces were filled in by shifting the remaining books slightly so the shelf will not look obviously emptied or tampered with.
Someone who did not know exactly how these documents were arranged will not notice I only noticed because I came in here before.
I went straight to check but..
The books I needed were gone. I pulled more and more of the documents. All of it was gone. The ones with the evidence there were gone. Someone took them.
I stood in the doorway shocked and surprised and also scared this only meant that..
My father knew.
He had come back to this room after I left and had probably checked the shelf and had known that someone had been in here and so he moved the evidence.
The lock he held ,Maren's words came rushing into my head and I realized
He wasn't just guilty.
He was careful.
Which meant I had underestimated him and I could not afford to do that again.
"Zara."
Kael's voice was very quiet and controlled. I turned to look at him.
He was staring at the shelf. His jaw was tight. He had noticed the gaps too.
Then he turned to me .
Let's get out of here.” I said before he could speak further.
"What were you looking for." He asked staring deep into my eyes like he wasn't going to let me go if I didn't tell him.
"I wanted to show you something," I said. "It is not here anymore."
"That is not what I asked." He took a step toward me. Kael was not a man who used his size to intimidate, he used his stillness, which was somehow worse.
"What were you looking for in our father's private records? In the middle of the night. With a key he gave you six years ago that I did not know you had." He asked in one go.
I looked at him. And for a moment I thought about what Maren said earlier. About not confronting my father alone. I thought about how useful Kael's anger could be if it was pointed in the right direction.
And I thought about how badly this could go if I told him too much too soon and he went straight to our father with it. Because I know him too well.
"I found something earlier," I said carefully. "In that room. I wanted you to see it before I drew any conclusions. It is gone now so there is nothing I can do."
"What kind of something."
"Records."
His eyes narrowed.
"Pack records. Administrative records. The kind that go back before we were born." I watched his face. "The kind that might explain some things about the state of this pack."
The curse.”
silence stretched between us.
I could see him processing it. Kael was not slow. He had spent his whole life being groomed to lead as an Alpha and part of that grooming was learning to think three moves ahead.
He was doing it now, connecting what I had said to the gaps on the shelf to the timing of the attack to whatever instincts had been quietly accumulating in him over the last few years.
"You are saying someone moved them," he said.
"I am saying they were there and now they are not."
"After the attack. After you were in this room." His voice had dropped. "Who else knew you were in here."
"Nobody," I said. "Nobody knew."
He stared at me for a long moment. Then something changed in his expression.
The anger did not go away but it shifted, making room for something else underneath it.
"Tell me what was in those records, Zara."
"I cannot. Not yet. Not until I have a strong evidence and not just a memory of pages I read in the dark."
His jaw tightened. Then he took a breath.
"You brought me here to show me something and now you are telling me you have nothing to show me."
"I brought you here because I needed a witness," I said. "And now you have seen what I needed you to see."
"The empty shelf?."
"Yes, the empty shelf," I confirmed.
He looked at it again. Then he looked at me. And for the first time in a very long time my brother looked at me not like a problem or a rival.
He looked at me like he was genuinely unsure of what I knew and that uncertainty made him uncomfortable in a way I had never seen before.
He walked away without another word.
I stood in the back garden and listened to his footsteps fade and understood that I had just started something I could not take back.
End of Chapter Six
