Kieran:
"Morris," I said while leaning back into the leather chair. "What news do you have?"
"I have two important updates, Alpha." Morris replied and the seriousness of his voice had me straightening again in my chair.
"Let’s hear the first."
He wasted no time and revealed the first important update he had for me. "Alpha River’s men are spreading past the forest area to search for her. A group of his personal guards even visited Lakeshire earlier today."
My jaw clenched. I knew this was going to happen. River would never accept that adaptive ran away from right under his nose. He was too proud to let this matter go.
"Did something happen at Lakeshire?" I asked to confirm even though I knew that Morris would never fail me. And my trust in him was proven right with his response.
"Nothing. I personally confirmed it. No camera footage. No scent trails. The car was cleaned, and as per your orders, even Melinda has promised to play dumb if the guards ever decided to question her. Her assistant too."
Good. While Melinda wasn’t someone to ever play favorites among us brothers, she owed me this little favor. Besides, she wouldn’t need to lie unless the guards asked her about Evaline.
That night when I took Evaline away from the castle, Morris was left to observe the situation at the castle and inform if her absence would get detected during night.
Fortunately, no such thing happened. It wasn’t until late next morning that her absence finally got detected when Sera failed to find her working anywhere in the castle.
Though all hell broke loose once River got notified about the matter, those eleven hours were more than enough for me to put Evaline where no one would think to look, at least not anytime soon. I also took care of every loose end of her escape from the castle.
She was safe. For now.
Morris lowered his voice as he continued, even though he knew this line was secure. "I don’t know how you pulled it off, but Alpha River is furious. He’s convinced someone inside the castle helped her."
"He’s not wrong," I muttered.
Morris grunted at my words before adding, "He doesn’t seem to suspect you, though. Not yet."
"He won’t. As far as he knows, I couldn’t care less about her. Besides, we are brothers." I paused at that. I knew how all this was going to unfold once truth would come to light. My brothers would see me as a traitor, but it was too late for me to change anything.
Besides, I didn’t really want to change what I had done. So far, I didn’t regret doing what I did, helping Evaline.
Since this matter had completely caught River’s attention, I was planning to quickly wrap up the next two rounds of entrance exam. Once Evaline would be officially registered as a student of Silver Moon, even my brother wouldn’t be able to touch her... not without challenging the very rules he had set in place.
That was a game even he wouldn’t dare play.
"You want the second update?" Morris asked, pulling my attention back to him. The drop in his tone had me wondering if this was about that matter...
"Go ahead."
There was a silence on the other end, just long enough to make my skin itch. But then he spoke, "We still don’t have anything."
My fingers curled into a fist on the desk.
Morris continued, "It’s been nearly two months. No prints, no footage, no scent, no records. It’s like whoever you saw that night didn’t exist."
He paused again before asking, "Alpha... are you sure it happened?"
The question hung in the air, souring the room like rot. I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I was back there. That night. It was still too vivid in my memories to be considered my drunken imagination.
I knew what happened that night. I knew what I felt...
"No," I said quietly into the phone. "It wasn’t my imagination, Morris."
He didn’t respond right away. It wasn’t because he didn’t trust me, but because he was at the end of options that could help him find the person I had him searching for the past two months.
"I believe you," he finally said. "But this is going to take some time. I will keep digging, but we are already running out of places to look."
"I know," I muttered.
There was silence as neither of us spoke for the next couple of seconds. But then he did, "I’ll check in tomorrow. Good luck with the tests."
The call ended after that with a soft click, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I just sat there with the phone still in my hands, not realizing as time passed by.
When I finally returned to my senses, the outside world had long turned dark. The moon was just beginning to rise. It was beginning of fall and also a new semester at Silver Moon.
While the Academy grounds were completely silent at the moment, they were going to be filled with activities and sounds within days as students would start arriving.
I stood from my chair and walked toward the large window, looking toward the southern peaks. Somewhere down there, nestled in the protected clearing, was Evaline.
I had hated Greystones just as much as my brothers. After all, that man had taken away all our happiness and left us with nothing. I might have never added about his daughter if not for River bringing her to the castle.
As I watched her pay for a crime she didn’t commit, I started wondering if she really deserved what she was going through. Her only mistake was that she too was a Greystone. But could that be used to punish her like that?
But despite my beliefs, I couldn’t make myself question River’s intentions. I knew better than anyone what my brother had gone through all these years. If anyone deserved to hate the Greystones the most, then it was him.
And here was I... helping the daughter of the very man whom my brother hated with his every breath.