Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“It’s nice to meet you, Queen Riviana. My name is Darrol Harper.” He held his hand out toward me and took a few steps. I felt like messing with him, but I didn’t. I just shook his hand and tried not to laugh. Apparently, he could sense the laughter in me. “Did I do something wrong?” He looked around and tried to figure it out as he looked at Shawn, Dietrich, Shane, Noah, Joaquin, Juniper, Paul, and Cedar.
“Nothing really. It’s just that no one really just shakes my hand out of the blue. It’s been so long since I haven’t had someone scanned by my guards first.”
“I did scan him.” Vincent called from the door. “I got here right behind them and have been checking to see if they were friends or foe. Not that I doubted Reggie, but that man is new.” Vincent didn’t sound happy at all. “You should know better than to meet people without me or Gabriel present.” He strode into the room and came to stand at my side.
“And there you have it.” I smiled at Darrol. “I am only allowed to meet people that have been checked in advance. That is unless we don’t have the chance for that to happen. Needless to say, Gabriel and Vincent don’t like for me to be away for too long. And when I am away from them, they insist that Joaquin is with me, or that I behave like a hermit that is afraid of people.” My grin seemed to be lost on him. He was just staring at me like that was some sort of a joke that I had just made. He had no idea that it was actually the truth. Now, whether Vincent and Gabriel got what it was that they wanted or not was a different story. That was what they preferred though.
“U.uhm, ha ha ha ha, th..that’s funny Queen Riviana.”
“She’s not lying.” Gabriel came into the room next, the rest of the crowd behind him. “Hello, I do not believe that we’ve met.” Gabriel walked over to him with his hand held out. “I am Gabriel Abadie. And you are?” I saw that protective instinct that he had for his queen.
“O..o..oh, I..I am Darrol Harper. I am the computer specialist that was requested yesterday.”
“Good of you to make a timely arrival.” Gabriel shook hands with the man. “Please, have a seat near the queen’s desk. I am sure that there is much that you and she will need to discuss. As well as King Joaquin, Kind Dietrich and King Shawn.”
“W..wait? Queen Riviana has three husbands?” He was so lost in the conversation that he didn’t know who Shawn and Dietrich were, and that comment of his made the entire room break out in laughter.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but Shawn and I would probably prefer Joaquin over Riviana.” Dietrich laughed.
“Eww, no, I have known Joaquin far too long for that.” Shawn feigned disgust. “Then again, he does have a nice body.”
“Fuck you.” Joaquin moved to stand behind me. “I am Riviana’s only. And she is mine. No one else will touch either of us.” I saw that Darrol was still confused and figured that I needed to explain a few things for him.
“Dietrich is the king of vampires. And Shawn is his husband. So, they are both kings.” I tried to make sure that he understood before his head exploded.
“O..OK.” He nodded apprehensively.
Everyone took their seats after that. The entire group from last night as well as the two new additions. It was time for us to get to work. There was a lot that needed to be done and I wanted it all to be finished today if that was at all possible.
“Alright, so we all know why we are here. We have to stop these murders before anyone else dies. We need to make sure that there are no more people in our collective kingdoms that lose their lives for no reason at all.” There was at least one representative from all the communities here. I covered three of them myself.
“Yesterday, when Shawn and Dietrich came back, they had with them a lot of information that we hope will be helpful. They also had a computer that needed to be investigated. All of this new information is exactly where you two come in.” Joaquin was standing so that he was looking at Reggie and Darrol and he spoke. “Reggie, you are going to help us go through the files. Make an archive of them in the computer as well as paper. I want this accessible to everyone at any given time. Darrol, you were brought here to help with that laptop. Dietrich, tell him what you know about it.” Joaquin passed the figurative baton to the man that was sitting near the front of the group with Shawn.
After being called out, both Shawn and Dietrich walked to the front of the room. It was their turn to address the newcomers as well as the crowd.
“Well, Joaquin, as you should know, there isn’t much that we know about this laptop. It was found in a dormitory style room in a very old mansion in Germany. The mansion didn’t have electricity, but it did have runes all over the place and some of them seemed to be able to power things like electricity. That was by far the only thing that I could think to use for the greater good. Free global energy that wouldn’t damage the environment. We should look into that at some time.”
“Yeah, too bad the whole world would have to know about and accept us for that to happen.” Shane quipped up from the back of the room with his typical laughing tone.
“That is true.” Dietrich nodded and conceded that it was not a viable option at the moment.
“Move on, Dietrich.” I waved my hand in a hurry up gesture.
“Ah, yes, of course.” He smiled at me. “Well, that is all that we know about the computer. I do believe that it was owned by a teenage boy, but that is all that I can tell you about it. As for the files that we brought back, they are about the different members of the Jaegan family that have lived in the Saint Alaric’s Home for Children that we searched. Several of these kids would be adults by now.”
“Alright.” I nodded at him. “If that is all we have, then we will go with it for now. We will not give up until this has all been figured out.”
I looked at the room full of people. The ones that were new and the ones that had been with me since the beginning. I knew that I could trust these people to help me. I just hoped that we could solve it all before the next murder. If they followed the same pattern, then we only had two days until the next set of killings. That wasn’t long enough.
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Riviana
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Everyone got to work. The files, of which there were over a hundred, were separated into groups. The first group went to Reggie who was using the computer equipment that Darrol had brought with him. At the current moment, she was scanning each page into a sophisticated database that was archiving everything and making it easier to search for details. She was also making a comprehensive list of fingerprints that we needed to check against the ones that we had collected from the scenes of the murders.
The files that Reggie wasn’t currently working on were being read and tabulated on our paper lists. This was more a list of names so that we could reference it before searching the database for them. Not that it would be helpful to do that, but it was one more record of things and that meant something when we had next to nothing.
While Reggie worked on that, Darrol was busy trying to hack his way into that laptop. He had a sophisticated looking setup that required multiple tables to be brought into the office for him to use. You know, little by little, this office of mine was starting to look like some sort of AV club or high school classroom. Just with people that were quite a bit older than high school aged. Some of them a few thousand years past that time. I think that the youngest person in here was probably Darrol, and I wasn’t even sure how old he was.
I watched on over Darrol’s shoulder as he hooked different wires to the German’s laptop. Powering it up, since it had long since had the battery died on it, he got to work. He was entering different codes and pressing different buttons on both the laptop that he was hacking into as well as his own. He had it opened to the main screen of the computer and files started popping up in no time at all.
…..
“It looks like they had very minimal security on this computer.” Darrol turned to look at me with surprise in his eyes. “I’ve never had to break into something that was this poorly protected.”
“Well, let’s be thankful for that. It’s at least one big break for us in this thing. Now, do me a favor and see what you can find in there. We need to know who this person was, what they did, where they went, and what they’re planning.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Darrol got to work on the files. Reggie was working on her archiving. And the others were busy with that list of names. Everyone had something to be working on at the moment except for me. I was just sitting there watching over them like I was some sort of idiot. Yeah, I know, I was the boss and bosses watched the others do their work for the most part, but dammit I felt useless at the moment.
“Riviana?” Joaquin walked over to me with an awkward set to his shoulders. “Since you are not busy right now, let me tell you what I learned today.”