Chapter Five

Chapter Five 

The clanking of the pen against the table before him, helped to calm his mind and helped him focus on the papers before him. He needed to figure out who was in charge of the attack that had happened last night and all the affiliations that had been involved in it. 

He had spent all morning working on it but there was nothing coming forth and it was starting to get a little frustrating. Sighing once more, he leaned heavily onto the captain style chairs he sat on and closed his eyes in thoughts.

Then he heard it.

Footsteps approaching his door, he frowned in reaction, he had given an instruction that he did not want to be disturbed at all, unless it was an emergency. 

The footsteps grew closer to the door and he felt it, the overbearing power in the air that usually came with Nalani.

A knock came on the door and he shivered in effect from the chilling sensation that slithered up his spine.

"Come in." Alpha Oliver called out shakily, clearing his throat once to ease out the hoarseness that covered it. 

A warrior walked in with a young girl held tightly in his grip. She had her head bowed but she didn't need to raise it up for Oliver to know it was her. 

But there was something abnormal about the scene before him. Firstly, the warrior seemed hostile to her and then her entire arms were covered with dirt along with her dress. Oliver furrowed his brows at that realization. 

"What's happening?" Oliver asked, once it seemed like no one was going to offer an explanation.

"I found her hunched over a dead body pretty deep in the woods. I can't be sure what exactly she had been doing but she seemed to have been burying the body and she's covered with dirt." The warrior said firmly.

Nalani remained silent to the accusations and Oliver continued to watch her carefully, allowing an awkward silence to settle in the air and he hoped it was enough to rattle her. 

"Leave the room. Wait outside." Oliver instructed the warrior and surprise painted the guard's face at Oliver's instruction, but he knew better than to argue. 

The guards gave a small bow and exited the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. 

Nalani kept her head bowed and she wriggled her fingers nervously, shifting from one foot to another. Oliver cleared his throat heavily, which startled Nalani for a second.

"What were you doing that deep in the woods?" Oliver asked. Choosing to start from the easy questions before building momentum. 

The warrior had made it clear what she had been caught doing but he wanted to make sure, for some reason he wanted to give this girl the benefit of doubt. 

If in this moment Nalani had given him an answer that made sense and or checked out in some way then he would have let her go. 

Maybe it was partial but there was something about her that made him want to do stuff like these, it was the reason he had sent out the guard to make her more comfortable. 

"I just stumbled upon it, I was trying to figure out what it was when he saw me and dragged me here." Nalani lied through her teeth but Oliver saw through it and it sent a flash of anger through him. 

"That's not what your appearance says Nalani, you look like you were past figuring out what it looked like. It seems like you were very involved here." Oliver pressed watching as the younger girl squirmed in her spot but otherwise remained quiet. "You've got to give me something. You have to convince me. If it's left to what I'm seeing right now then you're in pretty big trouble. What exactly were you doing there?" Oliver asked once more, getting frustrated. 

"Nothing, I just stumbled upon it and I was trying to find out what it was." Nalani replied, sticking to her story. 

Oliver clicked his tongue in distaste, upset that she had decided to stick to her shabby excuse even when he had been willing to help her. 

Oliver called out for the warrior and he came back into the room, his face set in clear distaste about having been driven out of the room. 

"Take her to the dungeon." Oliver said in a chilling voice for effect and he could see how it worked, Nalani's eyes snapped up and this was the first time that he had caught sight of her amethyst orbs since she had been brought in.

Fear danced in those depths and it worried Oliver but he steeled his features and only continued to watch her with cold eyes. He had given her a chance, there was nothing else he could do about this. 

The moment Nalani was out of the room, Oliver felt relief rush through him, it certainly felt like he could breathe better and the atmosphere felt lighter. 

He wasn't completely sure what the deal was with Nalani but he needed to get to the very root of it all. 

There was too much power coming off her for her to be a healer and the fact that she had no scent also made it harder for him to leave it alone. 

There was something that needed his attention here and he fully intended to indulge it. 

The last thing he wanted was to have a seemingly innocent maiden killed, but on the other hand, he didn't want to risk leaving a threat in my pack. 

he could let her go and then she could turn out to be something else, that would be a stain on his government if that happened and it wasn't really a thing for him to let go of potential threats, plus he mostly never used to care about how seemingly innocent they might be, especially if they had such a case hanging over their head. 

He also usually relied heavily on his intuition, if he got the feeling that this person was it then he usually took that feeling seriously and took the measures necessary to get them out of the way. Ryder, his wolf also helped a great deal with that but this time none of it seemed to be working, not his intuition or his wolf. Both seemed silent like they were leaving him to figure this out by himself completely. He huffed in annoyance at the extra work. 

He already had enough on his plate as it was. Enough that he could barely handle it.  The last thing he wanted was another pile on top of that. 

He rubbed his forehead with his index and thumb hoping to drive away the headache that had begun to throb behind his lids. 

Closing his eyes, he rested his back against his seat again and allowed his thoughts to run wild. Perhaps it could find something locked up in his head that could help him. 

"Yes, yes. I understand what you're telling me but trust me it will be very difficult." 

Those words played out again in his mind and the moment and situation that surrounded where he had heard them came flashing through his mind. Nalani had been seemingly talking to herself in her home. 

After he had barely managed to escape being caught snooping around her house, Oliver had tried to figure out who she might have been talking to and what it might have to do with this particular case. 

He came up blank. 

There were many things wrong about what had happened the previous night. He knew that he had been extra quiet and careful having been trained to perfection in the act of stealthiness, but somehow it felt like she had just known he was there and had approached the exact window that he had been crouched under. 

There was no explanation that made sense for that, in fact the more he thought about it, the more loopholes there seemed to be with this girl and it seemed never ending. 

Just when he felt he had this problem to take care of, another popped up and it was beginning to drive him out of my mind. 

Getting up from his chair, he closed the file that I had previously been working on but had long since forgotten due to my thinking and he put it completely away. 

His next location was set to the dungeon. He needed satisfactory answers and he was going to get them from the amethyst-eyed colored girl. 

"Argh… What's this noise?" Oliver groaned when he was near the dungeon. 

"It's the echo of hope lost but now found. It's the whimpers of redemption and a call to a second chance?" He had never had a mate and he would never have a mate but why did his wolf always react when he was near her? 

"What the fuck does that even mean hunter?"