Leah's POV
Out loud I get everyone in gear “Listen up everyone, we have some suspicious activity going on over in the Black Lake territory, we have been tracking other activities surrounding the Concordat for the last few months. It appears that a rogue group is organizing and trying to surround us. It appears Blue Moon, Blazing River and Black Lake territories are their target points. Blazing River shouldn’t be a problem to have them begin discreetly moving their young, old and pregnant to the Bunkers, I've been in contact with Luna Ries, she is just waiting for the signal.” I look at the Blazing River Omega giving her a little nod.
“Blue Moon is going to be difficult, let me know if you can contact anyone who will listen to reason and have them start moving the vulnerable to the Bunkers.” I say looking at the Blue Moon Omega. “I have alerted the warriors patrolling Crescent Moon and Night fang to double up and be ready for a change in orders. My dad is also moving vulnerable members to the bunkers. Link anyone from Rising Sun who can move pack members from the Black lake border.” I look at both the Black Lake omega and Ellinore. “Link the Red Claw and Blood Moon omegas and have them start doing the same, make sure no one from Red Claw is seen and anyone loyal to Alpha Max is left out of the evacuation, I don’t want Alpha Max to kill anybody for being safe today.” I roll my eyes. “Gammas do what surveillance you are able for now, some of you might get pulled into the fight by your alphas if it gets to that. We have been a secret operation long enough. It’s time to show our enemies and our Elders who we are. If there are any of you who do not want to be associated with this group please let me know now so I can keep you safe. We have no idea how the Alphas and Elders are going to take our surveillance operation.” As I look around at the room everyone makes confident eye contact with me. We all knew what we were doing when we started this project 3 years ago. No one is going to back down now, but I will always give them the option to stay safe and hidden. “Alright, you all have your instructions, I’m going to have my dad call an Emergency Meet at the Concordat packhouse, relay all intel through Jason to me, Mary have another Crescent Moon Omega meet us at the pack house, dismissed.”
“Dad?” I mind-link him
“What’s up Le? It’s seriously early, you do know that right?” he growls back almost amused
“It's time dad, 200 more rogues entered the Black Lake territory in the last couple hours, there are no children and very few women with the group. We need to address the Alphas and Elders.” I state matter of factly
“Ok, John and I will call an emergency meeting, are you sure you want to do this? You know what they’ll do the minute your little operation is discovered.” he asks
“Little operation? Really?” I roll my eyes “They will want my head on a spike for daring to think without their direct permission or being told what to think, I know dad, but I also know I am done losing pack members to attacks because these lazy a**holes wont get off their butts and do something to protect these people. Make sure to tell the Alpha’s to bring their sons, most of them aren’t on campus. We'll meet you in the assembly room, there’s going to be too many of us for the usual meeting room and I don’t want the Elders thinking they are actually running this show.” I say
“You know, there are some days when I really do think you have a death wish, or just a really big need to make everything as difficult as possible.” He chuckles at me
“It’s what makes me endearing.” I throw back with a small laugh before ending the min-link.
“Alright, it’s showtime. Should we take bets on which Elder or Alpha tries to kill me first for using my brain without their permission?” My mouth tips up into a small grin as I cock an eyebrow at Ellinore and Elyse while we walk out of the war room, up a flight of stairs to the dorms I start knocking on doors to get the girls up. Again, I wish we could just mind-link them, stupid Elders. “It’s time! We are meeting in the assembly hall in 20 minutes, we need to arrive and be in place before the Alphas and Elders.” I shout down the hall as I walk through. I can hear scrambling in each room, all the ranked females have been waiting for this day for so long. Wanting to confront the male morons who have been holding us back and restricting us. Too bad an outside threat is what is the catalyst, but we are going to use it to the best of our ability.
“Well we know Elder Victor hates you, but that’s because you bested him in the combat ring when you were like 15, and Elder Seamus and Elder Erik think that you are a hooligan always trying to start trouble with all of your debating in strategies and theories classes. My bet is on one of those three. Ellinore says picking up our conversation about who’s going to kill me first.
