Chapter 4 - Change of Plans

Dave - 

Daisy crashes into the chair in front of my desk and crossing her legs she begins tapping her foot on the edge of the desk, “so, what's up?” She asks, “you sound even more stressed than usual this morning, did something happen?” 

“Yeah, something happened, Mark has got it into his head that he is going to find Ace and take him out, Brian has tried to talk some sense into him, but he is worried it hasn't worked, so we have had to adjust the plan slightly to keep Brian and Mark safe.” Rubbing my temples with the tips of my fingers, I continue, “we are now sending extra men out there in secret, Brian knows about them but Mark doesn't, and Jack has just messaged me saying his extra men are leaving his pack in 45 minutes and that they will meet with ours at the agreed upon location along our adjoining border. I haven't even had a chance to brief my guys. Thankfully they are due to arrive any minute so I will have a good 30 minutes to go over the plan with them before they have to leave, otherwise they won't be at the rendezvous point on time.”

“Wow, OK, big change, who are you sending? Are you sure we can trust them?” It's a reasonable question in light of recent events and one I don't answer immediately. Could I trust them? I was pretty confident about Tasha and Aria, but Harry gave me pause, the main reason I did trust him was because he was Aria's mate, I trusted the girls because Tasha had been mistreated by Ace, and Aria being her sister was on her side, naturally, and both had been penalised simply for being female so obviously they both had reason to want Ace gone, Harry gave me a slightly funny vibe, but because he is Aria’s mate I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“The warriors are Tasha, Aria and Harry, and we will be sending a tracker as well, I chose Keith for this.”

“OK good, they all deserve this chance to prove themselves, they earned it.” Daisy answers after a moment of silence, she was obviously thinking through what I had told her and I feel better knowing that Daisy agrees with my decision, it is like a weight has lifted off of my shoulders.

A knock on my door stops our conversation and Daisy jumps up to let them all in. 

Aria leads the way with Harry on her tail, Keith walks through the door next followed, finally, by Tasha who is bringing up the rear and showing clear signs of high anxiety. Poor thing, I don’t know specifics, I never wanted to dig too deeply into the trauma that some of the women of this pack had to endure, I didn’t want to cause additional stress for them having to relive it, but I have contacted a couple of nearby packs for assistance with female doctors who can help these women move through the trauma, it is all I felt I could do for the time being.

“Great, thanks so much for coming so quickly, this is time sensitive as well as confidential, you will not have time after this meeting to say good-bye to anyone, but if you wish to have a message passed along then Daisy and I will be happy to do so.”

“Can I ask what this is about Alpha?” Says Harry, looking around at the others who had been summoned.

“I have a task for you all, but it is of the utmost importance that this remain secret, we do not know who we can trust completely and we need no word of this to leave this group of people,” I say solemnly hoping that they will all appreciate the gravity of the situation and the trust I am placing in them.

Daisy - 

So today begins with a long, tedious and hefty to-do list as well as the added delight of constant concern and worry for a handful of our pack members, who are working alongside a handful of Jack’s pack members (still feels weird thinking of them as Jack’s pack) to assist Brian and his mate Mark (without Mark’s knowledge) to try to discover how Ace's man, Frank, keeps losing our trackers. We also plan to have the area in question fully investigated and catalogued with notes and photos of the area so that we can update our seriously outdated maps, which if I am being candid about, don’t seem to have been updated in at least a decade looking at them. The caves that run around and through the mountains seem to be interconnected and almost endless, but the maps we have only indicate that the caves are shallow and not much more than that. Once that is under way we can hopefully get some more useful intel and Goddess willing, we will be able to stop Ace before he is able to put his latest plan into action. Because you know for a fact that scum like him always has a dirty plan up their sleeves. 

And then, to round out the day, Dave tells me that he wants me to go on a trip to another pack, a pack that has a similar history to this pack’s recent history, for advice…. I mean don’t get me wrong, I kinda wanna go, see if maybe my mate is there and all that, but I am not diplomatic at all. I mean, what are the chances I offend someone, it could cause issues for the whole pack. But Dave is depending on me, I need to do this to prove myself I guess, to earn my position of Beta within this pack. Physically, I am a better fighter than everyone but Dave in this pack, the lack of training and structure has weakened them all, but give these guys a couple of months and no doubt someone will challenge me for the position simply because I am an unmated female. Maybe if I travel I might get lucky, find my mate and he might even be willing to be the one to relocate. A girl can dream right?!