I wasn’t, however, going to let Amos walk around Timber Ridge as puffed up as a turkey ripe for plucking.
Not at all. I’d control my powers and respond appropriately, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to react.
“Amos Fletching,” I said in a low voice that was just shy of a growl.
A muscle on Amos’s face jumped, and he tried to curl his lips back in a sneer, but when I rested my gaze on him and let my power as Alpha ooze off me, he didn’t move.
“I don’t care who sent you. The Northern Lakes Pack will cooperate with your investigation; however, you will observe the rules I gave you earlier, which includes staying off Pack land beginning at sunset.”
Amos opened his mouth to argue.
“No,” I said, speaking with the full authority of an Alpha.
He clenched his jaw and looked away.
A crooked smile escaped my control.
It seems not all hunters have the grit of our Pip.
It was hardly surprising. Pip was a law unto herself—I knew that better than anyone else in the Pack. But it was interesting that she was so easily able to flaunt an Alpha’s power when Amos, it seemed, was having a much harder time.
“Do you understand?” I asked Amos after several long moments.
Amos kept his eyes down and scowled at the ground—a sign of his resistance.
That was fine. Intimidation worked when my authority wouldn’t. “Amos Fletching,” I deeply growled.
“Understood,” the crusty hunter said.
I inhaled discreetly, sniffing out the sour smell of Amos’s body odor. His heartbeat was steady, indicating he was scared but wasn’t lying.
My message had been received.
I leaned back in my chair and returned to studying the state paperwork.
After this I need to look over the new options for our 401(k) employee programs, and glance at the report the accountants made on the new hospital we’re purchasing three cities over.
A minute passed before Amos moved, his leather boots cracking as he paced from one side of my office to the other.
“I will be certain to make note of your requirements in the case file,” he said.
I didn’t bother to reply.
He seemed to think I cared what the Regional Committee of Magic thought about us. I didn’t.
I just wanted to find out what had been put on the Low Marsh wolf to turn him wild. If this was how the committee investigated the issue, I’d bear with it, until one of my wolves or I uncovered the spell, that was.
“Have you learned anything related to the magic put upon the wolf?” I asked when it was apparent Amos wasn’t going to leave.
“We found evidence of magic, but have not been able to uncover its origins,” Amos said.
“In other words, you still only know as much as we told the committee when we lodged a report on this entire incident.”
“We’ve done further investigations,” Amos snapped. “We can say for certain it was not fae magic, though based on the contents of the wolf’s stomach, it was likely a potion.”
I carefully signed a piece of paperwork with a pen, holding it gently so I wouldn’t crack it.
A potion? But besides fae, who else makes potions?
Potion making used to be a bigger industry—or so I’d heard—back when the elves were around. But they’d been gone for centuries.
“Further investigation of the wolf’s body revealed it would have died from bleeding out if you hadn’t killed it first,” Amos said. “From the dagger wounds Hunter Sabre inflicted on it.”
I paused and flicked my eyes up.
He can’t possibly mean to drag Pip into this? She’s a hunter—she’s cleared to fight wolves, particularly feral wolves. There’s no way they can pin this death on her, no matter how the Low Marsh Pack wants it.
I wasn’t an idiot—as important as the magic on the wolf was, there was some politics behind this investigating thanks to the yipping of the Low Marsh’s Alpha.
The Low Marsh Pack was getting to be too big of an irritation to let it run around howling any longer.
As a Pack, they were small and posed no threat to us. But while I believed that as the strongest Pack in the region we should be careful not to overstep our boundaries, I was not going to have my packmates bow and scrape to an Alpha so incompetent he couldn’t keep track of his own wolves despite having fewer than fifteen members under his command.
“Phillipa Sabre is an accredited hunter and is cleared to take on feral wolves,” I said. “She’s excellent at what she’s trained to do.”
Amos rubbed the tip of his hooked nose. “If she’s so well trained, what’s she doing in a wolf Pack?”
The temptation to put Amos in his place grew stronger so it was a tightness in my chest.
I was used to people questioning Pip’s presence in the Pack, though Hudson—the wolf I’d taken over from—said it had been worse when she was a teenager.
But I’d never had another hunter question it. The Quillons had helped Pip and gotten her accredited all without batting an eyelash at her homelife.
It wasn’t good that Amos was so interested in her.
“Pip does whatever she wants in our Pack,” I said, unwilling to give this creep more information on her personal life.
“Interesting.” Amos folded his arms across his chest. “So she’s not specially trained to take out your enemies?”
I stared blankly at Amos.
How did the committee put such an important investigation in the hands of someone so unbelievably stupid?
“The Northern Lakes Pack doesn’t need anyone to fight for it,” I said. “Because there isn’t a Pack in the region that could harm us.”
Disgusted with the conversation, I glanced back down at the unwanted paperwork.
I hope Amos has to do binders of paperwork for this investigation. That would be justice at its finest.
“Then you won’t mind if I question her,” Amos said. “I heard she’s trained with you werewolves. I’d be interested in seeing what she’s capable of.” His smile was leering, and his shaded eyes were that of a low-level predator—one assured of its abilities even though it was weak.
My powers smacked so hard I couldn’t see for a moment. Rather than try to subdue it or push it down, I channeled it. My feet were silent as I stalked around my desk, invading the hunter’s space so he backed up until he hit a wall.
“You will leave our hunter alone.” It came out as a low growl, one that was heavy with every inch of my authority. “Don’t mess with her, don’t bother her, don’t even look at her.”
I loomed over Amos, who shook slightly. “The committee will hear—”
“Go ahead. Tell the committee,” I said. “As the Alpha of the Northern Lakes Pack, it’s within my rights to protect my packmates—including the hunter.”
I stayed in Amos’s space as I listened to his heart beat violently in his chest, and the sour smell of his sweat increased, making my cedar scented room almost muggy.
I lifted an eyebrow at him and smirked. Only then did I back off, shut my powers down, and walk back to my desk.
Amos stayed on the wall, glaring at me with hatred.
He was scared of me, and he hated that I knew he was.