“First of all, I was 17, they wouldn’t let me join the combat class before that, remember? And I only brought up holes in the battle plans. Anyone with a brain would not want to go into a fight knowing they were going to die because their leader forgot a really important thing like backup or a plan B.” I say shrugging my shoulders.
“No one actually hates you.” Elyse chimes in “They just don’t understand why a female has or wants to have battle knowledge or even where you learned everything you know. And really you’re better than most of them anyway, so I think it's really just jealousy manifesting like hate. Once they see everything in action they will change their minds.” she ends cheerfully. I roll my eyes in response, eventually my eyes will get stuck in this position as often as I do it.
“My money is on Alpha Max.” Renee joins us and places her bet. She was forced to mate with Max’s oldest son, Taylor, so she has first hand knowledge of his ruthlessness.
Danielle, joins the group, “I second a vote for Max, but I also think Alpha Bart would be a close second since you keep distracting Damien from Jessica.” she giggles “Oh, Jessica!” she mock gasps “I didn’t see you there.”
“Shut up, Danielle, but I also agree that both Alpha Max and my father will take turns trying to kill you.” She gives me an awkward smile. Her and I just recently started to actively not hate each other. I don’t know if we will ever be friends, there’s too much history there, but I’m also grateful she’s one less person on my bad guy radar right now.
We ascend the steps to the pack house and Renee, Danielle and Jessica split from our group to take their positions. Elyse, Ellinore and I head to the Assembly Room. I took my place at the front with them flanking me monitoring the two doors behind me.
Just as we get settled, we begin to hear the commotion that is the Elders and Alphas coming into the packhouse, grumbling about the hour, is this really necessary, this had better be good or someone's getting time in the dungeons.
Well they sound about as excited as we expected, don’t they? Nyx supplies
“Well, I am a really good study of my opponents, so far right on the money. Now let’s just hope we don’t have to fight our way out of here.” I say as the Alphas begin filling into the meeting room, not sparing the three of us a glance as they take seats towards the front.
I wonder how many of the Elders took the time to get ready? Considering they live in this packhouse, they should have been down here first. Nyx rolls her eyes.
“As long as none of them come down in their underwear or any form of half-dressed, I will gladly wait.” I shudder at the thought.
Thank you for that image, I’m going to go throw up now in the back of your mind.
“Hey, I have enough going on up there, keep your up chuck to yourself.” I internally smile at her.
Finally, fashionably late as usual, the Elders come strolling in. Dressed for success Elder Victor makes eye contact with me immediately. “What is the meaning of this?!” He booms at me across the room looking murderous.
Everyone stops their chatter and all eyes turn to me, annoyance is the look from the Elders, confusion clearly shown on many of the Alphas faces. At least most of the Alphas' sons look like they aren't really surprised to see me at the front of the room.
I link my Omega outside the doors, “It’s time.” while I nod to signal Elyse and Ellinore.
“Yes, Alpha.” Is her only reply before you can hear the loud clunk of the metal reinforced locks engaging every door surrounding the room.
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 t
Leah's POV “You have shown us no proof of your claims. If there were border breaches we, as the Elders and Concordat’s first line of defense, would have been notified by the patrols’ warriors and the Alphas who are supposedly running with them now. And while I'm sure everyone here has been entertained by your theatrics, none of us will be indulging your girlish need to be the center of attention any longer.” he says while looking at the other Elders. Most of them maintain a composed face, while a few openly sneer at me as though Victor caught me in some lie. This time I did roll my eyes at him. "Ok, he wants to start a pissing match." I say to Nyx. Not unexpected, just a waste of time, but I have to convince a majority of these guys to follow my lead or people might, no, they will die. I steady my heart and take a breath, slowly releasing it before I speak. “Actually, I have all the information you want, and you wouldn’t have access to any mind-link conversions right now anyway." I
