Disguise

Checklist

"When you think about it, it makes sense. Most royals in the court had voted against Flora. They had made the collective decision and had taken Brianna's account into consideration before making this decision." Sienna muttered, recalling that day.

"Add to this the fact that Isla said the paperwork had an official seal confirms that it is one." Dani added.

"Also considering that not many people knew about the fact that Flora was your mate at the time." Grey added.

"Exactly. It had to have been one person convincing the others. You know how political that atmosphere was - they kept whispering things behind my back, but they were still my trusted council." My voice turned sour at that thought. Stupid people who didn't have any idea about my life made the biggest decision for me. I should never have let them!

"So what do you want us to do? Identify potential people who could be involved?" Dani asked and I nodded. "The problem is that we have been chasing all these loose ends - Isla, Deta and so on. But they're obviously pawns. Brianna - she may be involved but she didn't mastermind this. She would have to be as young as eighteen for the timeline to fit." I reasoned. It would have been easy to manipulate her into poisoning me though.

"Okay let's split up the work. Divide the pile between three groups and see what names we do come up with." Nate said, reaching for the pile of sheets in front of me.

"No, let's just go through the whole pile together. It will be more thorough that way." I said, placing my hands on the paper. Everyone nodded. "It might take time, but it would be thorough," I reasoned. In any case, we weren't in any immediate threat at the moment. "Besides it seems that if we had been thorough from the start we would have caught this in the first case."

"Okay, so what are we looking for?"

"I think it's safe to assume that anyone who supported Flora during the whole unfolding is not on this list. They wouldn't be scared to voice out against her if the majority was too." Sienna reasoned and we all agreed. I passed around the sheets - one for each of us and pens for everyone. Everyone began to cross off what names they could remember who sided with her.

"Why Brianna?" Noori asked, her voice quiet, but everyone was attentive anyway. She hardly contributed to such discussions but I valued her opinion greatly.

"Why would they ask Brianna? If they had to do this then it should have been their own daughter, or niece right? Brianna had no father and her mother is a recluse from pack activities. So I'm wondering why her?" She explained, and her question did make sense.

"Maybe they thought she could easily be manipulated?" Cole suggested but we all shook our head. She was a strong willed girl. She wasn't likely to be manipulated by somebody that easily. Unlike me. I thought, and then immediately shook those thoughts out of my head. My pack didn't need the self-doubt right now.

"So maybe she was being blackmailed?" Sienna supplied, her words bitter. It was hard to imagine this, but it was a possibility. "She may have wanted to mate with Reece and be Queen, but whoever supplied her with the doses had to have control over her even once she became Queen." Grey surmised and everyone nodded.

"But blackmail her with what? She hardly cares about anyone - her mom is the only living relative and she's never had many friends." Hank interjected in a collective mindlink. It was true. His dad was the one who had been taking care of her and her mom - his sister.

"If that's true then...Hank. Find your father - ask him to find out where Brianna's mom is." I instructed in the collective mindlink.

"The person had to know that you were dating Flora. I remember it being such a tight secret - since we were scared for her safety. So it couldn't be people who were new, kept in the dark. Let's look at people who had the most access." Grey reasoned. Everyone went back to their lists, eliminating everyone who had joined within the last two years and didn't have access to that kind of information.