GOAL SETTING

22 February, Monday, CONTINUED

"Okay, shoot. What have you got." Ben immediately returned to his cool bossy self. He was sitting with his foot on his knee and letting his chair swing from side to side like he was the boss. He was even seated at the head of the table. Surely if anyone walked in now, they would think he was the Alpha.

I would be the poor wolf caught for interrogation, which was a brilliant idea, by the way.

I lit up at my good idea, "Why don't you interrogate me?"

"What?" Ben asked, even though I had spoken quite clearly.

"Apologies, Alpha." Harvey tried to clarify, "What do you mean 'interrogate'?"

"I mean like, maybe you guys can ask me more specific questions." I explained. I'm such a patient Alpha like that, "So that I know what you want to know."

(And maybe with some luck figure out the plan.)

"Alright." Ben relaxed again, "Let's start from the bottom line, what's the objective of this plan?"

Oh! I knew the answer to that!

I raised my hand, "Not let River turn into a warlock."

For some reason, all three of my betas looked somewhat baffled. This was beginning to feel like some of my conversations in the car with Harvey - not the ones where he went, "Understood Alpha" and took down notes. More like the ones where my good and calm beta wore a stupefied expression half the time, like he was sure his Alpha was saying something wise and important but for the life of him could not figure it out.

So I tried to explain it better, "You know, cos River is a formling, but he's also Savy's mate, if he turns into the warlock and lose his ability to bond with Savy, and Savy would be mate-less!"

Which would be a disaster because we weren't talking about some lycan fairy tale or webnovel, we were talking about my little sister, people! So why the heck were the three guys still looking at me like I wasn't making any sense.

Harvey raised his hand, "Apologies, Alpha. But this objective... how is it related to your luna's prophecy?"

"Oh." I said, realizing I had forgotten to mention that part, "And also to not let Bell touch the blue fire either."

"What blue fire?" This was Ben.

So I had to explain the the entire thing about warlocks having a blue magical fire.

"They keep it in their fireplaces, I think." I tried to remember what I saw at Heller's, "And also in their kitchen boiler. I think they just use it like a normal fire - with a grill around it, but not a normal grill, it's sort of like a glass magic barrier, but I don't know how Fount would keep his fire..."

I rambled on while my betas tried to shift through my words to find the point.

"If Bell takes the blue fire, he would turn into a tyger." I concluded.

Ki smiled, "I've reported goddess' dream travel this morning."

Immediately, Harvey and Ben whipped out their phones to check for the document. Then they read it like it was the secret to eternal life or a code to decipher their alpha's words or something. I stopped talking a little while to wait for them to finish racing through the report.

Ben finished first, "That's it?"

Ki smiled, "I've included as much detail as possible based on what the goddess had shared this morning."

Now it was Ben's turn to think aloud, "So this Tyger Tyger lullaby is really a prophecy of some sort?"

Ki smiled and shook his head, "Or rather just an old lycan legend, beta."

"Dad says there's no such thing." I said.

"But...." Ben prompted.

"But I think its better not to take the risk." I admitted, and then I quickly added, "Not that I think I would die or anything, but..."

How should I put this?

"If there were really such at thing as a tyger, what do you think would happen if my luna became it?" I asked my betas, "Bear in mind, he already has crazy healing powers, an underground army, and the vampire's ring."

What the hell was the goddess thinking?

"My goddess." Ki breathed as he put two and two together, "He would be unstoppable."

I nodded, yes. Well, no. It wasn't like I wanted to stop him or anything. But my luna was going to be a hell of a monster to contend with.

"So, we keep Savy's prince and your luna away from the blue fire." Ben nodded, "Anything else?"

I shook my head, "No, no, Ben. I mean, yes, we keep River away, but Bell..."

"You're NOT going to just give him the fire are you?" Ben asked sharply, "You'd die!"

"I'm not going to die!" I flared back and then my hair deflated with a sigh, "We need to play along with the prophecy."

"It's like we can't go outright against it. The prophecy would happen one way or the other. We just need to find a way for it to happen so that nothing bad happens on the side." For example, my untimely death, and more importantly, Bell's being the last Lorent Alpha should not be because he died too.

"Like right now," I said, "We're on a good track. Bell's investiture is next month. He's going to be the Lorent Alpha. BUT if we mate and he becomes my luna, then that would be the end of the Lorent Alphas."

"Until you have pups." Ben pointed out.

"Oh. Right. There was that." Ben did have a point. Our pup would be the next alpha.

"Unless I only have girl pups." I brightened at the thought.

"That would be cute." Ki smiled his agreement.

"Shut up dog." Ben said, "With Sam's bloodline, even a girl would be an alpha wolf."

"According to the betrothal agreement, your pups would all be Lorents." Harvey winced, "Maybe this is just a technical point, but you're also a Lorent, so even after mating, you would be a Lorent Alpha - at least by law."

"Maybe the last Lorent Alpha thing could mean being the Alpha of the Lorent pack." There was always a way out! "So it isn't our legal names, its just the end of the Lorent Pack cos we merged!"

None of my betas looked terribly convinced.

"If that counts, wouldn't the fact that Savy and River are mates, make Luna Bell a warlock's brother?" Ben asked.

"Technically, none of them are mated yet, beta." Ki felt he should clarify this point.

Ben punched his fist into his hand, "So if River takes the fire and turns warlock, he won't mate Savy, and the prophecy wouldn't be fulfilled?"

I growled that him.

"I'm just saying." Ben shrugged.

Okay, then just saying, "Even if that happens, the prophecy would happen some other way. So the idea ISN'T to stop the prophecy from happening. It's to let it happen in the best possible way."

I felt like I kept have to reiterate this concept even to my super smart betas. Well yes, it's a completely new concept that I've made up recently, but my alpha lucky sense of direction really felt this was the right way to go.

"Okay..." Ben allowed reluctantly, "Let's go with this line of logic... What would be the best possible way?"