Chapter 253

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PIPER

As I entered the common hall, the pungent smell of dew and pine traveled in the morning air.

My mind jumped back to the note Dane had spoken of but I had no idea as far as its contents were concerned.

The itch in my head seemed to have turned disturbing and so my eyes began searching the room for a clue of any sort.

It was a stray piece of paper on the edge of the table where Alina had sat during yesterday’s meeting half concealed under a folded napkin that first caught my eye as the hall began filling with wolves readying for the tasks of the day.

My brow furrowed as I reached for it, my fingers brushing against the rough papers.

The moment the note opened in my hand, my stomach somersaulted. The script was squeezed, rushed, and unfamiliar.

All it said was, “Keep the next move discreet. They can’t suspect. anything yet.”

I closed my fingers more tightly over the paper as my gaze flashed around the room. Alina wasn’t anywhere, yet I could sense her behind me, lurking like a ghost.

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“Warrick,” I whispered, clenching his arm as he strode into the training ground later that afternoon..

He froze mid stride, the perpetual grin on his face faltering as he took in the look on my face.

“What’s wrong?”

I held up the note, my voice low and urgent. “I found this near Alina’s seat after yesterday’s meeting. It’s. suspicious.”

He took the note from me, brows furrowing as he read. “What the hell is this?

“That’s what we need to find out,” I said, crossing my arms. “I don’t trust her, Warrick. There’s something she’s hiding, and if we don’t figure it out”

“She’s going to get away with it,” he finished, his voice hardening.

I nodded. “Exactly.”

For a moment, Warrick’s gaze flickered with hesitation. Then he sighed, shoving the note into his pocket. “All right. Where do we

start?”

We had spent hours checking her usual haunts: the storage shed near the edge of the village, the abandoned cottage she would often sneak to under the pretense of “training,” even her

quarters.

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lead turned up

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against the side of the training

she’s not stupid. If she’s hiding something, it’s probably somewhere we’d never think

in front of him,

write themselves, and Alina doesn’t strike me as the type to leave

where the hell is it?” Warrick snapped, the

drifting toward the packhouse.

Warrick frowned. “What stash?”

I said, my voice whittling down to bone with

place where they stash their secrets. Alina’s no different. We just have to figure out

working our way methodically through every room we knew and every crawl space and

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torturous the creak of a floorboard, the rustle of shifted paper

Warrick said after the hundredth empty drawer. “This is

looking,” I insisted, though

to waver.

we were about to give up when Warrick stopped by the edge. His brow furrowed as he crouched, his hand brushing against the edge of a loose stone in

he said,

his side, my heart

and tugged it with grunting efforts, for it came loose. It showed a small,

Warrick muttered, pulling

papers were letters, each one more damning than

detailed communications between Alina and someone outside the pack, someone she referred to

to destabilize leadership, to sow discord, and to exploit the

made my blood run

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the old mill tomorrow

then.”

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to me. “We have

the east near the river, I think it has not been in use in

“She is up to something. And we just got

tucked it

this to Aurora.”

my arm. “If we accuse Alina now, she’ll just deny it. But if we can

what hung in the balance weighing upon

“Tomorrow night,” Warrick echoed.

the packhouse, the weight of what we’d uncovered weighing

my hand, my fingers clenching on the fragile papers. The

Chapter 253

I asked,

his jaw clenching. “Wel keep our heads down. If

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