Leah’s POV As soon as I cross the threshold, I mind-link Jason and Mary. “We’re on our way, ETA is about 5 minutes, go down to a skeleton crew, get all the Gammas and males out and station Omegas in their places. These guys need to believe they are still superior and have the upper hand of rank loyalty. Jason, I need you hooked into the cells, but out of sight. I have a feeling we are going to be using them today. Tell everyone to be ready for any reaction. A few of these guys are unstable and I don't trust them. Tell Danielle, Jessica and Brittany so far so good, move to the next phase.” “Yes, Alpha” Is the only reply I get from both. The small landing inside the secret door immediately leads to a set of metal steps going down about 40 feet. The room it leads to used to be cold storage or a wine cellar of sorts and over time was forgotten about. Which is unfortunate, because we really could have been using this space for food storage over the winter, since we grow and preserve mos
Leah’s POV “Show us around sweetheart.” my father says. “She’s just a stupid girl, what can she really show us?” Elder Erik sneers, but can't hide the impressed look on his face. “I bet she is going to take credit for the hard work the men in the room did for her.” Does this dumbass realize that the only men in the room are the Elders and Alphas? And they had no idea what was going on right under their nose. Nyx grumbles. "Well, he’s smart enough to recognize the sheer scale of our operation." Is all I can reply to her. There is no denying the hungry look in his eyes as they all look around. I actually expected more of a reaction from all of them. To the group I said, "feel free to look around gentlemen. Ask any questions you have, everyone in the room is well versed on our operation." The whole room could be seen from this platform, the only furniture up here is a 20 foot round, dark polished table in front of us with an aerial map of the Concordat inlaid into the center. This pl
Leah’s POV [Present Day] My dad grabs my shoulder and murmurs. “Leah, you there?” I blink at him and shake my head a little, coming back from the memory. “Yeah, sorry, you know how I get when an idea hits.” I say with a small smile, it’s not a lie, but I know he sees right through me, yet won’t question a thing in front of this group of guys. I clear my throat. “So you’ll notice the full scale aerial maps of each territory hanging from the far walls. These are updated every 2 weeks from satellite imagery. We also use the satellites to monitor crop growth in each pack, the population shifts in rogue territory and any other anomalies in the outer borders. This necessity was clear after the hunter attack that killed my mom 10 years ago and then again with the rogue uprising 5 years ago when I was captured.” I make eye contact with each Elder and attempt to keep the blatantly hateful judgment out of my voice while silently judging them with my eyes. I have never been quiet about my fee
Leah’s POV I went straight for Victor’s throat, knowing I would never make contact, but I had to keep everyone distracted enough for Elyse to work her magic. It took some time for her portion of the plan to initiate and we needed everyone looking the other way. What better way to distract a whole room of aggressive men than a good old fashioned challenge of authority? Ellinore joined me in the fight, I could see her take down Seamus almost instantly with a clothesline maneuver out of the corner of my eye. I’m not even sure if he knew how to put up a fight anymore. Man that guy is a wimp, how was he ever an Alpha? Nyx exclaimed. Honestly I didn’t have an answer for her, but I had a feeling his being Alpha had something to do with who his chosen mate more than him actually being a qualified Alpha, like many of the Elders, who clung to their superiority complexes like it was oxygen, he married into his rank. His chosen mate was the daughter of an Alpha and he a Beta or Gamma. She
Damien’s POV “I just kissed her!” was all I could think. I don’t know if the action was more me or my wolf, but it was amazing. My whole body is still on fire from that one contact. My hand lit up with the little fireworks as I touched the back of her neck and the absolute euphoric explosion that ripped through my whole body when our lips met is something I will never soon forget. As I’m running to catch up with the other leaders, my wolf is scratching at my insides to turn around and go back to her. I have never been so drawn to a person as I am to her. Even when we were little, the few times we were able to spend time alone my wolf and I always felt at peace, like she brought me calm just being close. Trent is definitely going to try to kill me when he finds out. Leah was promised to him when she
[Present Day]Leah’s POVI know it's sad, but I still have that black t-shirt 10 years later. I sleep in it almost every night. I don’t even know if he would remember giving it to me. I’m sure that it’s super creepy, but I can’t help it. I saw it as a piece of himself that he gave willingly to help me, with no other intentions or motivations. It was the first time a male, that wasn’t my dad or uncles, was kind just to be kind.“Alpha, all of the male rogues that we noted earlier have engaged. They are overrunning the territory as we speak and there is no sign of Ellinore’s group yet. They should have reached the door by now, I don’t understand.” A gamma, I think Travis is his name, s