CHAPTER 38

JULIAN'S POV.
I threw a murderous glance at Holden who remained by the door, looking from me to Olivia who was trying to get out of my reach. If it wasn't that the beta was my best friend also, I swear to the moon goddess, I would have killed him, cut his body into pieces, and fed them to the flying beasts of the earth.
"Can you get lost?" I spat at him.
"Of course, Alpha." He answered with a laugh.
"If you don't get lost now, I promise Niamh wouldn't recognize you again if she sees you in the next few minutes," I threatened him. With the current mood I was spotting, I Oyo as well injured the man.
"I was just about to leave, dear Alpha." He said but didn't make any intentions to move away from where he was.
I made to rise from the position I was in on the bed. The moment Holden saw that I was about to stand up, he closed the door loudly, and his audible laughter rang from the hall back to the room. I shook my head at the man's childish act, then I stole a glance at my mate.
She had her eyes closed and she bit her lips in nervousness. I flicked the strands of hair that splashes across her face back behind her ears and she opened her eyes. I smiled at her and she blushed.
"Shy woman," I said to her softly.
"I am not." She said in a low whisper.
"You are. Don't argue with me, okay?" I teased her.
She slapped my arm a little too hard and I pretended to be in pain. She sat up immediately and began to examine the arm she had slapped me at. While she was blowing air at the supposed stunting wound, I held her by the waist and began to tickle her until she began to laugh loudly.
"Alpha, this is an important matter."
I heard someone say from behind the closed door and I slapped my palm against my forehead. I knew that there was nothing I could do to make the man pestering me to leave unless I went with him. I looked at Olivia in apology and she shrugged at me like it didn't matter.
I leaned in and planted a quick kiss on her lips.
"Let me go and see what that man wants from me and I'll be right back before you even have a chance to miss me," I told her.
"Alright then." She said.
I stood up from the bed and went out of the room. The moment I opened the door, I met Holden by the door, waiting patiently. When he saw me, he smiled at me sheepishly. But under the smile, I could see that the beta was very worried about something. The little anger I felt about his interruption faded away and I also turned serious.
"What is it?" I asked in a very serious tone.
"Let's get to your study." My beta said and walked away.
When I saw him going away in the direction of my study, I was perplexed by the demeanor the man was displaying. What could be so serious that he couldn't even say it as we walked? I shrugged and rushed after him. He was almost at the door when I caught up with him. He opened the door to the study and we both went in.
"What happened, Holden?" I asked him as soon as we were in and the door was safely closed behind us.
"One of our informants is here." He informed me.
"Which of our informants?" I asked him since we gave many informants all scattered over the land, gathering information for us where we can't get to.
"The informant we planted secretly to investigate the Khoyata tree to see the people who had been stealing from it." My beta said simply.
I shot up my eyes instantly and fixed them on my beta. The man had information already? I had the informant planted around the areas where legend had said that the tree was after the man we captured the other day had died mysteriously. While I was desperate for an answer to the baffling questions that I had but I hadn't expected such a fast answer.
"Where is he?" I asked with enthusiasm.
"I asked him to wait for us at the hall," Holden said to me.
"Ask him in, Holden. Get someone to bring him in now," I commanded.
"Yes, Alpha." He answered.
I watched as the beta went out of the study, beckoned to someone, and he gave the person the instructions to get the man in the hall over to the study immediately. When he was done, he returned to the study and waited with me.
"Are you still angry I disrupted your lovemaking?" Holden asked with a slight smile.
"Of course I do!" I said in a false shriek.
"Oh, oh." My beta said and he laughed out loud.
"Hmmm..." I grunted at him.
I knew what Holden was trying to do was calm me down before the impending arrival of the informant. If it turned out that my brother was the culprit behind the whole mess all this while, it would mean that I had to do the needful and bring him to justice before everyone regardless of the brotherly bond that we shared.
"Thank you," I told my beta in an appreciative voice.
"You're welcome, Alpha." He replied with a shrug. "Think you are ready to hear the information now?" He asked me.
"I guess I am," I said hesitantly.
Whether I am ready or not, what would be would be. I have to listen to what the informant had to say about who was the real villain behind the whole incident.
"Good," Holden said.
As if that was the cue for the informant to make his appearance, a knock sounded on the door.
"Come in," Holden commanded.
The two of us watched in anxiousness as the man who was the informant came into the study. He was a redhead that had an average look that could be passed as an average.
"Alpha. Beta." He said in greeting.
"Are you an informant?" I asked him without wasting time.
