Dark Alpha: A Fated Mates Novel

22: THE SUSPECT

~SINCLAIR~

It was midnight when the first bomb came in.

Sin jerked awake two minutes before it happened, coming out of a nightmare like a man that just escaped drowning.

"Vannie," he said, and was immediately on his feet to tug on his night trousers. He went to her room, but before he could knock, her door was open.

"Alpha. I feel—"

"I know," he murmured. He followed her into her chambers and reactivated the hexes Zara made. Through the pack link, he told the Keepers guarding the gate to leave.

She clutched Daffodil to herself and bent herself into a fetal position on the floor, and that was when the bomb went off. It was too far away to shake the ground, but he heard the noise nonetheless. The second and third one came immediately after, d*mn near splitting his drums, and he knew it was the pain in Vannie's ears he was feeling. He went to her and covered her ears with his hands.

"Shh," he cooed to her pup, whose ears she was also covering. "It'll be over soon."

The next two bombs fell over the Inlands, followed by a brief moment of depressing silence. And then, the raging howls off his packmates.

He sighed, removing his hands from Vannie and moving closer to check her for injuries. "This will be a long night. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

His ears were still ringing, so he knew hers were, too. But she moved back to avoid his hovering hands. "I'm alright, Alpha. What is happening?"

He could already hear the Head Keepers coming to the Great Hall in the palace. "I'm going to find out."

To his surprise, she insisted on following him to the meeting, and when he pulled out the chair at the head of the table, she took it without question. He stood behind her and gestured for the meeting to begin.

They first channelled him the image of the destroyed walls of the Inlands, which was a terrible place to start from because he immediately became angry. The majority of it remained untouched, but that portion that lay in rubble was enough to make the territory vulnerable.

"They were able to touch the walls? What about the hexes?"

"Signs of wear and tear on our boundary's hexes has shown that a foreign object has been granted access into the Inlands. On multiple occasions."

Sin nodded, not disconcerted by the news. He was not confused — far from it. He was angry. But his mate was in this same room, and it would not do well for his cause if he gave into the rage in her presence.

"It took a bomb attack for Keepers of the Inlands to realize that our hexes were compromised. What made you all so careless?"

Their gazes lowered contritely without offering excuses, but it wasn't enough for him. People would have died if he hadn't felt the danger coming.

"Despite how omnipotent you think I am, I can't be everywhere at once. I can't keep the Inlands running smoothly, make sure pack business doesn't affect any wolf negatively, and still monitor the borders. You will all be severely punished for your incompetence, and for putting the lives of your packmates in danger."

He'd have been giving a very different decree if Vannie wasn't here, but she was and he didn't want her to keep seeing him as fearsome.

"I'll be down to monitor the damage in the morning." He could ask just the Keepers to use the machines for clean up, but the Inlanders loved community events. "Every Inlander must be at the gate early tomorrow to help with the clean up. You're dismissed."

They left, their disappoinment at failing him almost making him soften. But no, he'd learned it was sometimes the best thing to give the Inlanders a hard hand. It helped them become better, and even they knew it.

Vannie gestured for him to take a seat beside her when the last Keeper was out of the room, and he did. He suspected she wanted to give him comfort of some sort, but didn't know how to go about it. So he took her hand and squeezed it.

She didn't seem uncomfortable at his forwardness, so he relaxed.

"Shouldn't you have been able to feel the hexes give way, though? I mean, you're Alpha. Your soul is tied to the lands, right?"
"I'm tied to the lands, not the hexes. I could feel that our lands were about to get hurt, but it can't be the same over a bunch of spells."

That seemed to make some sense to her, and she nodded thoughtfully. He didn't remind that she'd also felt the danger coming. Her soul was also tied to the Inlands now, and he didn't think she knew it herself. This final confirmation did things to him. Things that made him excited, despite the bad news he had to deliver.

"There's a traitor in the Inlands."

Vannie's hand froze in his. "W-what?"

"Yes. Our Sorcerer is on the loose again, it would seem. He's the foreign object that had been granted access into the Inlands. And since he tried to abduct you the last time he was here, I'm sure he's looking to try again."
She frowned. He hadn't meant to upset her, but it was probably a good thing that she knew the stakes now. "My Queen..."

Her grip on him tightened, "How do you know? That there's a traitor, I mean."

"At few minutes past the twelfth moon, new gate Keepers take over duty from the old ones. A slice of time during that switch is the most vulnerable time for the Inlands. And only someone who is aware of how we work could know that."

Her eyes darkened. She'd been expecting something else, he could tell. "So, someone in your court of your army sold information about the Inlands?"

"Yes," he said, "and he will be punished when he's found out."

"I see. Well, had it been you found the Sorcerer like you promised you would, maybe this wouldn't be happening."

That stung, but she was correct in her own way. He'd failed to bring the Sorcerer to book like he told her he would, just as he'd failed her the first time and almost got her kidnapped.

"My Keepers did find him," he said ruefully, remembering the image they'd channelled to him after the Sorcerer was caught. He'd been hiding in a cave in one of the territories, and had immediately created a portal into which he disappeared. But not before the tracking spell that Zara made had been put on him.

So far, the Sorcerer didn't seem powerful enough to detect that he had another fae's magick on him, so Sin decided to let it play out as long as possible. If Sin had been the one to chase after the bastard himself, he'd have been able to read his thoughts and find out the exact information he needed, but this wasn't bad, either.

"His name is Crom, and he works primarily for the Crinites. I could kill him right this moment if I wanted to. But I'm not going to touch him, because I have reason to believe he could lead me to the other fishes."

She'd gone pale as soon as he mentioned the Sorcerer's name, and when he tried to hold her tighter, she took her hand from his. She stood, holding herself so still, he feared that if he poked her, she'd break.

"That's a good thing for the Inlands, I'm sure," she said, voice hoarse. "I'm going to sleep."

He stood with her, ready to leave, too, but she seemed determined to keep a distance between them. "Vannie?"

She stopped and turned back to him. "Yes?"

"Be careful."

She fled.