Chapter 253

PIPER

As I entered the common hall, the pungent smell of dew and pine traveled in the morning air. My mind jumped back to the note Dane had spoken of, but I had no idea as far as its contents were concerned. The itch in my head seemed to have turned disturbing, and so my eyes began searching the room for a clue of any sort. It was a stray piece of paper on the edge of the table where Alina had sat during yesterday’s meeting, half-concealed under a folded napkin, that first caught my eye as the hall began filling with wolves readying for the tasks of the day.

My brow furrowed as I reached for it, my fingers brushing against the rough paper. The moment the note opened in my hand, my stomach somersaulted. The script was squeezed, rushed, and unfamiliar.

All it said was, “Keep the next move discreet. They can’t suspect anything yet.”

I closed my fingers more tightly over the paper as my gaze flashed around the room. Alina wasn’t anywhere, yet I could sense her behind me, lurking like a ghost.

“Warrick,” I whispered, clenching his arm as he strode into the training ground later that afternoon.

He froze mid-stride, the perpetual grin on his face faltering as he took in the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”

I held up the note, my voice low and urgent. “I found this near Alina’s seat after yesterday’s meeting. It’s suspicious.”

He took the note from me, brows furrowing as he read. “What the hell is this?"

“That’s what we need to find out,” I said, crossing my arms. “I don’t trust her, Warrick. There’s something she’s hiding, and if we don’t figure it out…”

“She’s going to get away with it,” he finished, his voice hardening.

I nodded. “Exactly.”

For a moment, Warrick’s gaze flickered with hesitation. Then he sighed, shoving the note into his pocket. “All right. Where do we start?”

We had spent hours checking her usual haunts: the storage shed near the edge of the village, the abandoned cottage she would often sneak to under the pretense of “training,” even her quarters.

Every lead turned up nothing.

By midday, frustration had set in. Warrick slumped against the side of the training arena, his hand raking through his hair.

“Maybe we’re overthinking this,” he muttered. “She’s sneaky, but she’s not stupid. If she’s hiding something, it’s probably somewhere we’d never think to look.”

I paced in front of him, my mind racing. “There has to be something. Notes don’t write themselves, and Alina doesn’t strike me as the type to leave loose ends.”

“Then where the hell is it?” Warrick snapped, the heat in his frustration a match for my own.

I stopped my footsteps, my eyes drifting toward the packhouse. “Her stash,” I murmured, more to myself than to him.

Warrick frowned. “What stash?”

“Everybody’s got one,” I said, my voice whittling down to bone with growing conviction. “A place where they stash their secrets. Alina’s no different. We just have to figure out where it is.”

We started with the packhouse, working our way methodically through every room we knew and every crawl space and cranny.

It was long and torturous—the creak of a floorboard, the rustle of shifted paper always tempting discovery.

“Nothing,” Warrick said after the hundredth empty drawer. “This is pointless.”

“Keep looking,” I insisted, though my own resolve was starting to waver.

An hour later we were about to give up when Warrick stopped by the hearth. His brow furrowed as he crouched, his hand brushing against the edge of a loose stone in the wall.

“Piper,” he said, his voice low.

I ran to his side, my heart racing. “What?”

He grasped the stone, pulled and tugged it with grunting efforts until it came loose. It showed a small, hallowed place behind. There was a bundled lot of papers, tied by some frayed string.

“Bingo,” Warrick muttered, pulling the bundle out.

The papers were letters, each one more damning than the last. They detailed communications between Alina and someone outside the pack, someone she referred to only as “X.” The letters spoke of plans to destabilize leadership, to sow discord, and to exploit the pack’s vulnerabilities.

One letter, in particular, made my blood run cold. It read: “Meet me at the old mill tomorrow night. We’ll finalize everything then.”

“An old mill?” Warrick repeated, turning to me. “We have one of these somewhere?”

I nodded, barely in a whisper. “Some few miles to the east near the river. I think it has not been in use in years.”

His jaw clenched then. “She is up to something. And we just got ourselves in the front seats.”

I folded the note and tucked it into my pocket. “We have to show this to Aurora.”

“Not yet,” Warrick said, his hand clamping around my arm. “If we accuse Alina now, she’ll just deny it. But if we can catch her in the act…”

I nodded, the weight of what hung in the balance weighing upon me like a boulder. “Tomorrow night, then.”

“Tomorrow night,” Warrick echoed.

Warrick and I stood wordlessly in the dim light of the packhouse, the weight of what we’d uncovered weighing heavier with every second. I looked down at the letters in my hand, my fingers clenching on the fragile papers. The mere idea of what Alina could be planning tied my stomach in a knot.

“What do we do until tomorrow?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Warrick ran a hand through his hair, his jaw clenching. “We keep our heads down. If Alina gets wind that we’ve found these…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

I nodded, slipping the letters into the inner pocket of my jacket. “We act normal. No sudden movements, no giving her any reason to suspect.”

Warrick’s eyes were slitted as he stared hard at the hearth where we’d found the stash. “Normal. Sure. Except I feel like I’ve got a target painted on my back now.”

A small smile tugged my lips despite the tension. “You’re not exactly the gentle type, Warrick.”

He laughed dryly and shook his head. “Gentleness isn’t my strong suit, no. But I can play the game when I need to.”

The rest of the day was spent with a fake normality. I did my usual things, making appearances around Alina often enough to assure her all was right with the world, yet not so much as to raise red flags. Every time I came across her, my heart started to race in that anger and anxiety-charged hum.

“You’re distracted,” Aurora said, as we sorted through patrol reports together that evening.

I forced a smile, shaking my head. “Just tired, that’s all.”

Aurora’s keen eyes lingered on me a moment before she nodded, softening. “Make sure you get some rest tonight, Piper. The pack needs you at your best.”

The words hit hard and twisted in my chest. If only she knew what Warrick and I had managed to dig up. But I couldn’t say a word. Not yet.

The night fell, and Warrick and I once again met in the training arena, hidden well from prying eyes. He clutched a lantern in one hand and had a grim look on his face.

“I hate waiting,” he growled, shifting about.

“You’re not the only one,” I said, leaning against one of the wood posts. “But we have to be smart about this. We can’t just rush in there, or we’ll end up screwing everything up.”

He stopped pacing, his eyes locking onto mine. “You’re right. I just…I don’t trust her, Piper. Not even a little.”

“Neither do I,” I said. “But we’re going to make this right. Tomorrow night, we will end this.”

Warrick nodded, and resolution hardened his face. “Together?”

“Together,” I pledged.

The hours crawled by in my bed that night, sleep forbidden. My brain was ridden by the morrow, the old mill, Alina’s plans, and the letters—all just pieces of a puzzle I couldn’t seem to fit together yet.

But one thing was for sure: we were walking into a trap.