The Gamma's Birthright - Book 2
Thwarted

The Benefactor paces in his forest house, this wasn’t meant to happen.

He left the Gamma in the hands of Alpha Vincent for too long and now, not only had she killed him, which he’d planned to do sooner rather than later, so he wasn’t particularly bothered by that, but she’d disappeared before he could step in and take control of her, just out of reach.

No one had assumed she would be able to kill her Alpha, nor that his successor would banish her immediately, leaving no time to bring her in as a captive.

Worse, when she turned up a year later, she didn’t appear to be the rogue everyone expected and with her one transmission, she’d set their world on fire, everyone up in arms over the implications the Royal Pack had helped create a killer from a mere pup.

He had needed the Crown Prince to be at the helm, at least until he was ready to start the revolution, he was a known factor, a man driven by power, something he worked with behind the scenes, the figurehead in case things went wrong.

Darius would have needed to be deposed at some point, but he’d planned to do it when he was in a position to take over, not now, not when he wasn’t in a position to control what happened to the crown now.

How wrong had his plans gone, because of a stupid young bitch, he growled in frustration.

She had to have had help, how could the most reviled member of the werewolf community have got people to help and trust her, dammit, the benefactor punched a wall, leaving a hole felt satisfying for a brief moment, but, he should have kept a closer eye on her.

With the Crown Prince exiled, allegedly at his own request, his title revoked the Royal family were in disarray, with the news that they forced wolves to stay in an abusive pack and used one of the strongest packs as a puppet to try and detain her.

There was an unsettled air to the packs, no longer fully trusting the Royal Pack, eventually, it will settle, but how long will that all take?

Worse, all of this has a knock-on effect on his plans.

The King wasn't announcing a new heir apparent yet, preferring to let things settle, but with the whole pack under scrutiny, it now left him with a difficult decision.

Did he go with trying to execute the plan now, using the Alphas that he had bribed, bullied or blackmailed into working for him, he would need to be the figurehead, rather than being seen to sweep in to save the day as he’d planned and it would be a coup d'état.

Additionally, those that he’d blackmailed would know the Gamma was no longer under his control, so that could mean he loses half of his conscripts, but then if he left it, he’d risk losing control of the packs anyway, as fathers aged and handed the packs to their sons, meaning he’d have to start again and without the Gamma as his unknown and unwilling messenger, things wouldn’t be so simple.

He’d spent years cultivating the Crown Prince and persuading him that he should be the one to take the title, and now, it was useless, a decade of work down the drain, did he have it in him to start again?

The problem now was the difference in ages, at least with Darius, they’d grown up together, and without the King naming his new heir, he personally, was left impotent, unable to act.

Dammit.

The window shatters into a thousand pieces the noise gives him a small iota of satisfaction, a small feeling of power when it feels like his legs have been taken out from under him.

He stalked back to his desk, logic, that’s what was needed.

All that was needed was to answer two simple questions.

The first, after she’d been banished from her pack, where could she get to within three days before she went rogue, on foot?

The second, of the possible packs identified, who would take her in.

She may not know of the Benefactor’s involvement yet, but soon enough she’d feel it, there was a lot of work she’d need to do, to get the plans back on track, but he wasn’t giving up yet, he refused to believe a she-wolf that didn’t know he existed had bested him.

The Benefactor spreads out the pack map, marking the centre of the Nightshade pack and measuring out the maximum distance he believed a wolf, on foot would get, within those parameters, he creates a large circular mark across the map.

That was the area the Gamma had to get to find a pack to take them in, the start of where the search would begin and when she was found, she would pay for the trouble she had caused.

As far as the Benefactor was concerned this was his baseline to concentrate his search, the point at which she could get to safely before rogue status kicked in.

Checking the paperwork of the packs in that area, not a single record of any new entries to their packs, but one of the Alphas had to be lying.

Deadfalls were out, the Royal Pack had got a plant in there shortly after she was banished but that was also too far away, since she hadn’t taken her car, he couldn’t imagine any scenario where Antonia would have been able to be alone longer than the three days.

Anger roamed unchecked in his mind.

His plan was trashed, years of planning were now up in the air, and to make matters worse, his fake account in the Gamma’s name, his insurance plan to implicate her, was gone, along with the money, and it wasn’t just emptied, it was totally gone as if it had never existed.

Some of the other accounts that he’d used to pay money into that account were also gone, that was something else he’d expect retribution on.

Not that the money had been his to start with, but that was beside the point, it had taken a decade of siphoning off money from both the pack and his maternal grandmother, to set himself up and somehow, she’d altered all that in a short time, leaving no trace of the accounts ever existing.

When he found her, he’d enjoy extracting information on how she’d managed that little feat, and if others had helped her, they too would pay.

He would have his revenge and while he may need to put back the timeline, he still intended to rule the human and wolf kingdoms.

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