WHO'S THE ALPHA?

29 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, CONTINUED

Even as I started worrying about my mum really locking me up in my tower for the rest of my life, more cars arrived in convoy and motorbike escort, so I immediately recognized it had to be someone important.

Except that the guy who got out of the familiar dark red car was just Henry plus plus. The first plus was his beta, Pete. The second plus was an adult alpha wolf I didn't know.

I watched as Henry and Bell greeted each other. Since Bell's right arm was in the sling. Henry simply clapped Bell on his good arm, "How's the arm?"

"You know, same old." Bell answered, and returned the clap to Henry's shoulder with his good hand.

Henry smirked, "Ah well, give it time."

Which made me wonder exactly what did Henry know, but I held my tongue.

"This is Crystal Wind Pack's Alpha Stephan, Winderhill is under his jurisdiction." Henry introduced the unknown adult alpha to us.

"We've been introduced, but I doubt the Young Alpha of the Glorious Lorent Pack would have noted our meeting." Alpha Stephan joked in all false modesty.

In such a situation, I felt sure the correct response would be to assure Alpha Stephan that he was indeed noted.

"You're right. I didn't." Bell answered flatly. I'm sure if Alpha Stephan was the sensitive type, he was going to feel slighted. I mean, in contrast to his interaction with Henry, Bell was treating Alpha Stephan rather coldly.

Sometimes I couldn't tell if Bell was unable to make friends because he was just too much of a Lorent Prince know how or because he was being difficult on purpose.

I looked to Alpha Stephan and waited for him to smack Bell's arrogant smirk off his face, or at least growl a warning at the younger wolf, but Alpha Stephan must not have been the petty type. He only smiled and held out his hand, "Perhaps let's start over then. I'm Alpha Stephan. Welcome to Winderhill."

Bell looked at his hand and then at his own right hand in a sling, and then smirked.

Alpha Stephan dropped his hand back to his side, "Oh. Right."

Alpha Stephan smirked.

So I guess he was petty after all, but I tried to be friendly, "Hi! I'm Sam!"

I even smiled and waved nicely from next to Bell, but Alpha Stephan ignored me! No wait, he probably just didn't hear me.

Henry did though, and he introduced, "And you must recognise the Alpha Princess of Night Leaf. She is Alpha James' soul mate."

I smiled again at the introduction, but Alpha Stephan barely looked at me, "Charmed, I'm sure."

I guess that was to expected since he was an alpha and I was just a highschool girl.

Alpha Stephan's attention was intently focused on Bell. It seemed like Alpha Stephan had business to settle, he squared his shoulders and exerted his alpha authority a bit, "Even though you traveled all the way out here, I must say, you really didn't need to rush down Alpha James. Everything is under control."

Bell raised a disbelieving brow at that, "I'll believe it when I have all the rogue attackers kneeling at my feet."

"Now... Alpha James!" Alpha Stephan protested, "Even if you say so... Winderhill is a densely populated town and an operation of this scale might take days!"

"Not with my warriors on it." Bell answered smugly.

"That's... That's not necessary." Alpha Stephan tried to fend off the offer.

"Too bad. I already sent them out with your ants and Henry's ants too." I informed him.

"My what?" Alpha Stephan suddenly could hear me now.

"Our warriors." Henry smirked, "She thinks our warriors are nothing but ants."

No, I didn't! I just thought there were a lot of them and they were usually busying about in straight lines and... Nevermind. It didn't look like Alpha Stephan was going to hear me out anyway.

Bell laughed though. Just a short one, like he hadn't want to laugh out loud, but accidentally let it slip.

"You dare laugh!" Henry pretended to take offense, but he was laughing too.

"Stephan, report." Bell ordered.

Alpha Stephan startled, but it was our Stephan - the captain of our Underground who stepped up smartly, like a blue faced mountain of muscles, his strong and silent alpha wolf putting the first Alpha Stephan's wolf to shame. Not all alphas were made the same.

"They've apprehended the suspects at an abandoned warehouse 4 clicks, South East from here. Pickle Avenue." Our Stephan reported simply, "Awaiting the Alpha's order."

"Have them deported to the Green Packlands." Bell decided, "I'll deal with them there."

"No!" Alpha Stephan protested, "The incident happened on Crystal Wind Pack's territory so the terrorists will be tried and punished under our jurisdiction."

"So you're saying that Crystal Wind Pack is going to take responsibility for this incident?" Bell asked, suddenly all beautiful and smiling again.

{Trap!} Boo pointed out to me.

I nodded silently. Yeah. Bell wasn't being subtle about it either.

Alpha Stephan looked caught between a rock and a hard place. He tried to slide himself out in the silkiest of voice, "Well, let's not be so hasty Alpha James. I'm sure we can talk this over, but it's not convenient to talk at length out here along the street. Tell you what, why not have the arrested rogues sent to our detention facility, and we can discuss the rest in my office? I would like to officially welcome you to our packhouse for coffee."

"No, I suppose we wouldn't want another bomb to be set off in our faces out here, would we?" Bell asked benignly.

But this kind of benign was like cancer pretending to be harmless. Alpha Stephan, you need to flee! Run away!

Bell wasn't someone you should trifle with!

For the sake of world peace, I decided I had to step in, "I'm the alpha. So I get to decide."

This was news to both Alpha Stephan and Bell. I mean, Alpha Stephan, yes, we just met... But Bell too. Sigh. Anyway, they looked at our Stephan as if needed his confirmation, and of course our Stephan would nod.

Because Stephan was MY wolf.

