I sighed as I sat down at my desk. I knew I usually joked that I hated being Alpha. It wasn’t true. Most days I liked it; it came naturally to me. But there were aspects of it I didn’t like, like paperwork. It was an endless tide of paperwork involved in running the pack. There was the paperwork for the pack and its finances, the paperwork the humans demanded we keep, and then there was the paperwork for the council.

Since Amie had joined the pack, she had been a great help. She knew how much I hated it and how my mood took a turn for the worse when I had to endure it for a long period. So she decided to rescue both me and the pack and give me a hand. Now she always joined me during my paperwork sessions. The work seemed to go by much faster, and just having someone to grumble to made it easier to deal with.

And then there was the part of being Alpha that I was heading into. I was about to call Alpha Jackson and tell him we were turning his offer down. It was the right decision; it had been my instinct when he had called to extend the offer. But I wanted to hear the opinion of my cabinet. To my relief, they had all agreed with me. Amie had taken the last doubt from me during our conversation.

I knew I was leaning on her. During the months Amie had been in the pack the thing between us had grown stronger. We didn’t speak about it, but I knew she felt it too. I had no idea what it was. I knew it wasn’t a mate bond; I wasn’t delusional. But it was something. Whatever it was, I enjoyed her company. She always made me feel better and less stressed. Just spending an evening talking and playing cards did wonders. I knew that sooner or later we would need to talk about it. I also had a feeling I wouldn’t like her take on it, so I pushed it into the future.

The thoughts about Amie called forth the memory of her playing with the pups in the snow yesterday. It was no big mystery why the pack loved her. She was generous and caring, protective of the ones she cared about, and smart. And yesterday I had learned the gorgeous wolf had a pup living inside her that was called forth by the snow. To watch her play tag with the pups had been the highlight of my day. I had watched them for a while before making my presence known. The memory I tucked away to use on days when I needed a pick-me-up. I sighed; I was postponing the inevitable. I ran my hand through my hair and picked up the phone.

“Jackson Hill,” the other Alpha answered.

“Alpha Jackson, this is Alpha Finlay,” I told him.

“Ah, Finlay, calling back so soon?” Alpha Jackson said. It rubbed me the wrong way. Only my friends called me by my first name without my title. He was not one of my friends, but I swallowed it.

“Yes, I had a discussion with the top tier of the pack, and we were all in agreement. The decision, therefore, didn’t take long,” I told him.

“I didn’t expect anything else.” I heard the smugness in his voice, and it made me happy that I was about to give him a surprise.

“I’m happy you understand, Jackson. Your offer was more than generous, but my pack will not be joining yours. However, we recognise the generosity in you giving us this offer, and we would like to meet and discuss an alliance,” I said. There was a long silence from the other side; if I hadn’t heard him breathing, I would have thought he’d left.

“You turn the offer down?” he asked.

“Yes. As generous as it is for you to offer it, we don’t feel like it’s in our best interest at this point.”

“Have you forgotten that your pack is unranked?” Alpha Jackson asked.

“How can I forget a thing like that? No, I haven’t forgotten. But we are satisfied we can protect ourselves if it is needed. If anyone deems it fit to test us, they will learn that even though we are unranked, we are strong,” I said in a calm voice.

“That is good. Good. Well, let’s set up a meeting and talk alliance,” Alpha Jackson said. He tried to sound relaxed and at peace with the outcome, but his anger bled through.

I was standing in front of the pack later that evening. I had called a pack meeting, and the dining room in the pack house had been transformed into a meeting room. The tables had been arranged into a large square, and everyone of age in the pack sat facing the middle. Me and my closest wolves sat at one side, all eyes on me.

“That is why we turned down their offer,” I told the pack after I had explained things. There was an agreeing murmur amongst the gathered wolves.

“We don’t want to join another pack,” Jake said, and others agreed.

“We left one pack because we felt oppressed. We won’t give up our freedom for an unknown pack. If we wanted to trade our freedom for security, we would go back to our old one,” Matilda told them. The pack agreed, and I smiled at my aunt.

“We will meet with Alpha Jackson and two of his top wolves in two weeks' time at a neutral location. We are looking into forming an alliance with them,” I told the pack. I didn’t tell them the meeting was more of an opportunity for us to assess their true nature. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my pack, but I knew some things were best to keep close. “When we are gone, I want the rest of you to be on high alert. I don’t think anything will happen, but I want us to be on the safe side,” I said. Nodding heads agreed with me. We went on to talk about more mundane topics. Afterward, the top tier retreated back to our meeting room.

“I will take two of you with me, so our groups are equal,” I told them.

“Me and Sam should go with you. Amie and Medow can watch over the pack,” Martin said. I was glad he had suggested it, so I didn’t have to. My protectiveness towards Amie was strong, and I didn’t know if I had it in me to have her with me in a hostile situation.

“That’s a bad idea,” Amie said and shattered my satisfied calm.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Sam won’t be happy leaving Medow behind in a possibly dangerous situation. His focus won’t be on the meeting. Medow will be worried about Sam as he is going into a meeting with a threat against him. Besides that, Sam is the Gamma. If this is a ruse to get the strongest wolves away from the pack so they can attack behind our backs, it’s best if he is here. He knows the warriors and the defense plan better than anyone,” she explained. I hated that it made sense.

“It sounds logical,” Sam said as an echo of my own thoughts.

“I would be grateful to not be split up from Sam,” Medow agreed. I didn’t like the idea of bringing Amie with us to a potentially dangerous meeting. My wolf didn’t like it either. But she made too much sense for me to object. I couldn’t find a single thing to use as a reason she should stay, other than that I didn’t like to put her in danger. And that would be too revealing. If we had been mates, even chosen ones, it would have been a good reason. Now it would just make things awkward.

“Fine. Martin and Amie, you will come with me. Sam and Medow, you will stay and guard the pack. We will keep in regular contact.”

“We have almost two weeks to plan and strategise,” Amie told them.

“Why does it sound like you are having fun?” Martin asked.

“Maybe not fun. I know how serious the situation is. But my dad always used to come back from meetings like this and tell me and my brother about how they had tried to trick each other and how they battled to get the upper hand in the negotiations. It always sounded like fun,” she told us. “I guess I’m looking forward to trying it out.”

It reminded me how different our upbringings had been despite us both being the second child in a top-ranking family. My father had never been unkind to me. He had been a good father in most ways, and I thought of him fondly. He had just not seen the point of including me in his work. He knew my brother would take over after him, so from his point of view, it was just logical that he trained my brother. Amie’s family had done things differently, and I envied her the openness they seemed to have shared. If I ever had pups of my own, I would do it like Amie’s father, I told myself.