3

Leah’s POV

A growl rips through the silence following the lock down. Elder Victor launches himself in my direction only to be stopped by my father and Elder John. He is struggling and snarling in their arms.

“What is the meaning of this?” He spits at them. Several other Elders murmur along with him. No one has ever stopped Elder Victor from lashing out before, especially a female he believes is beneath him and should remain barely seen and never heard.

“Sit down and get a hold of yourself, Elder, and I will explain.” I calmly replied to him, while putting my Alpha voice to use. Another look of shock ran across many faces in the room. I don't think they realized gender doesn't matter to be able to use an Alpha voice command. I am the oldest child of an Alpha, therefore my tone is strong. Even if I had a little brother my tone would be stronger than his simply because I'm older. I just don't think any female thought to try using it. I found out by accident. I was afraid I would have to resort to force to make them listen. The more times I force them though, the less likely they are to listen to us. I had to maintain an air of calm and control on the outside, no matter how messed up my insides were right now.

I nodded my head to my dad, signalling him to release Victor. If he wants to fight me, I will not hesitate to beat him a second time. I don’t think he wants to lose in front of all the males though. The first and last time he lost a sparring match to me was when he was trying to make an example out of me during female combat training, it did not go the way he planned. The problem with it being at the all female training was his well-talked about defeat was played off as rumors spread by females with nothing better to do. So no one took the rumors seriously. This time there would be no denying his defeat. He stared daggers at me, his train of thought clearly on track with mine, before standing still and placing his hands behind his back. He was going to stand stubbornly, simply because I gave a command to sit. Whatever. I maintained eye contact with him, openly challenging him in front of everyone.

“Gentlemen, we called this meeting to make you aware of a threat to our Concordat as a whole.” I began, but Victor interrupts again and I have to take a slow breath in.

“What do you know of threats to the pack child, stop talking about things you have never experienced or had training on and return to your Luna projects, pup raising and dress making classes.” He snears, turning, and slowly making his way to the back of the room.

I bristle at his sexist remark, but I'm not altogether surprised by it. I have never once stepped foot in a home economics class out of spite. Just something else our leaders and teachers never paid attention to.

Keep calm, Keep it together, don’t lose control, he’s trying to make you angry and look bad while you have him cornered… Nyx says as a mantra to me.

I clench and release my fists and take another deep breath before speaking again. “We know enough to know rogues have multiplied around the Blue Moon and Blazing River borders. And have been slowly growing their number over time. By our most recent count, there were around 250 in each location.” I said quickly as he moves towards the door. I need them all to hear me before they find out how truly trapped we have them and they lose all sense of reason.

He stops and slowly turns with his eyebrows raised in disbelief. I can see the war in his eyes. His need to not trust me because I am a weak minded female, but also curious of my knowledge. I take that as my cue to continue.

“We also have visual confirmation of 200 more rogues entering the Black Lake territory in the last 4 hours.” I say, looking at my watch. “Our whole Concordat is slowly being surrounded.”

“What?! No one has ever gotten through the mountain range at the Blue Moon borders, they are impassable, you must be mistaken.” Alpha Bart pompously says crossing his arms . “And why would anyone attack Blazing river? They are our most peaceful pack taking in all those orphaned pups and females.”

I couldn't help but stare at him in complete disbelief. I was at a loss for a moment that this pompous windbag thought a few steep cliffs were the be all, end all solution to keeping his pack safe. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who looked at him like he was a complete dumba**. My father and a few other Alphas appeared to be, at least, hearing the information I was giving and considering it a possiblility.

“That’s exactly why they are a target.” I say scrunching my eyebrows and fighting the urge to roll my eyes.

Nyx rolls her eyes for me adding “You stupid, arrogant, moron who doesn’t deserve to be an Alpha.” I have to take a breath to keep from laughing at her comment before continuing.

“We aren’t concerned for Blazing River any longer.” I say to surprised faces as they all go quiet again and I finish my thought before anyone else can interrupt with a comment about how I’m unfeeling and don’t care. “They have been evacuated for days to the bunkers. They are safe and I have had contact with Luna Reis daily to check their progress. Alpha Matt and Alpha Brandon are on patrols as we speak, updating us on the rogues in that area. Alpha Caleb is on patrol along the border between Night Fang and Black Lake, I’m waiting for his confirmation of rogue numbers to see if they match what we have. Beta Josh is doing the same on the border of Rising Sun and Black Lake and the rest of our patrols are being keot in the loop and looking for any other signs of gathering rogues.” I finish, standing tall with my hands behind my back, like a general giving orders. The more that I speak, the more confident I am in my plan to save this group of packs and it’s members.

This is where we belong, not pushing out soldier pups for an Alpha wannabe puppet like Trent. Nyx spits out.

