The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 165

The inquiry

(Calus)

After breakfast Isla fell asleep once more which gave me enough time to deal with what I’d been putting off since yesterday

I sat at the small desk and reached for Pryor through the mind link. He was there immediately

1 need a quiet inquiry sent to the border watch,’ I told him. ‘Ashcrest exile movements. Anything within range of the human settlement or the southern road. Nothing official. Word back to me directly

How long has this been a concern? he asked.

Since the settlement visit, I said.

Til have word back before evening,‘ he said.

Keep it quiet,‘ I said. ‘Not today.”

‘Understood.

The mind link closed.

I sat back and thought about what Isla had told me. She’d seen Brent. Held his gaze. He’d looked away first and walked into the crowd.

He hadn’t approached her.

That detail mattered but it wasn’t the detail that was sitting heaviest in me right now.

Brent shouldn’t have been there at all.

He’d been taken under royal guard after the hearing, his sentence pending, direct harm confirmed in his own words in front of the entire hall. He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere except a cell. He certainly wasn’t supposed to be walking freely through a human settlement within range of Wraithbone’s border.

For him to be there someone had to have helped him get out.

г

Not someone from Ashcrest. Not one of Rodan’s people, who were all either in confinement themselves or under heavy escort when we left. Someone with access to where Brent was being held. Someone who knew the details of his confinement well enough to move him without drawing attention.

Someone inside Wraithbone.

I thought about the royal guards assigned to Brent’s transport. I’d chosen them myself, the way I chose everything that touched a prisoner of that significance. They were experienced, reliable wolves who had served under me long enough that I didn’t question their loyalty when I handed them an assignment.

But the mate bond was not something reliability accounted for.

I had felt it myself, the day I walked through the door of a shack and it hit me before I’d even seen her face. The bond didn’t ask permission. It didn’t consider timing or consequence or the position it was about to put someone in. It simply arrived and rearranged everything around itself whether you were ready for it

or not

If one of those guards had encountered Brent and felt the bond, the choice she’d been faced with wasn’t a simple one. Report it–and watch her mate go back into a cell pending an outcome that wasn’t going to be favorable. Or do something about it quietly and hope nobody noticed until it was too late to matter.

She’d chosen the second option.

I couldn’t say I didn’t understand why

That didn’t change what it meant. A royal guard had breached her post. Brent was free when he shouldn’t be. And somewhere between that decision and Isla standing in a market holding her ground while her brother looked away first, a thread had been pulled that connected back to someone still inside these walls

I reached for Pryor again.

The inquiry about exile movements,‘ I said. ‘Add something to it. I want a quiet account of the royal guards assigned to Brent’s transport after the hearing. Who they were. Where they are now. Whether any of them have shown anything unusual since we returned.’

A pause.

You think the escape was assisted, Pryor said.

I think Brent being in that settlement is impossible without inside help, I said. ‘And the only people with that kind of access were royal guards.

Another pause.

I’ll be careful about it, Pryor said.

‘Good, I said. ‘Nobody outside of you and me knows this line of inquiry exists. Not yet.”

‘Understood, he said.

The mind link closed again.

I sat at the desk for a while longer and looked at the covered window and thought about the bond and what it did to a wolf who wasn’t prepared for it. I thought about the guard who had stood at a cell door and felt something arrive that she hadn’t asked for and made a decision in that moment that had consequences far beyond what she could have fully calculated.

Brent was in that market when he had no business being there.

The mate bond had gotten him out of a cell. What he did with that freedom was the question that mattered now and I wouldn’t have an answer until Pryor came back to me before evening with whatever the border watch had found.

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