Ayla: Always an Alpha

Chapter 32 - The Good Thing

~Ayla~

I was paying bills when I received the call on my cell phone. The caller ID said it was from the council, so it could have only been about one thing. Biting my lip, I stared at it as a wave of anxiety flowed through me.

I'd been on edge since Killian left. He wouldn't tell me anything about where he was going or who had been behind all of this.

The call could only be to notify me of one or both of two things: that the person behind my bounty was dead or that my would-be assassin was dead. While I had complete faith in Killian, a part of me feared the call would be to inform me of the latter.

Clenching my pen tightly, I took a deep breath and answered the phone. "Ayla Huxley speaking."

"Alpha Huxley," the deep voice on the other end responded. "This is Councilman Herald. How are you?"

I replied with the only acceptable answer to this question. "I'm doing good. Yourself?"

"Good, good. I'm swell. And I have some great news for you. I wanted you to hear it from us first."

"Oh?"

"Yes, we've just finished investigating an incident in Nevada."

Nevada. This man was going to tell me that Killian had been in Nevada. He was already 2,000 miles away, and he was never coming back. I took another deep breath. "An incident?"

"Yes, we've confirmed that we've found the man behind the recent assassinations."

"Confirmed?"

"We've found evidence linking him to the recent attempts. He was our guy."

"Was?" I asked, knowing the answer. He "was" because he "is" dead. Very dead. Probably deader than dead.

"It appears that the man had been deceased for about a day before he was found in his Las Vegas home last night. There was a note. It was self-inflicted. Seems he knew he was going to get caught."

"Oh." Killian was covering his tracks. He'd never needed to before, but apparently that didn't stop him from being good at it now.

"Yes. It's a tragedy we weren't able to apprehend him properly, of course, but we wanted you to know that you no longer have to fear for your life."

"Well, thanks for letting me know." I stated because what else was I supposed to say? Then, I realized I didn't sound nearly as emotional as I should've. "Councilman Herald, I can't convey to you how much of a relief this news is to me. Everyone's been on edge here."

"You're very welcome. Hope you have a nice evening, Alpha."

"You too."

I ended the call, and placed a hand to my tightened chest. I couldn't tell if I wanted to cry, rejoice, or scream, so instead of letting itself free, the unidentified emotion was caged under my skin.

"Breathe, Ayla," I whispered to myself as I forced air into my lungs. "Just breathe."

I was still at my desk an hour later when my phone rang again. This time the call was from Alpha Cox.

Could I pretend I was busy? I wondered before remembering the two warriors downstairs in the lounge. I'd said hi to them before coming up.

This time, when I pressed accept, the caller did not let me say any words of acknowledgement. They went straight into what they had to say.

"Huxley," Cox said. "The council has found your instigator. Your extra security is dismissed and will head back here tomorrow."

"Thanks for letting me know." I was turning into a broken record.

In contrast to the councilman, Alpha Cox just grunted before hanging up.

I wanted to sit in the silence for a while longer, but if Alpha Cox knew, it was time for me to get my ass into gear. I couldn't have him using this as a moment to undermine me.

Jorge, I greeted the man via our mental connection. They've found the man behind the assassinations. The pack is going to need to release a statement. I'm going to draft something up and email it to you for your comments.

That's great news, he responded. Let me know when you send it.

Great news. I wanted to go back to a world in which someone being dead was not great news.

I spent the next hour drafting the most professional statement I could think of. I thanked the council for their dedication to the investigations. I thanked Alpha Cox and his warriors for their role. Channeling my inner politician, I kept it uncharacteristically positive. After reading it through multiple times on my own, I emailed it to Jorge.

In the meantime, I was getting a barrage of notifications from every privately accessed supernatural news outlet I was subscribed to. While waiting for Jorge to get back to me, I browsed them for any mention of Killian. There was nothing.

The pack the man from Las Vegas had identified with had already released a statement condemning the actions of the man and pledging their support to the rest of the investigation. One site had already done a short biography on the "life and motives" of the man, who had apparently been an alt-right hedge fund manager and had tended to spend most of his time away from his pack in a second home outside Vegas.

All of it made me extremely uncomfortable, so after submitting our pack's finalized statement as quickly as I could to the news outlets, I powered all my devices down except my cell phone.

Not just in case Killian caved and called me, I told myself. No, instead, I left it on in case another council member called. That was the only reason, of course.

~~~

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Question of the week! What's the best supernatural news outlet name you can come up with? I might just slide some of my favorites into a later chapter :)