Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna

Chapter 322: The report on the Luna

The moment the elevator doors shut completely, the soft warmth that had been sitting on Sebastian’s face dissolved. His expression shifted back into something cold and hard, and he turned and walked back toward his office, resolved to get through every meeting and every item on today’s schedule as quickly as possible so he could make it back to his wife in time for dinner and claim at least one more blissful night beside her.

When he returned to his office and settled behind his desk, the one that looked out over the wide glass wall and the view of his pack city stretching out below, Sebastian looked up at the doctor expectantly, ready for the report. But he immediately noticed something was off. Gilbert looked vacant, his eyes distant, and there was a faint flush sitting high on his cheeks that made Sebastian slowly arch one brow.

He tapped his fingers against the desk to get the man’s attention.

He might as well have shattered a glass on the floor for all the good it did. Gilbert didn’t even flinch.

Sebastian picked up a pen and hurled it at him. It hit Gilbert square in the chest and the doctor finally startled, finally noticing that the Alpha had returned from walking his wife to the elevator. Gilbert mentally kicked himself for getting so distracted and cursed whatever twist of fate had sent him down that particular hallway to bump into Laila Serrano.

"What’s got you so lost?" Sebastian questioned, studying him curiously.

He wondered briefly whether it was the open display of affection he hadn’t bothered to hide with his Luna that had the doctor red in the ears and vacant-eyed, but he doubted it. Gilbert was always professional, without exception.

Gilbert composed himself and said, "Nothing. I was just running through the report I gathered on Ember’s body and Javier’s, just as you asked me to." He said, forcefully pushing Laila from his thoughts and directing his full focus back to the matters that actually required his attention right now.

"So what does it say? Have a seat." Sebastian gestured to the chair across from him and watched the doctor settle into it, bringing up his tablet, which now had a crack running down the side of the screen, and scrolling through it.

"I secretly took samples from Laila—I mean, from Ember’s body, and from Javier’s, and your suspicions were not far off." Gilbert said, moving swiftly past his momentary slip of names and back into his report.

Last night, the Alpha had reached out to him privately and shared his suspicions about the two recent deaths in the pack, and Gilbert had worked through the night on it alongside the Luna’s medical report. The Alpha had suspected that Ember had been poisoned with silver through something she had consumed, and that had proven correct. As for Javier, his death had not been caused by the electric pool either.

"Tell me everything." Sebastian said, settling back in his chair and watching the doctor steadily.

"From what I can determine, Ember had indeed been drained by a power similar to that of the sea creatures, but as we know, or as my grandfather’s texts document it, the sea creatures’ draining ability is not something capable of killing our kind outright. It would cause an intense dehydration that would eventually pass within a few days and leave the affected person with a condition of flaking skin, nothing more. That was not what killed her. What killed her was the silver she consumed afterward, and because her immune system had already been severely weakened by whatever had drained her, the silver took immediate and fatal effect." He reported, and Sebastian’s brows knitted tightly together.

This didn’t answer his questions directly and only deepened the confusion. A sea creature’s draining power shouldn’t have been traceable in Silver at all, and from everything he knew, his wife had been the last person to have gripped Ember’s wrist.

Sebastian felt his stomach plummet at the possibility this was quietly pointing toward, even though the possibility was entirely impossible when approached from any rational angle, because no sea creature could survive on land for an extended period, and no sea creature would be terrified of water, much less stayed away from it the way his wife was.

He didn’t like where that possibility was leading him, so he cut it off and asked instead, "How did she come into contact with a sea creature?"

"That is something that baffles me too. And before I forget, I also received the report from the men you sent to the American seas to search for one of the creatures." Gilbert said. "They found one. It is currently in their captivity and will be shipped back to Silver. It should arrive within two weeks."

Sebastian felt his heart leap. This was something he had been waiting and hoping for, and it had arrived at the very moment he had been thinking about pups and futures and the possibility of finally being free. The sacrifice that would free this generation from the curse had been found, and he would no longer have to carry that fear. He would finally be able to mark his mate without the risk of losing her.

"Can it get here any sooner than two weeks?" Sebastian asked, and Gilbert sighed.

"Unfortunately not. They cannot transport it by air, it will have to be shipped. The good news is that we have finally found it, and it will set you free. Whatever wait remains is worth it."

"Hmm." Sebastian hummed, feeling as though a great weight had shifted from his shoulders, but then the thread of their earlier conversation pulled him back and he said,

"There is no need to look too deeply into the sea creature connection with Ember’s draining for now. What I want to know more about is how she came to consume the silver. I will send for an investigation into who served her last." He paused. "And what about Javier?"

Sebastian didn’t particularly care that Ember was dead, she meant nothing to him personally. He was investigating her death because whoever had orchestrated it had likely done so because of the position Ember had been angling for, and that same threat could easily extend to his Luna. He needed to find and eliminate it before it did.

"Javier’s report and tests showed that his neck bone was broken, cleanly, without breaking the skin, and without any sign of fingers or hands around his neck. It was a clean kill that left no trace of how it was carried out. Someone killed him and staged it to look like the electric pool did the job."

"Are you telling me someone went in there after he was thrown into the pool?" Sebastian questioned, his expression darkening, because none of the warriors stationed around that area had reported seeing anyone, and the CCTV footage outside the punishment room had shown nothing when Sebastian had reviewed it the previous night to confirm his own suspicions. Who was doing this, and how were they leaving absolutely no tracks?

"That is exactly what it appears to be, Alpha. His neck was broken without any hands doing it, and I cannot explain in any way how it was accomplished." Gilbert said.

He had puzzled over it for hours without arriving at anything conclusive, and had ultimately left that section of the report blank rather than fill it with speculation he couldn’t support.

"The bastard is at it again then..." Sebastian muttered, the realization settling hard that this was the work of the same silent enemy who wanted him dead and wanted the seat for themselves. His fingers clenched slowly on the desk. This person was not going to stop, and he was going to have to flush them out one way or another.

"What about the report on my Luna? Do you have that as well?" He asked, not allowing his anger to crowd out the more important question, his wife’s health.

"Yes, I have it, and there is something more. Something I have been wanting to tell you since yesterday but haven’t had the opportunity to."