CHAPTER 78

I did manage to use the fifteen minutes wisely. The sensors, alarms and spray devices were off as Micheal promised, the pack was eerily absent from the yard and the front gate. I didn't question how he'd done it, I ran, as fast as I could through the darkness and climbed the side of the ranch house to Martha's room.

The glass there had not only been kept unsealed, but was actually removed from the pain and set gently to the side, so that all I had to do was creep through the window.

I could tell there was a great gathering downstairs, murmured voices, some questioning, some arguing, combined with the rise and fall of the breath of nearly fifty wolves. Not the entire organization by any means, but the important members.

Getting into Leanne's room was even easier this time. I did have a small issue with the motion sensors in the room itself. they must have been programmed separately from the main security system, because they were still on.

No problem, my wolf had grown reasonably good at draining the power from any battery source. Made it look like the sensors lost their charge rather than someone had purposely messed with them. We gathered the helmet machine and briefcase, and the cellphone from the secret drawer. The tracking device we'd bugged was absent though. I'd have to ask Aiden if he knew what was going on there. Later. After I blew this problem wide open.

My nerves kicked me in the gut. I didn't let myself think about them long enough to hesitate or back out. It was now or never.

The main foyer fell silent when I descended the stairs. I'd allowed my scent out part way down so there was never a doubt who was coming.

The eyes of fifty wolves were staring at me by the time I reached the bottom step.

Anthony, at the head of a massive table consisting of three of the dining room tables pushed together stood up, his chair toppling to the floor behind him.

Leanne sat beside him, on his right, the normal seat of the Luna. I felt a little stab of hurt that she'd so easily taken what Anthony had offered to me only days before. Not that I wanted it. I just didn't want to be so easily replaced.

"Thank you all for coming," I forced confidence into my voice, it caught slightly on a few words, but I pushed through.

"You called the meeting?" Leanne snarled. "You don't have the authority...."

I held up the helmet machine and I caught the exact moment she realized what I was carrying. Her outrage turned quickly to fear.

"I hope everyone here can forgive my sporadic absences the last week or so, but I promise you it was all for good cause. I bring you evidence of a traitor within the pack. One under the employ of the United States military. Humans, with the knowledge and plans to bring this pack...maybe our entire species, to an end."

That received several snorts of disbelief. Werewolves were nothing if not stubbornly entrenched in our own ideas and ways of doing things. I set the helmet machine down on the table, two of the mid-range caporegimes shifting to give me room, though the look on their faces said they believed my declaration more a farce than anything.

"I'll start with the most damning evidence then, so you all know I'm not wasting you time."

I pulled out my cellphone and selected the file highlighting Leanne's betrayal.

The room tenses by the fifth second in, bodies stiffened lips lifted into snarls of disbelief. I deliberately let the clip fade into silence.

Leanne's face was a shade of putrid red I'd never seen on her before.

"Lies!" she growled. "She's been fucking that son of a whore from the Sentinel pack, he helped her...."

Anthony's snarl outdid her words and she fell silent. He was watching me, something unreadable on his face. Jealousy? Desperation? Anger? I couldn't tell.

"You can check it out yourselves, this is her secret phone where she contacts them." I tossed the silver device to Jacob who was watching me with a pale face and wide eyes.

There are more recordings, I've sent the files to each and every one of you that I still had the contact information for. But that one was the most damning. But I think you will also all want to know about this." I tapped the helmet.

"Leanne has been selling this as a cure, or treatment for migraines. Didn't know that your alpha was suffering from this common human ailment? Neither did I. Because werewolves do not get migraines. Except.. what if one could be induced. By...say...a particular chemical, hidden behind a particularly strong scent." I tossed the bottle of Azanit next to the helmet. I'd figured out the connection to the perfume after Aiden had told me about the helmet. A clever set up that couldn't have been Leanne's idea. "Have it tested. I'm willing to bet you find more that nausea inducing perfume in that bottle. The helmet is an electromagnetic device, designed to affect brainwaves and make the wearer more susceptible to manipulation. Leanne has been using it on Anthony to influence his decisions regarding the pack."

"Are you kidding me?" Leanne's voice was exasperated. "Are any of you listening to this bullshit? Mind manipulation using perfume? Surely we can all agree that Raven has gone mad, be it grief or some genetic flaw, she certainly isn't speaking in her right mind. Look, Anthony, I know you have...had feelings for her, but it's obvious the poor girl needs help..."

Anthony sliced a hand through the air, silencing her. His eyes never leaving me.

"How did you come by this so called evidence?" he wanted to know. It was all he asked, his words clipped.

"When it became clear that there was a traitor in the pack I remembered the night of Rob's death. I remembered that Leanne had been the one to choose the stopping place for the pack that night. Exactly right where the sniper had a clear view of us. I didn't want to make the accusation with no proof, so I snuck into the ranch house, two nights ago, and bugged Leanne's items. Including the one she had hidden in a secret compartment in her dresser."

Murmurs around the table. I'd been here and not one of them had known it. They didn't like that. Neither did Anthony, by the look on his face.

"And how did you know how to bug the property of a pack member?" He asked carefully.

Yup. I was in so much trouble.

I straightened my spine, knowing exactly how this was going to sound. It was a consequence I'd hoped not to have to face, but that wouldn't have been a realistic expectation. Not for my life.

"The Sentinel pack's alpha."

The fear on Leanne's face became speculative, sly. "She admits it. She's been spying on us for another pack. No doubt they've made up the rest of this bullshit..."

Anthony snarled and Leanne flinched, her face paling. She fell silent.

"You wouldn't listen," I told him, as calmly as I could manage. "I told you I thought Rob's death was suspicious. I told you someone ingrained into the pack must have been involved."

"So you went against me. Stood against me, with another alpha," his expression was torn between hurt and fury and outright anger. "You betrayed me, made the pack vulnerable to outside forces."

"The pack was already vulnerable!" I argued. "She made it so. The human military has been manipulating our actions for who knows how long? You think Rob would have ordered a hit on Gunner without any concrete evidence? All you had to go on was Leanne's suggestion and her 'inside intel'."

Half of the pack members in the room jumped physically, questions about the hit they'd been unaware of loud on their lips as the room exploded into chaos.

"Silence," Anthony was so worked up that spittle flew from his mouth with his bellow.

The tension of the room had shifted. Those who had just spoken out with outrage at the declaration were fuming, their discontent plain. They had quieted, but not entirely. Anthony was losing them.

"I will not stand by while you malign my authority!" He yelled at me.

"Then use your authority properly!" I yelled back, all the frustration and worry of the last few days finding an outlet into my words. "You've let her get into your head, and now you've become a tyrant. You cannot run a pack like this Anthony, the old you would never have tried. Where is the man I knew who thought things through logically? Who once advised Rob to do the same, when you felt that he was acting through emotion only?"

A flash of something. Hurt, or recognition maybe, stilled him. Like he'd suddenly remembered something of himself and he didn't like the realization.

"She's wrong!" Leanne tried again, her demeanor changed to the pandering weak supporter she'd been portraying for so long. "Anthony, everything you do is for the pack. You've worked so hard and it certainly isn't your fault if no one else has the decency to see that."

He didn't say anything, confusion clouding his expression.

"And look what she's done. She hasn't only challenged your authority, she's made sure everyone else has challenged it as well. So I beg you to consider, who, in all of this is your supporter, and who is the traitor?"