Ridian’s POV
While heading home, I managed to get hold of Mathew Grovewood of the Grovewood healing brotherhood, a sect of six supernatural creatures who had dedicated their lives to healing. By the time we arrived at Blackmoon pack, Cilla was not doing very well but Mathew Grovewood and John Grovewood were already at the pack healer’s cabin. They quickly assessed the condition, ran a few tests and got to work. Since I trusted them, I and my men stepped out when we were instructed.
The Grovewood healing brotherhood had been formed five decades back. It was composed of two werewolves, two vampires, and two witches, all of whom had dedicated their lives to studying different afflictions that affected supernatural creatures and finding solutions to them. They had extensively studied plant poisons.
While regular plant poisons did not kill werewolves on their own, a mixture of them and wolf’s bane could bring down a werewolf. Since most of us could survive a certain amount of wolfs bane for a while, and had discovered several antidotes to it, those who wanted to kill a wolf using wolfs bane had to mix it with something else for it to be effective.
An hour later, I was called back to the treatment room only to find that my wife was looking so much better. She was sleeping peacefully. Her skin was still quite pale but her lips had regained some colour. She looked so much better. I thanked Mathew and his partner very much before kissing my wife and leaving her under Cara’s care. I had a few things to take care of. Now that my wife was out of danger, I needed to find out who the hell had ordered the hit on her.
My first suspect was Aragon so I gathered a few men and we sped off to moonstone. Most of the pack members looked apologetic when they saw us approach. They bowed down respectfully to me as I headed to the pack house.
Standing on the porch, I raised my voice. “Aragon, step out.”
For a minute, there was nothing. I stretched my hearing and tried to listen but couldn’t get through. It seemed there was some kind of blockage. Without a word, I glanced at the four men with me. They barged into the pack house and started scouring it with precision. They were some of my best warriors who could sniff out anything, even better than I could.
Within two minutes, Aragon was pushed out of the house by Rush, one of my men. Rush was a burly fellow with long hair. Aragon fell to the ground, near my feat. He rose and faced me.
“Who dared to try to kill my wife?” I asked him.
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“Wrong answer,” I said, slapping him.
He raised his hand but withdrew it halfway. Good decision. It was clear that he knew what was good for him.
“I don’t know who did it. That’s the truth. All of us are shocked by what happened. She humiliated me and everyone was supporting her so I’m surprised that one of them attacked her. No one respects me anymore around here and I’m getting used, starting not to care.”
Aragon looked broken, he seemed to have given up on everything. Broken men rarely lie. At that time, he had nothing to lose by lying. He had accepted his weakness and was not trying to change things. When a man turns to the bottle, it’s over. His life can never be the same unless he is able to make a U-turn which is hard and therefore quite rare.
I believed that he really didn’t know so I had no choice but to let him go.
“Round up all the pack members,” I told one of Aragon’s warriors. “I want to meet all of them in thirty minutes.”
While they were being rounded up, I went into the pack house and took a tour of it. It was fairly small, compared to mine and very dull. It was no wonder everyone looked dull and miserable. Since it could not accommodate all the pack members, there were a number of smaller houses around it. The decorations were basic but it was very clean.
I went up to the alpha and beta’s floor which was on the top of the building and toured it. Aragon looked quite uncomfortable when I walked into his living room which reeked of alcohol. There were bottles almost everywhere. The person who was taking us on the tour told me that his wife had run away after he was overthrown. It was so bad that I almost felt bad for the man. When I remembered how he treated his pack members, my sympathy vanished and my dislike of him returned.
When my tour was over, I went to address the crowd that had gathered outside.
“I believe you all know why I’m here,” I said. “But I’ll tell you. I have come back to find the person who tried to kill my luna, who is now your luna as well. I plan to do a very thorough investigation that will fish out the culprit. What I will do to the culprit is something that you’ve all never seen before. If you think Aragon was over, you haven’t seen what I can do to people who hurt those I love. That’s my warning to you.”
I watched their faces, studying their reactions before continuing. “I will not spend a lot of time talking about that. My actions will speak louder than words when it comes to that issue. Today, I’d like to speak about what’s going to happen. Things are about to change for everyone around here. We are busy setting some ground rules that will soon be communicated to you. Meanwhile, we shall start inspecting the mines tomorrow as the work is about to start.”
“You can’t take our minerals,” the sound of a loud male voice came from the crowd.
“Who said that?” I asked. “If you’re so brave, step forward and say it to my face.”
Pin drop silence reigned in the crowd. No one dared to move.
“Too scared?” I asked, wondering who had the nerve to disrespect me when I was speaking. This people didn’t know that the expedition was going to benefit them more than me. If only they could be patient enough to find out how things were going to work before making conclusions.
Suddenly, a tall thin man stepped out of the crowd. “You’ve come to steal from our pack,” he shouted. “We shall not let you greedy fools of blackmoon pack steal from us.” The man came to where I was and spat at me.
His spittle landed near my right eye. I became royally pissed. He kept shouting as I stepped closer to him. Before he knew what was coming, I had snapped his neck after resisting the urge to kill him.
“Who wants to go next?” I asked.
No one moved.