Chapter 218 Interim Alpha
ADRIANA
The meeting had been going for six hours when Alpha Damon finally pushed me past the point of being polite about it.
I'd had my heels off under the table since hour three. My lower back was staging a protest. I'd eaten nothing since the half piece of toast Hazel had physically placed in front of me at seven in the morning, and my coffee had gone cold before I'd finished the first cup. None of that was the thing that was making me tired.
The thing making me tired was sitting across from a man who had been saying the same sentence in slightly different configurations for the better part of ninety minutes and expecting a different result each time.
The issue on the table was a packless territory two regions east. The Alpha had died unexpectedly and the council couldn't agree on what came next. Alpha Damon had a very clear opinion about it and seemed genuinely puzzled as to why no one had simply agreed with him yet.
"As I've been saying," he announced, for what I counted as the fourth time, "we cannot leave that territory open. Rogues will move in within weeks. We appoint an interim, we stabilize the region, we revisit the permanent appointment at the next session."
"And as I said the first time you raised it," I replied, keeping my voice even, "appointing a leader immediately after one dies is how you manufacture a power struggle. You give every person with an interest in that territory a reason to contest the appointment instead of accepting it. You're not stabilizing anything. You're handing people a reason to fight."
He didn't look at me when he responded. He looked at the elder to his left. "These are complex political considerations that require experience to navigate."
Hazel's hand moved slightly on the table. I recognized it. She was stopping herself from doing something she'd have to apologize for later.
The elder he'd been speaking to cleared his throat and turned to me instead. "My Queen, perhaps a vote would at least move the conversation forward. We've been on this item for some time."
"I know exactly how that vote ends," I said. "It ends in a decision that nobody here has actually thought through, and then we spend the next three months managing the fallout from it. We table this item. Everyone comes back to the next session with a written proposal, actual data on the territory's demographics and existing pack affiliations, and then we make a decision based on something other than gut feeling." I made sure the last sentence was directed at Alpha Damon.
I looked around the table. Several heads nodded. Some didn't.
Then Alpha Damon stood up.
He put both palms flat on the table with so much force, the room immediately went dead silent.
"What exactly," he said, loudly and clearly and looking directly at me for the first time since the meeting began, "is she doing in here? This is a council of Alphas. Of men. Who authorized this?"
Nobody moved.
I looked at Hazel. She looked back at me with an expression I knew well. It meant she was ready and waiting and it was entirely my call.
I turned back to Damon slowly.
"Alpha Damon." My voice was quiet. I'd learned that quiet landed harder than loud in rooms like this. "Is there a problem you'd like to raise?"
He laughed. Short and dismissive and completely confident. "The problem is you. I don't know who you are or who brought you in here, but you don't belong at this table and you don't have authority to redirect a council session."
Hazel leaned forward. "I'd choose the next words very carefully. You're addressing the Queen."
He looked between us. I watched it register. The small recalibration behind his eyes as the information actually landed.
"The Queen?" His voice shifted. "She's-"
"Yes." I didn't let him finish the sentence. "Which means I have more authority in this room than everyone currently sitting in it combined. And I'd suggest you think carefully before you open your mouth again, Alpha Damon, because I am not in the habit of issuing the same warning twice."
He sat down. He didn't say another word. For the remainder of the session I felt his eyes on me occasionally and every time I looked back he found somewhere else to be looking.
After the session ended and we were in the car heading back through the city, Hazel pulled up something on her phone and read it without looking up.
"Apparently Damon has been trying to absorb that territory for years. He had an ongoing dispute with the previous Alpha about the border. His preferred interim appointment is someone he has existing ties with."
"Of course he does." I watched the lights outside. "It was never about rogues. It was about access."
"Obviously."
"Make sure someone gets a message to him." I leaned my head back against the seat. "If he speaks to me like that in an open session again, I won't embarrass him in the room. I'll remove him from the council entirely and let him explain that to his pack."
Hazel typed without commenting. Which meant she approved.
My feet were swollen and my head was pounding and I still had to go home and be present for my children who hadn't seen me properly in three days. Lana had a fever that was still being monitored. Lorain had apparently made a very detailed list of questions she intended to ask me and had given the list to Leo for safekeeping. The twins had a birthday coming and had been leaving increasingly hints around the house about what they expected.
Elijah would have found all of it funny. He would have come to bed at midnight and told me about something Liam said at breakfast and laughed with his whole chest and I would have told him about Damon and he would have had three different strategies ready before I finished the sentence.
I pressed my fingers against my eyes and breathed.
I had to sit and think about all those myself.