CHAPTER 609: THE LEAD!

I looked down at the paper and looked back up at Silas.

I took in a deep breath.

"If you didn’t send this letter, then how did I get it?" I asked, holding up the letter to Silas’s view.

Silas shrugged and cleared his throat.

"I have no idea." Silas shook his head.

My entire body froze.

What the hell was Silas getting at?

"That’s your seal." I pointed out the paper.

"Yes, but that is not the letter I had sent to you." He said.

I closed my eyes, unable to believe what I was hearing.

"How would a letter bearing your own seal be fake?" I asked as I rose to the floor. "And how did it somehow get to me if it wasn’t yours?"

"Whoa," Silas said, raising his hand at my growing tension. "Calm down, Xaden. We’ve been friends for too long for me even to lie or betray you."

The tension in the room was so thick I could taste it.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself.

I didn’t want to believe that Silas had somehow set Jasmine up.

What did he even have to gain?

Considering how much Anna had lied about her upbringing in the pack and how much I had been deceived.

I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone so easily anymore.

So who had done this?

"What are we going to do..." Silas said. "Is find the wolves whom had been instructed to send out the letter to you. Let’s start from there?"

I nodded as I massaged my temple.

Silas started to leave, but I went right behind him.

"I’ll come along," I said, refusing to be left behind.

I was already sick and tired of being ragged in a game out of my own foolish ignorance.

Silas nodded, and together we left the pack house and headed down the pack grounds.

"David!" Silas called out from the men training.

David, who seemed to be their trainer —a buff man who was short yet well equipped in the arts of training —turned to us.

I had never seen him before.

"Come." Silas beckoned with his hands.

David turned to the young boys training. "Continue with hand-to-hand combat. Don’t shift!"

And with that, he walked away from the barricaded training grounds and stood before us in a matter of seconds.

"Alpha." David quickly bowed.

His wolf whimpered in obedience, and I nodded.

It was only then that David slowly rose to his feet and met my eyes.

He had white hair and white brows; his eyes were equally white, and I instantly knew his species.

"David," Silas said. "I’ll officially introduce you to Alpha Xaden. Alpha of this pack."

I winced at being called Alpha of the moonlight pack.

David bowed again

"Xaden, this is David," Silas explained. "He is a well-skilled snow wolf."

Snow wolves

I knew their kind.

They stayed far away from other packs, such as the Desert wolves, and were adapted to the icy weather back home.

"You’re far away from home," I said.

David smiled. "Where a job comes, I go."

"David was one of Bale’s prisoners," Silas explained. "When we had taken over after Garrick’s death, we discovered that there were wolves like David who had been hidden in secret cells. When we saw how skilled David was, we asked him to become the trainer. Fights better than me."

"I’ve been here for over twenty years," David said. "I don’t think I have a home to return to."

I wondered just how cruel Bale had been to have snatched this man from his home and locked him up in a place where the humidity wasn’t so favorable.

"You’ve been in a cell for twenty years?" I asked in disbelief.

He nodded, his would-have-been pale skin now having a light tan.

"It was... well, bad business," David said. "And he attacked my pack. I was one of the few prisoners he had brought in. I am the only one who ever survived it today."

Just when I assumed I couldn’t get more disgusted by Bale’s past transgressions, he proved me wrong.

Even in death, he still chose to torment.

I wondered how many more secrets were still hidden from us.

"As far as the weather isn’t a problem. You’re welcome here." I said with a nod.

He looked like someone who could take on ten wolves at once without even needing to shift.

He smiled at me. "It’s an honor, my lord."

"David, I wanted to ask. The letters that were delivered to the moonlight pack about a month ago." Silas began, and David nodded. "It was one of your boys, wasn’t it? Heard he works in the courier system."

David seemed to think for a minute.

"Shouldn’t a wolf be leading the couriers that you ask?" I asked, lost in the disorderliness.

"That’s Dean," Silas replied. "His mate gave birth a few days ago, so he has been away from the main pack for a while. David takes over when he isn’t in."

"Usher!" David said with a snap. "Should be Usher and his buddy can’t remember his name. But they must have handled it. Usher is here. I’ll send for him right away."

David walked back to the training ground.

"Usher!" David called out. "Silas wants to see you."

A boy, probably around the age of eighteen, looked up from wrestling with another.

He had curly dark hair, and the moment he saw me, something in his eye fell.

I knew what was going to happen already.

Usher made a run for it.

"Whoa! Wait!"

All three of us ran after him.

But Usher was gaining more speed than we had expected.

Soon, we were getting close to the running boy.

In the moment I would have grabbed his shoulder, I saw a flash of blade, and in a matter of seconds, blood splashed on my face.

I came to an abrupt stop.

In my hand was the boy’s limp body.

He had slit his own throat.