Chapter 49

BETA XAVIER

~Bang!~

I slammed my hand down on the desk, a crack splitting through the center of the wood. The warrior standing in front of me took a cautious step back, eyes wide.

“How did this happen!” I growled.

“We…we never expected them to attack in broad daylight, Beta Costa. And…”

I raised my hand, stopping him from speaking. I got up from my desk and walked toward him.

“What was the first lesson that you were taught in warrior training about rogues?”

“That they’re unpredictable,” he mumbled.

“Broad daylight or pitch dark, you’re assigned to guard the territory and always be cautious. You never know when or where they will attack,” I started explaining. “Isn’t that what I told you?” I asked him, and he nodded his head.

“How many of the warriors were injured?” I asked him, and a cold silence engulfed the room as the warrior hesitated.

“Five injured, and two are in intensive care at the moment, Beta Costa.”

“How many rogues were there?”

“Four,” he answered.

Four? How is that possible? Even if rogues were as skilled as warriors, they were outnumbered. How could they have easily taken out seven of my warriors?

I quickly mind-linked the pack doctor to run a thorough blood test on all seven warriors.

“You are dismissed,” I told the warrior standing in my office.

“I’m sorry, Beta Costa,” he mumbled again.

“Don’t let this happen again,” I warned him.

He quickly nodded his head as he walked out of my office. I was about to sit when I heard a knock on my door.

“Come in,” I called, and soon the door opened to reveal Ivan standing there.

“What is it, Ivan?” I asked him.

“There’s an issue, Beta Costa. Benjamin is missing,” he said.

“He must be repairing something in the town,” I asserted, but Ivan shook his head.

“The warriors looked everywhere for him, and even his mind-link was blocked off,” Ivan said.

“Beta Costa,” I looked up to face Ivan. “I don’t have a good feeling about this. He’s been acting strange for the past two days. And…”

~Knock, knock.~

Ivan paused and looked at me, so I gestured for him to open the door.

“Beta Costa, Alpha Derek wants to meet you in his office now,” the warrior informed me.

“I’ll be there,” I told him, so he bowed at me and left.

“Find him and bring him back to the pack,” I instructed Ivan before I walked out.

As I walked into Samuel’s office, I saw him pacing back and forth.

“Is there an issue, Samuel?” I asked him when he finally looked at me.

“Yes, I heard that Benjamin is missing.”

“Ivan just informed me. We’ll find him,” I reassured Samuel.

“The head omega came to see me earlier. There had been a blunder in their system, and Benjamin had reassigned a large portion of the workload to himself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He took all the jobs that brought him in close proximity with Eleanor. I don’t know why he did it, but I don’t have a good feeling about it,” Samuel said, and this made my blood boil.

“I told you we should have killed him when I found him with my first mate. But you didn’t listen,” I yelled while Samuel just looked at me.

“Okay, now there’s no time to waste. Why don’t you send a search party to look for him outside the pack?” Samuel asked me.

“I’ve already done that,” I told him when I remembered something.

~Shit!~

“Xavier, where are you going?” I heard Samuel ask me, but I ignored him, pulled out my phone, and dialed Eleanor’s number.

The phone rang for a long time before it went to voicemail. I tried again several times, but she didn’t pick up her phone.

“~Ivan, can you get a hold of Rebecca?~” I mind-linked.

“~I tried calling her phone, Beta Costa, but she isn’t picking it up,~” he answered.

My heart filled with dread.

“~Beta Costa?~” the pack doctor mind-linked me.

“~Yes.~”

“~I just got the reports of the blood test, and there was some sort of a chemical on all the warriors’ bodies that made them weak.~”

“~Thank you for the information, Doctor,~” I said as I cut the mind-link.

I suddenly remembered that Benjamin had been in my house too. I hurried back and went straight to the kitchen. Glancing around, I noticed Eleanor hadn’t brought any food from the pack house recently. When I opened the fridge, I spotted a half-finished cake sitting on the shelf.

~Where did she get this?~

I took the cake out and placed it on the countertop. I mind-linked the pack house kitchen to ask if they had sent it, but they denied it. Could Benjamin have put this cake in here? I was concerned maybe Eleanor had been weakened by whatever chemical the doctor found.

I looked around the kitchen and spotted a knife.

I quickly took the knife and began cutting the cake to get a sample for the doctor to test. As I tried to cut the center, I felt the knife hit something hard. I removed the cake pieces and saw a stick and a piece of paper inside a zip-lock bag.

What is that?

I carefully took a pair of scissors, opened the bag, and took the stick out. There were two pink lines on the stick, so I quickly opened the paper.

~I think you’re going to have to put up with all my weird food cravings now, Xavy—because I’m eating for two. :)~

My heart nearly exploded with happiness when I heard this news. ~I’m going to be a dad.~