More than 2 years after the fact, she’s still not happy about being told we have a chosen mate that we didn’t choose. She was so mad at my father, she took over, forced a shift and destroyed his living room before heading to the forest between our packhouse and the compound grounds. She was in control enough not to harm him, knowing it would hurt me, but she wouldn’t shift or give me control for 2 days and she managed to avoid being found by everyone who was out looking for us. Something not easily done with all of their werewolf senses. She was even able to mask our scent from them.

I know my father wanted to talk about the subject, he clearly had more to say before she took over. But, I have been avoiding everything to do with the topic and throwing myself into school and working on the Security operation in the War Room. My father won’t force me to talk, he knows I’ll come to him when I’m ready, which will be never.

“What do you mean ‘evacuated to the bunkers’? And how do you already have border patrols running for you and we don't know about it? And where did you get your intel from in the first place?” Alpha Andrew, Ellinore’s father, looks between me and her, clearly understanding she's a part of this and left him out. He's probably the first to understand, every person in this room was left out of the plan. Any Alphas not here have been in on this with us behind their backs. And these are the most nosey, meddeling people in the whole Concordat. They all thought they had a pulse on everything and we are throwing how blind they have been in their faces right now.

“My Luna project is the 'how' actually.” I state in a sweet voice with a menacing smile, glaring right at Victor. “No offense, but your border security sucks." I look around the room, back to my no nonsense, drill sergeant tone. "After the fight with the rogues who initially moved into the Black Lake territory when we were 12, we," I gestured towards my friends and myself, "decided something needed to be done. No more lives lost because our leaders got too comfortable to stay vigilant. We needed an early warning system and a way to get pack members to safety quickly, no matter where they are in the Concordat. They needed somewhere safe to go in an attack. Since none of you thought it important enough, we took it upon ourselves to update the safety protocols surrounding our packs.”

I’m going to leave it at that for now, they don't need to know how deep our security system goes. I still have my suspicions about a few of them and where their loyalties lie. We've had too many attacks, by hunters and rogues for it to just be bad luck or crappy patrol warriors. And I hope none of them caught on that I skated over the bunker and intel questions.

My dad and Alpha Matt were the only active alphas that knew I had single handedly funded the construction of safety bunkers in each territory. I couldn't lie to my dad and I needed Luna Reis' architecture background to help me plan the best bunker set-up and she wasn't going to hide anything from her mate. He was completely on board with the whole project and they both helped us iron out details as we went. They would all find out eventually, each pack has a bunker now and most of the females in the Concordat are aware of it and have been trained how to utilize them. Most of the Lunas have known about them from the beginning and helped me organize the whole project, Even Luna Michelle at Red Claw, Trent's mom, and she all but hates me. They knew it’s what needed to be done and took little convincing. Not to mention I may have made it sound like we were ordered to do it by the Alpha’s and we were not to bother them with the details. It was a Luna project after all. It’s helpful the Alphas and Lunas don’t really communicate what they are doing within the packs. I’m not sorry, nor will I apologize for using people’s own stupidity against them.

“So, what’s the plan then?” My dad asks. Alpha Andrew and Alpha Drake nodded next to him leaning towards me. Clearly they are eager and ready to hear my strategy, no questions asked, for now. They want to protect these packs as much as I do and seem to be taking a potential threat seriously.

Damien and Demitri, Silver Mist boys and Drake’s sons, are the only young Alpha males here and are just sitting there not saying a word. Demitri is only 16 and just started full time training at the compound, so I'm sure it's overwhelming. Damien's face gave nothing away, he's very good at hiding his emotions, which will make him an excellent Alpha one day. I also noticed he won't make eye contact with me. For some reason that bothers me, but it also helps me stay focused. I tend to lose my train of thought when I look directly into his eyes. I’m in alpha classes with them now, so they know strategy is my strength, even if they won’t openly acknowledge it, they won’t fight me on this either. I think they are waiting to see what their father and the elders do before joining me or opposing me. Taylor and Trent, the Red Claw boys, did not show along with their father. Not a big surprise.

You'd think our soon-to-be mate would have at least come to try and see you. Nyx snips Shows how great a mate he will be.

She’s not wrong though. If I was interested in him at all, it would be disappointing that he wasn't here to witness my accomplishment. At training he just stares at me and when he does try and talk it's stupid and awkward. He knows I'm not happy about being promised to him.

“Hold on, wait just a minute!” Elder Victor states in a low, dangerous voice, snapping my attention from Nyx's whining, as he makes his way slowly, like a predator from the door at the back of the room. He's putting his full Alpha command in his voice. Unfortunately he has yet to accept that since he is only and Elder, no longer an active Alpha, his command doesn't actually work on anyone in the room. I think the men here are just so used to doing what he says they unconciously comply as if he does have control.

Not Ellinore, Elyse and I. We could give two sh*ts about his male ego right now. This back and forth is getting old, but he doesn't seem to want to give up fighting for control.