27 JELLYBEANS

The tube was new, I tore the plastic wrap and opened it. It claimed to have 36 flavors, but when I poured it out, I swore there were only 27 beans in it.

I counted. If I ate it right, it meant I could eat one jelly bean every 4 minutes to make it last the whole meeting.

I rounded it to 5 minutes because it was just easier to track with my watch. And then I lined the jellybeans in a row just above my opened file because I was an organized person like that.

I put the first bean in my mouth because the minute hand just touched the bottom mark on my watch. It was 11.30pm.

"Alpha Kingsley and Alpha Lorent are here." Beta Lucas announced the moment Dad and Alpha James arrived.

Everyone stood up with a polite bow.

There was another man with them.

"Tonight we have Alpha Lorent and his Delta, Bernard joining us." Dad introduced.

Bernard was a very smiley looking man. He noticed Rebel immediately, "Young Alpha, you are here! I haven't seen you for ages. You father says you had been abroad? How is it? Good? Good."

He pretty much had the conversation all on his own. Rebel barely nodded and didn't smile. I'm beginning to realize that besides being evil, my mate was rather unfriendly.

I would imagine most girls dreaming of their mates as strong and kind, with a gentle smile and friendly disposition.

Maybe there was no such thing. Oh wait, there was Killion. But... Hahaha, but only on the surfacce. For some reason my wolf felt Killion was harder to deal with than mate. At least if mate was displeased, he'd let you know it. Killion was less direct.

How did Ben and Dad put it? Yeah, I'm glad they were on our side too.

We waited for the alphas to sit down, and then we sat. So far so good. My jelly bean was orange in flavor.

"I asked Bernard to come over as my secretary." Alpha James explained.

"Pleased to meet everyone." Bernard smiled and bowed.

"Please to meet you too." Beta Gerald politely replied, "Please, come sit with us."

Now that everyone was here, Dad said, "Let's begin the meeting."

The elders started discussing about how the merger might work out.

I put the second jelly bean in my mouth. 11.35pm. Green Apple flavor. 2 beans down, 25 more to go. I settled in my chair. If I had to sit through 25 jelly beans, I might as well do it as comfortably as possible. Pulling up my socked feet from under the table, I sat cross-legged on the large conference chair.

Mate's eyes darted down but he adverted his gaze again without even a flicker of change in his expression. What? Did he hope to see legs? I checked under the table, my long skirt was draped over my legs. Haha. I looked legless. Nothing to see here. (So proud of myself, yes.)

"Sam did mention an interesting idea the other night about the packs running on separate systems? I'm interested in hearing about that. I hope you don't mind explaining it to me, so we are on the same page for the rest of the meeting." Alpha James said.

Everyone looked at me. I could see Ben across take one last look at his screen before looking at me. Then he straightened and I knew he was going to take the question.

My first instinct was to beat him to it, but my wolf dropped back, let's see what this Beta had to say.

Ben raised his hand, unlike his dad or Beta Gerald, he didn't hold it up, it was just a very brief gesture to catch everyone's attention, "I would like to try explaining it."

ALPHA'S SAM PLAN FOR THE MERGED PACKS (ACCORDING TO BEN)

Basically, we'd like to keep the everyday lives of the wolves in our pack as normal and stable as possible.

We are also going to reduce the everyday administrative burden on the Alpha through this new structuring.

Each pack will form it's own town administration, headed by a Beta, and assisted by a Gamma and a team of Deltas. They run autonomously, as modelled by Morning Light.

Ben drew it out on the white board. The Alpha's office in the top box, followed by the four towns, each in its own box and a fifth box in which he wrote "Warriors".

Underneath the chart he listed health, education, transport, etc as shared services.

The finances of each pack would be kept intact, but they contributed a monthly fee for the shared services.

I guess that was how they interpreted what I meant by separate pack wallets. That's okay with me.

Whatever works.

Ben ended his presentation and looked to me, "Do you have anything further to add, Alpha?"

But his tone was challenging.

Wolf! Ben's wolf was surfacing. His wolf was so close I could feel it. I beamed and nodded, "That's exactly right."

And I popped the third jelly bean into my mouth. Lemon Drop.

Mate raised a brow. Why? Did he sense my happiness? He didn't know, but Ben's wolf is fun. So was mate's actually. I wondered if some wolves were more fun than others. How did my Wolfie decide who was fun?

Anyway the meeting continued, here are my notes, by jelly bean:

CREAM SODA

The Betas who would be running each town was set as: Night Leaf by Ben, Morning Light by Harvey, Princess Town by Killion, and the Lorent by Rebel, at least until I chose a permanent Beta. Beta Lorent's son, Anthony was recommended. Alpha James hoped I would not judge him based on his father's sins.

ROOT BEER

The elders suggested to put a name on the Warriors' box. We thought about one of my Betas, or like Delta Hank who would be captain. I was cautioned that it had to be either someone I trusted with the life of our pack since this someone would control our army. Someone suggested it would be the Alpha (i.e. me) just like the way Alpha Solomon kept control of Black Forest.

