Page 152 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha
Night arrived shortly after we finished prepping. He seemed surprised to see his sister there.
“Tavi,” he said.
“Hi, Night.” She smiled a little.
He looked at her with a concerned frown. “We haven’t had the chance to talk,” he said. “Are you sure that you’re okay being here for this?”
It was a big question, but he couldn’t know how big. She wasn’t just attending this meeting for her health; she was also acting unofficially as my beta. I watched her to gauge her reaction, and was relieved to see that her nod seemed confident.
“I’m more than sure,” she said. “Listen, it’s almost time for the meeting to start, and I want to make sure those council people don’t have to wait.”
She left Night and I alone, and when he looked at me, I tried to smile. “It’s a lot for her to take on, I know, but she seems excited about it.”
He drew closer to me and pulled me against his chest. “I’ll have to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”
I leaned into him, drawing strength from his closeness. His presence immediately set the worst of my nerves at ease. I wanted him with me to show a united front to the attendants and to rely on his experience as an Alpha to back up the points I wanted to make. He stood beside me and immediately slipped his hand into mine. He smelled like sweat and sunshine, two scents that stirred desire in my core even though I was nervous about the meeting. He, no doubt sensing my feelings, glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and smirked.
I would have smacked his arm, but people started funneling in. Quietly, the Elders and council members of the Kings and the Wargs filed in and took their seats. Night and I stood at the front of the dining hall, and every gaze turned toward us. My pulse spiked and I squeezed his hand. He leaned down to whisper in my ear.
“Be strong, love,” he told me. “You don’t have to have all of the answers to their questions; you just need to be as confident as you can about what you do know.”
I nodded.
“Don’t forget, the council is here to help advise the Alpha in matters of the pack. Be respectful, but don’t let them steamroll you.”
Again, I nodded. I expected them to try and take advantage of the fact that I was just a temporary Alpha, but Night was right—I couldn’t let them do it. Up until this meeting, I had tried my hardest to stay under their radar because most of my bullies were within these elite families. I recognized each face. Even still, if I gave them an inch, they would know how to manipulate me, and I didn’t want to make this process any more miserable than it needed to be.
Their names were Colby, Ross, Dana, Edward, and Grant, and after the Alpha, beta, and the Elders, they had the most power and sway in the pack.
I took a deep breath and put on a smile. “Thank you, everyone, for being here,” I said. “It means the world to me that you’re all willing to listen to what I have to say.”
The Kings gave nods. It wasn’t a verbal response, but any acknowledgement was better than none.
I let go of Night’s hand and stepped forward, letting the large bell sleeves of my dress fall over my fingers. Not wanting to waste time, I got right into the matter at hand. “I have been thinking about this since the day after I won the challenge ceremony. Troy Redwolf destroyed so many important buildings and homes around the compound, but progress on reconstruction has been not only slow but inefficient. I learned that many who had knowledge of carpentry and land development were killed or horribly injured during Troy’s reign. And it is for that reason that I propose that the Wargs should head the reconstruction effort.”
The moment the words left my mouth, there was an uproar. The Kings threw question after question and comment after comment my way. It was noisy, and a bit chaotic, and it made me want to get the hell out of the building that somehow felt much smaller than it did when the meeting began.
After a few moments of letting them speak, I raised one of my hands the way I’d seen Night do during arguments between Wargs. To my surprise, the gesture actually worked; the council fell quiet and their full attention was on me.
“I know this comes as a surprise to you,” I said, “and that this isn’t the first solution you would have chosen. But we can all see how slowly progress is going.”
“I find it hard to believe that the Wargs will want to help us,” Ross said. His salt-and-pepper hair fell down his back and his long bangs covered the scar on the side of his face.
“Yes,” Edward agreed. His bald head shone in the light of the room. “Having more Wargs on our soil will lead to infighting, and whatever progress you claim will happen will be overshadowed by those fights.”
“I can’t say that there won’t be some fighting,” I said, “but I will tell you that many of the Wargs have already volunteered to share their expertise. Troy carelessly sabotaged his own pack’s workforce, and those who remain need leadership and training if we want to repair the Kings’ lands quickly.”
Night cleared his throat before chiming in. “I would just like to reiterate that we Wargs are more than open to assisting in this process.”
“Why?” Colby asked. His gray moustache completely covered his upper lip. “We have been enemies for hundreds of years. What benefit do you have in this?”
“The bad blood between us goes back far longer than living memory,” Night said, “but us Wargs are tired of the conflicts—from petty skirmishes to cruelly targeted destruction—that our ‘war’ has become. The Redwolfs were the biggest supporters and perpetrators of those conflicts. Now that they’re no longer in power, we’re eager to get off on the right foot.”
Tavi, who sat on the other side of me, tapped my foot. I glanced at her and saw her eyes dart to Grant. He had a weathered face, tanned from hours spent in the sun, and the frown on his mouth told me that he was deep in thought. He had always struck me as a particularly gruff and unfriendly man when I’d seen him walking around the compound in my youth. He had always seemed so old, but had insisted on patrolling the grounds anyway up until a few years ago when an old hip injury prevented him from walking.
I gathered some courage and addressed Grant directly. “Grant,” I said, “you seem like you might have something to say?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “To be honest, this idea has some appeal. It’s true that Troy’s paranoia led him to kill many of our best people. I’m not happy about inviting our enemy onto our territory, but it would give us immediate access to wolves with knowledge and experience in areas where we are lacking. Perhaps we could use each other.”
