Chapter 5

Maddox POV

As I walked into the administrative building I could hear an argument coming from within the confines of the conference room I was heading towards. I met Kurt in the hallway and said, “How did it go with your mate last night? Did you catch her?”

Kurt looked at me in confusion and replied, “What are you talking about Maddox? I didn’t meet my mate. I left the party early after running into Veronica outside when I went to get some fresh air. I decided to just go back to my room after that.”

“Wait! You ran into Veronica outside? What was she doing there? Did you talk to her at all?” I asked him. I was trying to figure out what happened. I knew Kurt. He wanted his mate almost as much as I did. Something isn’t adding up right now.

“Yeah, we talked a bit. I figured I could try and get a little information out of her. Unfortunately nothing of importance was said. She did try to get me into her bed though. I was going to take her up on it but Keno was adamant that we didn’t. He couldn’t give me a reason, but I trusted his instincts.” Kurt replied.

“Alright. Well let's get inside. I want to get this meeting over with and get back to my mate.” I said. I tabled the discussion until later. I wanted to talk to Vlad about a hybrid such as Veronica Romerez’s abilities. He would have a better understanding of the vampire aspect. I know royals have the ability to compel people to do their bidding. I just didn’t know if other non royal vampires have that ability. Maybe he will be able to tell if there was a compulsion used on my Beta. I didn’t think it would be possible though. I have had Vlad try to use his compulsion on me and it didn’t work.

As I opened the door the arguing stopped as everyone stared at us. “I apologize for my late arrival. I had some pressing matters to attend to this morning. Why don’t we sit down and we can get to the bottom of this rogue issue.” I decided to take the lead since I wanted this meeting in the first place.

“Ms. Romerez, please hand out the print outs of the reports you were supposed to send us yesterday please.” Vlad continued where I left off.

I looked at the report in front of me and I received a mindlink from Kurt ‘Man this isn’t right. This is not what was on her system yesterday when she looked. She is hiding something.’

My irritation level was rising. I sent a link to one of the security I brought with me who also happened to be a tech genius. I made sure all of my security had a specialty besides combat. ‘Brett do me a favor. Hack into the schools database and gather all information on rogue attacks and sightings for the academy since the school opened. I need that done five minutes ago. Understood?’

Brett replied right away and said, ‘On it your majesty. I will have it for you in a few minutes.’

I listened as Veronica was going over the reports that were in our hands. The numbers were being downplayed a lot just from what Kurt had told me yesterday. Darren spoke up and said, “King Maddox, I don’t understand why we are having this meeting if the numbers are in a reasonable state. There haven’t been any attacks on the school. What is it exactly that you are concerned about?”

“That is just the problem. Not that there haven’t been attacks, but the numbers that we are being shown in these documents isn’t…” I was interrupted by a knock on the conference room door. I nodded to Kurt and he stood up and opened the door. Brett was there with a large box in his hands and a laptop case on his shoulder.

“I am sorry to interrupt your majesty, but I have what you requested and there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Give me a few minutes to set up my equipment.” Brett said quickly as he was already unloading several gadgets out of the box. It only took him about five minutes to set everything up. Soon there was a projector screen up and on it was a display from his opened laptop. With a few clicks he was in the academy’s database.

“If you could, please look at the screen. This is the report that you have in your hands. As you can see here it was just created within the last few hours. Now going through the deans documents I located the original file, or I should say what looked like the original. Upon further inspection I noticed this document was also doctored.” Brett said.

I watched as he clicked and typed to bring up documentation of the forged documents. “As you can see the numbers are drastically lowered on the ‘new’ documentation. I decided to run a ‘catch filter’ I had created to use the key term rogue to populate any information on the academy’s database. Based on the documentation my filter was able to gather, there has been a steady increase of rogue activity around this academy that has not been properly passed along to the appropriate channels. As you can see in this memo that was distributed to the faculty and staff of the academy that all concerns should be sent to the Dean Ms. Romerez only. If I remember correctly, your majesty, the council and yourselves are supposed to be notified of ANY and ALL rogue activity to ensure the safety of the students and staff.” Brett stated.

I looked at the other leaders and saw the anger and concern in their eyes. I turned to the dean and was surprised she wasn’t more concerned about us finding this out. “What do you have to say for this Ms. Romerez?” Vlad asked in a cold tone.

“It isn’t as bad as it seems really. Yes, the rogues have been seen, but we can’t be sure if it isn’t the same one being reported. We haven’t had any attacks on the school so the rogue sightings are just that. A sighting. Nothing to be concerned about.” Veronica said, putting emphasis on the last sentence.

Vlad slammed his fist down on the table and bellowed out, “You dare try to use compulsion on us?”

Anessa places her hand on her mate to calm him down. Once he calmed down a bit more she started to sniff and then lick at the air. Once she was done she turned her sharp gaze to Veronica and said, “It wasn’t just a compulsion. You were trying to use dark magic to make the compulsion stronger to work on stronger creatures than yourself.”

The look of shock and horror on Veronica’s face when she realizes that her plan to get out of this mess failed was amusing to Maddox. “What I would like to know is how often she has used this tactic. Is there more that is being covered up and ultimately why?” Astrid the queen of elves quietly said.

That was a good question and one I would like to know the answer to that myself. “I know for a fact that she has used it successfully before just recently on my Beta. He found his mate last night and before he could chase her down he was stopped by Veronica and miraculously forgot he was chasing his mate or that he even met his mate at all.” I said, causing the room to get quiet as everyone contemplated the gravity of the situation. Meddling in the mate bond was forbidden. All supernatural creatures know the importance of a true mate bond and getting in between fated mates is punishable by death. All eyes then turn towards Veronica who is frozen in her seat.