Bell sighed, "Order them deported to Night Leaf, princess."

How dare he order me around!

"Might I remind you that by forcefully taking them out of the Gold Packlands, you are undermining inter-packland laws, Alpha Princess?" Alpha Stephan inserted.

Oh, NOW he wanted to talk to me.

"It would be best to have them safely detained here for further investigation." Alpha Stephan advised, "I promise you, we will get to the bottom of this."

"What is there to get to the bottom of?" I asked.

Alpha Stephan paused here, "Why, surely the Alpha Princess wonders why these rogues would target someone as yourself?"

Was he an idiot?

"Does it matter why?" I asked, "The fact is that they attempted to assassinate me, and in their attempt endangered many innocent lives. There is no reason they can give to justify the violence they committed out here in public today."

And then I decided, because I was the Alpha, "Stephan, please have the rogues brought here. I want a word with them."

"Yes, Alpha." Stephan bowed a smart nod and signaled to Theo who nodded and went onto the mindlinks.

At this moment, I noticed the other warriors crowding around the dead giant rogue's body. I heard a low pained growling and realized he wasn't dead any more. I narrowed my eyes at Bell who only smiled beatifically at me, "Be careful, princess. It seems that brute is not quite a dead as we had thought."

Alpha Stephan looked alarmed and stepped away. Henry smirked, but Beta Pete and his red ant escort immediately pulled out their guns.

"Please don't be alarmed." Ki smiled his killion dollar smile, "Our men have him restrained."

Which was a relief to everyone. Apparently the giant rogue was quite scary, even without a bomb. Boo scoffed internally though, so I decided that he couldn't have been that dangerous.

The really dangerous one was the Death God disguised as Prince Charming next to me.

"Are there many casualties from just now?" I asked, "Where are they?"

"They have been warded to the nearest local emergency center." Ki informed me, "So far, the count stand at 73 excluding those treated for minor injuries. We were lucky. No lives have been lost, although three are under critical condition, and there are several who are in stable condition requiring transfer for further treatment asap."

Because local emergency centers seldom have the capacity to deal with a sudden influx of patients. I nodded. I knew this much, I've heard it being discussed at meetings often enough back home. Dad and his leaders often discussed at great lengths how to distribute our limited medical supplies and personnel between Night Leaf and Morning Light.

There was never enough should something really big and bad happen.

"Then we'll just have to make sure that doesn't happen." Dad would decided at the end of the day.

I looked at my beautiful mate and gave him my sweetest smile, "You know, if you have the heal to spare (since you had enough to resurrect that giant rogue), why don't you go over and lend a hand?"

I looked at his single "good" hand.

Bell returned my smile with a tight one of his own, "Princess, these aren't even our wolves."

"Have you ever heard the saying? Let's cover evil with good." I smiled again.

Bell didn't look like he recalled such a saying, but this was natural because this was something River said, and not any noble lycan quote. And then he sighed as if giving up, "If it pleases you, princess."

I nodded, "Yes. It would please me very much."

Whatever. At any rate, my mind would be far more at ease with Bell healing casualties than torturing captives.

Back to Alpha Stephan, I smiled again, "Winderhill has hosted me for most the past school term. Please allow me to return the favor and extend my protection to your people today."

At this moment, PR Ki stepped in with his PR smile. He gestured to the back of one of our Night Leaf trucks, "We have already prepared additional supplies and warriors."

Alpha Stephan looked at the crates at the back of our trucks. I had no idea what he imagined to be in them, but he looked like he wanted it. Then he looked at Henry.

"Don't look at me, Stephan." Henry shrugged, "I'm just here on the way to school."

Smart Henry. Stay out.

And then Henry turned to me, "Speaking of which, you wanna ride into the school, Sam? We're late."

Oh. Right. School! The sun was already properly up by now.

Henry looked at his watch, "We already missed homeroom."

Really, that's all?

I tried to decide what to do. I did want to get to class, but who would make sure everything got done exactly as I wanted? I looked at my wolves one by one, and then settled on my good beta, "Harvey, you're in charge."

Harvey raised a brow in surprise, but aloud he acknowledge with his usual wry calm, "Yes, Alpha."

"Make sure Bell doesn't do anything to get us in trouble with the High Council. Be careful, Bell's tricky. And take care he doesn't bully Ki and burn him out at the hospital later. When the rogues get here, make sure you scold them for hurting innocent people for me because that was just short sighted and selfish. Then let Bell and Ki negotiate with Alpha Stephan whatever they want. I personally don't care if the rogues never come to the Green Packlands. They are on death row whichever packland they stand trial since they attacked an alpha. It doesn't matter to me where they die. I don't even care if not all of them receive the death sentence. It's really not worth bothering over petty details." With Harvey, it was easy, just like any other day in the car, "Let's see, what else am I missing? Right, have everything settled and come pick me up after my rehearsals. Also thank my army for coming out, but have Stephan return them home. Oh, and if my Mum hasn't seen the news, see if you can keep this incident from her. If she has, then help me tell her not to worry. It wasn't a big deal."

"Understood, Alpha. Will do." Harvey answered wry smile in place.

This was when I realized everyone else had gone quiet around me.

"S***." I blurted out, "I just said all that aloud, didn't I?"

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. S*** and all.

"Who did you say is tricky, princess?" My beautiful mate asked.

Ah....

"Did I say tricky?" I grinned, "Maybe I said pretty."

And then before anything else I said could be held against me, I turned tail and bee-lined for Henry's car, "Come on, Henry! We're late for school!"