Chapter 116

Just because they were having issues didn’t mean that she was about to air their dirty laundry in front of everyone, especially these people whom she had never met before and had no idea who they were. While they were having issues now, it wasn’t anything that they couldn’t solve and move past together with an open and honest communication channel.

When elder Malachi opened his mouth to ask several more questions, Marcellus was quick to divert the situation. While he was thankful for the way Anastasia had spared him the shame and embarrassment that would have come from his father and council members finding out the truth of how he had initially handled his mate situation, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t appreciative. There was being appreciative and then there was pushing someone’s buttons and before the uncomfortable questions arose, he desperately needed to steer the conversation back on track.

“Since you’re awake,” he hummed as turned to glance at her. “Do you think you’ll be able to tell us more of what happened?”

Anastasia nodded and took in a deep breath, fully aware that she would have had to talk about all of this sooner or later but she had thought that she would have gotten some breakfast in her first. However, it appeared that food would just have to wait until later as she currently had seven pairs of expectant eyes on her.

“Before we get into it all, I want to ask how is Thea?” She asked, tilting her head up to glance at her mate, believing him to have sorted appropriate arrangements for the woman upon Anastasia’s earlier insistence.

“Thea is good.” Marcellus was quick to assure her. “She was set up in a room last night at the pack house and I believe she’s having breakfast right now with her son.”

Anastasia opened her mouth in surprise but was quick to close it, momentarily rendered speechless.

“Her son?” She finally managed to ask.

“Yes.” One of the council members, elder Maverick confirmed. “Marcellus requested for us to bring little Malik with us from Thea’s pack.”

She smiled politely at him before turning her gaze to her mate who refused to meet her eyes. She wanted to tell him that his gesture had been nothing short of immensely thoughtful, reuniting Thea with her son after everything that they had been through but it appeared that she would have to wait until that could happen.

Instead, she nodded and turned back to glance at the rest of the council and Dalton.

Taking in a deep breath, Anastasia began.

A lengthy period of time as she started from the moment that she left the pack grounds that fateful night to return home and receive the flowers and card as a late-night delivery. She recounted in detail from the moment she woke up in the dark room to the moment she had landed in Marcellus’ arm after throwing herself out of the window in a desperate escape attempt, relaying to them all everything that Harvey had told her as he revealed their master plan, having not expected for there to be anyway to derail it.

If the situation wasn’t so dire and serious, she probably would have laughed at the shocked expressions on everyone’s faces, including Dalton and Marcellus’ even though they had been present for the last part of it, having even already heard some of the story from her already.

“I’m sure I speak for us all when I say that I definitely wasn’t expecting that.”

Much to Marcellus’ surprise, elder Malachi remained silent throughout the whole conversation with only a thoughtful expression on his face but before he could question it, a few of the other elders asked him what he had seen once he had arrived on the scene.

Similar to him, they all thought it to be something out of a movie but unfortunately, this child trafficking scheme was nothing short of real and disgusting; something which needed to cease before even more people got hurt.

“Alpha Marcellus?” Elder Paulo turned to face him in question. “You say you have taken some wolves in for questioning?”

“Yes.” Marcellus confirmed with a simple nod of his head. “We managed to bring back them back with us. They’re in the dungeons now.”

“And the rest?”

“We killed them and burned their bodies.”

“Good.”

“However, we’re not sure how many escaped on the helicopter.” Dalton injected, quiet murmurs sounding around the room at his input.

Anastasia found herself struggling to keep up as more questions bounced around the room, someone answering and offering a solution quickly before another one arose. Almost as if he sensed her lost state, Marcellus reached behind him and placed his hand down on hers, his touch comforting her while he relayed the little that he had managed to get out of the child traffickers the previous night.

“Well, it seems the only way forward right now is to get some more answers out of these prisoners. Mind if we take them out of your hands?” Malachi finally joined the conversation even though Marcellus knew that regardless of his say right now, the council would have to take over this case as this was beyond him and his pack.

He merely nodded in response, more than glad to wash his hands of all of this.

With the conversation now over and the next move already decided, Dalton guided the council out of the office and down to the dungeons where the prisoners were being kept but much to Anastasia’s surprise, one remained.

Much to her surprise, the elder grinned at her with a knowing twinkle in her eyes before he turned to Marcellus.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us, son?”