BOOK CLUB

"Why are we even here, Sam?" Ben groaned.

Because fun! But admittedly, after the excitement of boarding the supersized bus wore out, it wasn't very fun at all.

Harvey did comment on mindlink that this was the same kind of bus that some band he liked went on road tours with. The ceiling was higher, there were much fewer seats because half of them were arranged in fours, facing each other with a pull out table in the middle. There were charging points which my betas immediately plugged into…

It was a very nice bus, but it wasn't the same one as the one the rock stars used because there wasn't a jacuzzi. It was just the same model, but our interior wasn't designed for rock stars. I think it was a good thing though. Delta Felicity can get scary wild in a party environment. She was one of those ladies who believed that age was just a number (so she never quite behaved like her age).

Angela said going out with her mum was like going out with a very irresponsible sister, "You know something's wrong with your mum when you're the one constantly saying "no" to her when you go out."

"It's terrible, its like going out with myself - but myself with a gold card." Angela fluttered her newly extended lashes that her mum and her had gotten together, "I know I should make the most of it, but I don't want to put our house on a second mortgage."

"But she's a grown up! And she's a delta too! I'm sure your mum knows what she's doing." Shanon tried to reason.

"No. She doesn't." Tim interrupted, in case anyone should be convinced by Shanon, "My mum has no impulse control whatsoever - and that's coming from me."

"Put it this way Shan," Angela said, "If you put all the worst of Tim and me together, we wouldn't be able to out-worst my Mum."

Thanks to her children's consistent PR pitch, Delta Felicity's rep among her pup's peers was cemented in the top echelons of female wolves not to be messed with. (I personally ranked her equal with Mama Rosa.)

I'm told my luna mum was also on the list, but for obviously different reasons. My mum was our pack's lovely luna, so it was more like my friends were always on their best behavior in front of her. I suspect it wasn't just the pups, even our roughest warrior wolves became gentlemen.

In front of Delta Felicity, even tough warrior wolves tread carefully.

Case in point, my betas who were sitting tight in our four seat space pretending to be very busy on their screens. Ben sighed again. He had a laptop in front of him too, but he was waiting for some code to process or something. He stretched (but not in anyway that would catch Delta Felicity's attention), "Sam… please tell me you have a plan."

"Ben," I told him firmly, "I think you should know me better than that."

"Come off it Sam," Ben said, "We do know you better than that."

What? I blinked.

"Two words." Ben smirked, "Dan Lion."

My betas were not just pretending to be busy, they had been sorting through the Dan Lion material Future Ben had collected for us since last night, and were actually on some kind of collaborative online meeting with Fluffy and Wolfgang - who were also on their own guided tour because they were showing Prince Hayao, Gareth, and Anna around our Packlands.

This was accomplished by equal part collaborative software, equal part good old fashioned mindlinking, and an ungodly ability to multitask.

Sometimes, I feel Beta wolves have to be the more evolved wolves. I had no delusions about my own ability to multitask.

Anyway, Ben was being a terrible explainer again, so I would do the explaining for him, not that I was good at explaining, but I was better than Ben - don't argue with me on this. I would be deeply offended.

It turned out that Dan Lion was not just a prolific fictional writer and star of way too many Lycan dramas and fanfiction, Dan also wrote many non fiction works. They span from commentary articles on economy, politics, and society to biographies of some rather notable historical characters.

Or rather they were historical characters in the future. Right now, they were just normal wolves I saw everyday.

Like Beta Lucas in a biography entitled, "The Last Night Leaf Beta" in which Beta Lucas was described as a wise and loyal beta and a visionary in his own right.

It was quite a thick volume, but Ben said they needed that number of pages to convince anyone that his Dad was anything like whatever was written on the back cover of the book alone.

I quote, "He was a light on a sea of uncertainty that the future had become. Indeed he stood guard like a lighthouse that guided the way for the betas who came after him safely across to new grounds."

"Huh," Ben said, "They couldn't even stick to the story. The front cover calls him The Last Night Leaf Beta, the back talks about the betas after him."

No one felt like pointing out that technically, the betas that came after were Moon Bell betas, so both front and back covers were not wrong.

Ben didn't look like he was in the mood to have his mind changed.

"But ignoring the bullshit..." Ben said.

Even the fictional works like The Last Fire Wolf (which was loosely based on the true story of our very own Wolfgang) contained very real life political notes.

He might have change the names, but those conversations and scandals were borrowed from the real life gossip flowed among the diplomat's many and varied social circles.

For example, the hero of the story was a blond handsome fire wolf named Angelo because he was so much like a vision of an angel, some humans believed him to be some sort of demigod.

Please note that it was very, very, very loosely based on Wolfgang's life, because even though Wolfgang was good looking, that was just farfetched. It also turned out to be the book Bell was basing his story on.

In it, Angelo never mated because he was the blue haired Empress's favourite lover.

"I want to read that." I said. I felt sure this book might just reveal Dan Lion and Henri's love story - not the real one I guess, just the one Bell was telling me.

I mean, it was obviously fictional.

"You.want.to.read.that." Ben repeated dryly.

"Yes." I nodded, "I think this was the book I was looking for."

"The physical copy is currently with Wolfgang." Ben shrugged, "I can send the e-book to your screen."

Because in the future, most books had an e-format. Printed books were more of a collector's item. The copy Future Ben had put into our collection was a first print, special edition cover with a gold foil embossed Firewolf on the cover.

"You young people are looking busy." Delta Bernard observed aloud in a friendly way.

"We're just reading." I said.

"What are you reading?" Someone else asked, "Is it for school?"