The Moon Wolf

Chapter 21 (1st Draft)

Lucas relayed this all to Troy now.

It was Jules who asked what neither men had thought yet to ask themselves. "Was she his only target or do you think he intended to hurt the pups too?"

Immediately both men shook their heads 'no'. They wanted to deny the possibility altogether. The children had already, at that point, been unofficially adopted into the pack. The word had already gone out that the Griffin pack orphans were being brought into the pack and would be publicly accepted without delay. The children were as good as members of the pack. And no self-respecting Beta would ever attack pups from his own pack for any reason. So, the thought was preposterous.

And yet, Anex also knew the rogue was a guest and that attacking her would clearly result in his public demotion and other punishments. Was it possible he was after the children and not just Penn?

As the two men's minds were running a million miles a minute trying to think of every possibility Jules asked with quiet curiosity, "Did Arn have any ties to Codax's? Could Codax have asked him, as a back up plan, to take out the Griffin pups if they ever got here? Codax must know that Lara would have sent all the pups here for their protection. He must have known that Lucas is the First Beta here. The man knew every little detail about Lara's life after all. He was a true stalker in every sense, " she said with disgust. "I'm sure he knew it was possible that some of the pups might eventually find their way here, right?"

This line of questions brought a shocked gasp from both men. There was a tie. Arn and Codax had originally come from the same pack. It was a small nomadic pack from the south that had no power, prestige or assets accept that it produced highly skilled hunters, who could be transformed into very useful Second Betas - like Arn.

Arn had met his mate, who was a member of the Orthos pack, while his pack was travelling along the southern regions of Orthos territory several years back. He'd left his pack and was welcomed into Orthos without question. This was a very common practice.

When the previous Orthos Alpha, Kress, realized Arn's potential, he began to train him for the role of Second Beta. He was given the role the year before Troy challenged Kress for the pack and won.

Troy had been Kress' First Beta for several years and had helped train Arn. He thought Arn was a very capable Second but did not promote him to First Beta when he won the pack after a pretty epic battle. Instead, Troy had given the role of First Beta to the man he trusted more than any other soul in the pack – Lucas.

Arn had not shown any signs of displeasure or dissent when he was overlooked for the promotion. In fact, he seemed very supportive and quite content to remain Second Beta in such a big pack where the work for a Beta was endless and he was well respected among everyone despite the fact that this was not his birth pack.

Troy and Lucas looked at each other and they both let out a sigh of frustration. Was it possible that Arn had always had a seed of discontent in his heart from the day he entered the pack? They might never know. And it was unlikely, since he was not successful in killing Penn, that Codax would ever admit to any plot to destroy the Griffin pups by using his old pack-mate.