The Forbidden Alpha's Mate

I didn't sleep. Not because of the breach. Not because of the moved markers or the patrol report sitting on my desk unsigned but because of him. Ray Carter was two floors below me and the bond hadn't been quiet for a single second since I walked out of that room. I sat at my desk and tried to think like an Alpha. Someone moved his markers, someone adjusted his contract before it reached him. Someone wanted a rogue former Alpha inside my territory tonight and went to considerable trouble to make it happen quietly. Why. I couldn't focus. Forty minutes of trying to build a threat assessment and I kept coming back to the same moment. His eyes finding mine. Everything,  the patrol, the rain, five years of running this pack alone, dropping away like it had never existed. I pressed two fingers to the inside of my wrist. My pulse was not normal. The bond didn't ask for permission. It didn't wait for the right moment. It just arrived and rewrote everything and left me standing at a window at two in the morning trying to remember who I was before a clearing full of rain and the wrong rogue changed all of it. I moved to the window. Pressed my palm against the cold glass. The bond pulled toward the floor below me. Warm, directional, like something in my chest had developed a preference and stopped asking my opinion about it. I had built everything on control. Four years since my father died and never once let anything crack the surface. One look. One rogue. A knock at the door. "Come in." Daniel entered. Placed a folded paper on my desk, "Someone opened the east gate from the inside the night of the border probe, no authorization, no record of who." "Someone inside the compound." "Yes." "Pull faster and quietly." He nodded. Didn't move. "What else," I said. "The bond." Simply, "I saw it. Your hands stopped and you went still in a way I've never seen in four years." "I'm aware." "He felt it too. His whole body changed the second you came through those trees." Daniel held my gaze, "How hard did it hit you." I looked at him. "My pulse hasn't been normal since the clearing," I said, "His scent is still in my head, every time I try to work I end up back in that moment." I paused, "That's how hard." "What are you going to do." "My job." I stood, "He's a rogue with no pack and someone engineering his movements, most dangerous complication I could have walked into." "And you still brought him here." "Yes." Daniel moved toward the door and stopped. "For what it's worth, four years on that border, a lot of rogues." He paused, "None of them made you forget what you were going to say." He left. I was an Alpha. I had buried my father, rebuilt a broken pack, and never once let anything shake the foundation I stood on. Ray Carter had been in my compound for three hours and I could feel exactly which room he was in without trying. I went downstairs before I could make a better decision. The guard left when I told him to. Ray was on the floor. Back against the wall, not the bed. He looked like a man who had been sleeping rough long enough that four walls felt like a threat. He looked up. The bond moved. Not a pull this time but something quieter. Like two frequencies finally occupying the same space and going still because they recognized each other. Somehow worse than the pull. I sat in the chair. Said nothing. He said nothing back. "Someone built a fake contract to land you inside my territory at a specific time," I said, "That takes resources, patience and access to your handler's network." I held his gaze, "Someone has been watching you for a long time." "How long." "Long enough to know your patterns and long enough to know about my east gate." He went still. "Someone inside your walls is connected to whoever moved my markers." "Yes." "Tell me about your handler," I said. "Neutral corridor contact, good pay, clean jobs." His jaw tightened, "I thought I was being smart." "You were being managed." "Yes." Flat, "I know." The bond sat between us in the silence. Neither of us looked at it directly. "Why did you come down here," Ray said. "To talk." "It's the middle of the night." "Yes." "You could have waited until morning." "I could have." Neither of us said the obvious thing. I stood. "Get some sleep, tomorrow we go through everything." "Levi." I stopped. The bond pulled hard when he said my name. "The person inside your compound," he said quietly, "You already have a suspicion." I turned. Looked at him sitting on the floor in the dark. "Get some sleep," I said again. I closed the door. Stood in the corridor. I had spent four years being the coldest person in every room. Ray Carter had been here three hours and for the first time in four years I could feel something thawing in a place I had stopped checking for warmth. Daniel was waiting at my office. His face stopped me cold. "Three access points. All opened from the inside over the last two months." He handed me a sheet. "All cleared under the same authorization code." I read it. "That's Zayn's clearance," I said. "Yes." Daniel's voice was very quiet, "And there's more. He's been passing information outside the compound, whoever received it got Zayn's last transmission four hours ago." I looked at the timestamp. Four hours ago was exactly when Ray crossed my border. "They knew he was coming," I said. "Yes." "Before we did." "Yes." I folded the sheet. Looked at the wall. "Find the recipient," I said. "Tonight." "Levi-" "Tonight." He went. I stood alone in the corridor and understood something cold and complete. Tonight was not the beginning of something. It was the middle. And whoever was running it had just made sure both of us were exactly where they wanted us.