BLUEBERRY

I decided on putting Bell's name on the Warriors' box. Our Luna would lead the warriors. This was mainly because I remembered the dream of his rebel army, and I figured if he could gather and lead something like that, he could deal with this. This pleased mate very much. I could feel it through out mate bond. Hahaha. Also everyone else seemed rather pleased by this too. So I felt like I made the right decision.

BUBBLEGUM

They wanted to know who would control the shared resources and at what level of sharing this would be. We settled on the Alpha's office with deltas from each town forming a committee. I was going to have many committee meetings to attend now (This was my own conclusion, no one else seemed to have noticed.)

CARAMEL CORN

A detour point about schools, which would be divided into private and public schools within our green packlands. Green Leaf Academy would be a public school. The Lorent Pack had two schools. They may decide whether to tap into the shared resources as a public school or reserve their independence as a private school. Public schools would have to be opened to students from the entire Green Packlands and follow certain core syllabus and fee caps.

MANGO

The details of the rest of the merger could be worked out later on. For now, everyone agreed in principle to move forward with this model. It was a brilliant system that we had come up with. Hey, wasn't it my idea to begin with? But everyone looked so proud of it that I decided it was better to let them continue to think it was their idea.

CINNAMON (blech)

The formal announcement of our merger would be made during my Alpha Investiture. The name of this ceremony was different in different packs. This was the first ceremony we were going to have and everyone decided to go with Investiture followed by Inauguration. Investiture was just my future alpha ceremony and inauguration was when I step into office as an alpha the year of my 18th birthday, after I got mated.

COCONUT

"When are you coming home?" Alpha James asked Rebel.

"What's it to you, old man?" Rebel answered.

Alpha James growled at Rebel's disrespect. Rebel shrugged and kept a stony look.

"I'll return when I'm ready." Rebel said.

"Make it sooner." Alpha James said.

Now Rebel was growling. What's up with these two? Sigh.

"Luna, will you be back for the inauguration? Or do we skip your betrothal announcement and wait till the investiture to hold your mating ceremony?" Killion asked then.

Suddenly, I panicked a little. Mate was coming back right? I mean he did lie the first time he told me to wait for him. But when he said he was coming back now, he really was... Right?

My Wolfie took charge the moment this doubt surfaced. I pointed at Bell, "Be back by the inauguration or I would go there and drag you back myself."

"Like hell you would." Mate growled, "I told you to wait for me."

"Since when had I listened to you?" I simply asked.

Mate growled, all the good feelings from being made head of the Warriors gone, speaking of which...

"The Rogue King returns in Spring. You are going to be Chief Captain of the Warriors. Our first official and large scale event announcing our merger to the world, even if you don't show up as my mate, you better show up to lead the warriors." My hair was flaring up now.

"Don't order me." Rebel growled.

"You don't order me." I shot back.

"Technically, she is the Alpha and you are the Commander of the Warriors." Killion pointed out.

I started laughing at that. True.

Rebel growled low and I feared he was about to just disappear again. And then I had an idea, "Do you wanna exchange? I'll lead the army, you can be the Alpha and sit in all the meetings."

Rebel froze at that.

Actually everyone did.

"No." Rebel said, "I will be the one leading the warriors into battle."

Well, it was worth a shot.

STRAWBERRY JAM

"So you'll be back by Sam's investiture?" Ben asked.

Rebel growled lowly, but nodded. He was pissed like hell. I mean he was seriously mad. So mad that he was pretty much radiating enough anger to turn cells cancerous.

Maybe I went too far. I wondered if I was putting him in a bad position. Did that mean he would have to raise a rebel army in two months? Oh yeah, and get the vampire curse ring to break his family curse. And there was this little extra hurdle he had to get over - like he'd have to escape from the vampire fight cage.

"Maybe we can discuss this later." I said, "If you're really coming back, I can wait a few more years."

For some reason, this made Mate even angrier, "I said I was coming back!" His deep voice cracked like thunder. His alpha command crackled like lighting across the room.

Opps, did I say the 'if you're really coming back' part aloud? I did didn't I? I'm an idiot.

It made it worse that I was sitting right next to him.

Stoopid. He was the one who lied the first time he said it! I felt the tears fall. Oh s***. I was leaking again.

Stoopid stoopid stoopid so stooopid.

"Don't cry." Suddenly the alpha static fizzled out. Mate cursed in Ancient Lycan.

I was so ashamed. Second leak in one day.

"I'm not crying. It just leaked. It didn't mean anything." I said.

"Now I feel like the bad guy." Mate said.

"You are." I said.

Ouch. I've hurt his feelings. I could feel it through the mate bond.

I rubbed the tears out of my eyes and forced a smile, "Just kidding."

PEANUT BUTTER

Mate handed me his handkerchief. Who still used handkerchiefs nowadays? "I'll be back, I promise. Once I get that cursed ring, I'll be back."

I was still just holding his handkerchief. He took it out of my hand and patted it on my cheeks to dry the tears. It was kind of embarrassing. I pushed his hand away, "Yeah okay. Let's move on. What's next on the agenda?"

I looked at the line of jelly beans, there were slightly more than half left, and the next one was red. I hope it wasn't another cinnamon.