Fangs of Fate (Untish #1)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

CHANCE

Tate was always trouble. I couldn’t blame her for her hostility toward me, but I often wished she’d return to the female she once was. That was a female I could get on board with, one I had, in fact, spent many cold nights with. But that was before, she’d moved on and frankly so had I—bitterness was time-consuming and unwelcome.

I headed back toward the boardroom and took my seat toward the head of the table. I had been promoted to dux, that put me in a position of power here at the Glenn’s HQ. I outranked the majority—arches and dokimoses answered to me.

Dux Rusty Richards sat down across from me as the other board members filed in and took their seats. “This had better be good, I was in the middle of helping adokimosfind his brain.” Rusty huffed, his fist coated in dried blood. I bet he was helping the recruit by beating his brain out of him, or as he considered it, breaking the dokimos's will.

“Anax Graf would only call this meeting if it mattered. Believe me, I had to leave my position in the Northern Outpost to come down here for this meeting,” Arche O’Connell grumbled as he sat his overly large self down.

A round of agreement sounded as the door to the room swung open and Anax Graf entered. She sat down smoothly; her black coat buttoned all the way from collarbone down to her waist, meeting perfectly pressed trousers.

“Duxes, thank you for coming. We don’t have much time and I know many of you aren’t for pleasantries, so I’ll get right down to it,” she began. “We’ve had a breach in both the Southern and Eastern Outposts. It appears some of our own allowed members of enemy Vamps to enter.”

The room collectively gasped, our attention solely on Anax Graf.

“Both sustained damages.” She opened her disk and projected an image of the two outposts, before and after the attack. They looked relatively intact, not much physical damage.

“We lost a total of twelve arches and one anax at the Southern Outpost and eight arches at the Eastern Outpost.” A list of names and photos appeared next to each Outpost.

“That’s hardly an attack,” Rusty spat, his fury radiating from him. “Are we sure it wasn’t just a squabble? You know, youths these days have absolutely zero restraint. Have to beat it in ‘em.” He flexed his now bruising hand.

“Dux Richards,” Dux Phillips, a young dux like me, spoke up addressing Rusty. “We don’t attack our own, not then and certainly not now.”He leveled a look at the old male that embodied the way I’d felt about Rusty my entire life.

“Quite right.” Anax Graf motioned back to the projection. “We’ve ascertained the bodies of two soldiers from the Eastern attack, but we were unable to gather any identifications. However, our techs believe them to be members of the Fern Vamp based on a few identifiable symbols on the unburnt portion of their uniforms.”

Shit. This was serious. The Fern Vamp was supposed to be aligned with peace; we weren’t allies, but we certainly weren’t enemies. Or rather, we hadn’t been.

“With such a low body count can it be assumed they were after something? Scouting perhaps?”I asked, it was the only logical reason why we didn’t have more bodies.

“Yes, we believe they were after intel on the Glenn and our military defenses.”

“Shit,” Dux George spoke up from the other end of the table.

“Yes, Dux George, shit ,” Anax Graf said, makingtheexpletive sound infantile. “We don’t know what they stole, but we do know that our II database was breached as four of the dead arches were from Internal Intelligence.” She swiped and the screen dropped to the four arche’s photos—all appeared highly intellectual.

“It is believed,” she continued, “that they succeeded in hacking the mainframe and accessed data on classified military maneuvers. Our techs are still working to identify what exactly was taken.” She lowered the projection for a moment before looking down at the table and then back to meet our collective gaze. “In the meantime, we need to interrogate the suspected personnel involved in this treason and ensure our borders remain tight.” She paused—her black eyes seemed almost soulless. “It may be a hard truth to swallow, but some of our own were clearly involved.”

The whole room fell silent. Nothing but stale, suffocating air.

“You all know the state of our last Peace Treaty Conference,” she forged on like she hadn’t just accused an unknown number of guaramen of treason. “Only three of the four vamps showed up, the Fern attended but it appears they are no longer aligned with peace. This, in addition to the gifts we’ve been receiving, leads us to believe war is possible. We must ensure we are at our strongest and the intel that was stolen must be recovered.”

The severity of the situation hit me. My soldiers, good males and females who have served under my leadership for the last two years, were likely to go to war. Worse, some young arches who had sworn allegiance to the Glenn were traitors . My stomach soured. Those bastards deserved to pay.

“Dux Richards, Dux Dale, Dux Holland, and Dux Phillips, you will be conducting the interrogations at the Southern and Eastern Outposts.”

The murmuring silenced.

“May I ask why this is given to us rather than the duxes of the Southern and Eastern Outposts?” Dux Holland, a rather meek female asked. She was a surprising choice for a dux in the Western Outpost. Small. Young too.

“You may. We are not sure how high up the conspirators go. And while we believe this to have been the acts of arches as there weren’t any retina scans of the upper ranks that day near the intelligence center, we cannot be too careful.” She waved a hand, highlighting the leadership photos from each base. “We have no enemies alive,” she spoke quietly, but her tone was firm. “We must find the defectors. This must be handled with discretion and dealt with swiftly.”

“We’ll get ‘em. Don’t worry about that, I know a thing or two about instilling fear and justice,” Rusty spat the last word, literally. His saliva speckled across the table as his overgrown eyebrows furrowed even deeper over crimson eyes.

“I will have additional details sent to each of you before you depart in thirty-six hours.”

“We’re not leaving now?” Dux Phillips asked, his black eyebrows arching with the question—he was very easy to read.

“No, there’s a council meeting tomorrow night you will all need to attend. Presently, there is a certain issue that needs to be dealt with—one that involves the recent attacks. President Dale is requesting the presence of Dux Dale and Dux Richards in the interrogation room, immediately.”

With that, the meeting adjourned, and I headed down to the basement. If there was an interrogation that was connected to the recent breaches at the outposts, it meant we had a prisoner and that meant we had a lead. I cracked my knuckles. Anticipation filled me as I thought of all the possibilities this prisoner posed. We could oust the mole and put an end to a war before it began. Or at the very least, we would have a tactical advantage if we could understand what the Fern Vamp was after.