"Yes, Alpha." The man answered with a slight bow of his head.
"What did you see while surveying? I asked him.
"Make sure what you are going to say is nothing but the truth, otherwise, you can lose your head." My beta warned the man.
"Yes...beta." The man shivered in fear.
"Now, spill it," I commanded him.
"I saw some men always going in one direction, so I followed them to where they went." The man began.
"And?" Holden asked impatiently.
"I indeed saw them at the Khoyata tree site." He said and paused again.
"Did you see their dress? What does it look like?" I asked him.
If his answer confirmed that the clothing the men he saw were putting on belonged to the Blue Blood pack, then, there was nothing my brother could do to wash himself clean from the guilt anymore. Much as it was going to hurt our sister and maybe hurt me a little also, I would still hand him over to the necessary people to give him his due punishment.
"Yes, Alpha. I did see their clothing." He affirmed with a nod of his head.
"Which clan did it belong to?" I asked, a little afraid of the answer I would get from him.
"They were... Aaahhh..."
The informant stopped his speech halfway and he shouted in agony. Holden and I looked up to see what was happening to the man. What I saw next shocked me to the bone marrow.
"Help! Help!! Some..." The scream continued.
The informant was sizzling before our eyes like he was in shock.
I blinked my eyes closed and opened them again to know if I saw something wrong. The informant's agonized scream continued to torment me as the invisible electricity continued to electrocute him. I watched in horror as the man fell to the floor, writhing in pain while he kept on screaming. Without stopping to think, I moved forward to help him.
"Don't!"
My beta shouted at me and I froze. I continued to watch as the informant struggled against the death that wanted to take hold of him. The struggle continued for only about five minutes more and then, life was snuffed out of the man. I shook my head in dismay as I looked at the lifeless body of the man who had been breathing before me only a few minutes earlier.
I looked at Holden and I saw the man also looking at the dead man in the same level of shock that I was. Holden's shock vanished very quickly and he dropped down to the man's side. He examined the completely burnt, unrecognizable body and he shook his head.
"He's gone." He said to me in a low voice.
"I know," I replied in a low voice and bent down to the man too.
"What do you think happened?" My beta asked me.
"I don't know. I don't know," I chanted.
Holden examined the man again as if he was looking for something like clues on him. I also examined the man, feeling all his burnt clothes for any form of electrical things that could have contributed to his electrocuted state. I didn't get anything odd and neither did my beta find anything unusual. Holden shrugged at me before he stood up and I immediately followed suit in the action.
"What do you think just happened to the man?" I redirected the question to my beta.
The man looked at me like I was out of my senses and maybe I was since he had first asked me the question only a few moments ago.
"Didn't I just ask you the same?" Holden asked me, confirming my thought.
"I knew you did but I'm trying to put my thought together and comprehend what could have happened between the few seconds when he had affirmed that he saw some men catering away the fruits of the Khoyata tree and when he was about to tell us the type of clothing those men wore," I told my beta.
When I saw Holden look at me in shock, I was sure my expression must have revealed how baffled I was. Holden's next words however baffled me the most.
"Wait, the informant did say that he saw the men stealing the crates of fruits, right?" He asked me, pointing to the burnt remains of the man.
"Yes?" I answered in the form of a question, feeling even more baffled than I already was.
Holden stared at me directly in the eyes before he spoke his mind next.
"The Khoyata tree is invisible, Adam. So, how did the informant manage to see it?"
"Fucking shit!!" I shouted and looked at the dead man.
"Damn right." My beta said.
"And there is nothing on him to electrocute him. Besides, if it was some electrical fault with the room we were in, he wouldn't have been the only one affected," I decided.
"Something is wrong somewhere, believe me," Holden said.
"Exactly what is wrong then?" I asked, still surprised.
"We would need to find that out later, Adam. For now, we need to clear his corpse away from here." My beta advised me.
"True. We also need to look around the perimeter to make sure that his death was not supposed to be a trap," I told my beta.
"Roger, Alpha," Holden said.
"Can you take care of this mess for me? I need to check on Olivia," I pleaded with him.
"Don't worry about it, Alpha. It will be settled soon. Just got and checked on our Luna." My beta conceded.
"Thank you," I told him. I took one final look at the dead man before I began to take long strides out of the room.
"You're welcome!" Holden called after me.
I waved my hands in the air, opened the door, and went out of the room. As I walked away from the hall to my room, I sighed out my concern. It wasn't that I needed to check on my mate, it was because I needed to be with her to reassure myself that everything would be alright.