SILVER MOUNTAIN'S FUTURE ALPHA

20 FEBRUARY, SATURDAY, KINDA LATE

I watched as Henry stepped up to the center of the stage to stand with his father.

Alpha George announced, "Silver Mountain, I present to you my heir and the future alpha of Silver Mountain, Alpha Henry George!"

I felt the atmosphere lit up with pack mindlinks, not from my wolves though, his wolves, his pack. And even I, an outsider, could sense the overwhelming pride and joy of the moment. Henry did good - he had earned a loyal following. The auditorium clapped their approval and support.

After that, Alpha George and Henry went back to their seats and they screened a documentary introducing the Young Alpha Henry to the rest of the world. It was very informative and had a lot of news footage, photos, and interviews all talking about Henry.

I would have thought I knew a lot about my friend, but apparently, there were tons of things I had no idea about. Thanks to this documentary, the whole world would now know Henry better. It was quite impressive.

The Young Alpha Henry had always been a steady and focused pup. Even at a young age, he had consistently shown a keen sense of leadership and risk mitigation.

He had been mentored by many illustrious Lycan teachers in his growing years, and was particularly outstanding in mathematics and economics. He is also a persuasive debator and passionate about cleaner renewable energy, sustainable manufacturing, and

transparent trading. He had represented his previous schools as a youth speaker and ambassador and several world youth summits.

Not only was he academically inclined, the young Alpha Henry was also a medalist in competitive fencing during his elementary and middle school days. He only took a break from competition to focus on alpha training this year after his first shift and was now shadowing his father, Alpha George on his duties.

They ended the documentary with a video of Henry saying, "The world today is a far more complex time and place than ever. No pack is an island. Without a network of political and trade alliances and robust research and intel processes, your pack will very quickly find itself running alone in the backwoods. It is now, more than ever, wolf packs need to position to greater connectivity and increase cooperation to leverage trade and productivity opportunities. You are only as strong as your allies."

At the end of the video, the audience clapped again. The lights came back on and Alpha George, Young Alpha Henry, Beta Robert, and Young Beta Peter went up on stage to present the blueprint of the leadership transition over the next 4 years. We watched as the four wolves got up onto the stage and sat behind a long table with white table cloth, flowers, mics, and bottled water arranged on it. The scene started to look a lot like what happened at big press conferences.

I was confused at first. It almost felt like I accidentally entered the wrong auditorium. Or they forgot to let us "honored guests" take our leave first.

I was just here to see Henry get inaugurated, but now, I was stuck in the middle of an internal pack briefing cum press conference. Technically, this was about their pack, so how they handed over to the next generation wouldn't really have anything to do with anyone else right?

Yes and no... Mostly no. I really wasn't listening properly to what Henry was saying in the video. Or maybe I wasn't taking him seriously. But Henry was dead serious about all that stuff he said.

My first clue was the way the reporters and the other guests sat more upright, as if this segment was what they had come here for. I took a glance back at my Betas. Harvey and Beta Gerald were taking notes (but these guys always took notes). I checked on Mate, he leaned over when he caught me looking at him, "Hm?" Then he looked more closely at me, "Are you tired, Princess?"

I shook my head. The auditorium lights had been dimmed again. They were setting up a slide presentation behind the speakers.

"You can rest, your betas will take notes and update you on the key points." Bell offered.

I shook my head again. Even Bell seemed to think this presentation would be important.

Bell took my hand and shifted closer to offer me his shoulder. I was sorely tempted, but if this was important, I really shouldn't be sleeping through it right?

"I want to listen." I told Bell, refusing his shoulder.

He shrugged it lightly and turned back front, but he didn't let go of my hand this time.

We were holding hands! Omo.

Mate was holding my hand! Omo.

Okay, this wasn't the first time he had held my hand, but this was the longest time he had held my hand. Was he going to hold my hand through the entire presentation?

Mate's hand was warm and large and calloused. I remembered Grandpa Alpha's words about rough hands being good and useful hands and felt quite sure he would approve of Bell. And then I remembered Dad's large hand and wondered if Bell's hand would feel as heavy on my head. Omo, what was I thinking? Focus, girl!

Was my hand going to get sweaty? Oh no, please don't let my hand get sweaty!

Okay, no, I needed to play it cool. I'm glad I had paid attention to the girl talk around my desk every morning, or I doubt I would have any idea what to do. The key here was to DO NOTHING. I forced myself to look interested at what was happening on the stage.

Nothing was happening... yet. Just some throat clearing and paper shuffling at the presentation table. I wriggled in my seat and worried if I was supposed to "hold back" Bell's hands and how much force I should use. Holding hands for a long time was a little like our hands hugging. OMO. What was I thinking? I looked back to the stage - someone say something!

Finally, Beta Robert spoke, but only to remind honored guests and reporters not to interrupt the presentation. There would be a Q&A at the end to facilitate the clarification or provision of more details at the end of the presentation.

The presentation basically outlined the new direction Silver Mountain was heading to and how it could apply to its current and future alliances and partnerships with the rest of us. It looked like Silver Mountain also had many distinctive and highly coveted alliances, partnerships, and agreements that covered various aspects of a pack, from the usual trade and transport to security and I had no idea what else.

Night Leaf was under their "Strategic Alliances" category which was long term and specific to the parties involved. This was apparently news worth a few reporters sticking out their phone in hand to take photographs of the slide.

I'm not sure what kind of alliance we had filed Silver Mountain under back home. In my mind, it was filed under "Stuff I signed that turned out to be a big deal" which included the Ciara Coven's deal with their Lord Edward. I don't know if Henry would like being filed next to a vampire lord, but its not like he'd ever find out. The Ciara Coven deal... so far, its on the shady side.

I mean, I was okay with it. At the time, it seemed like the only way to end the old Ciara Lord's hunt for the blue wolf (me), and after killing the Old Lord, I only had four choices:

OPTION A: leave Lord Edward to find the ring and avenge his father by continuing the hunt for the blue wolf

OPTION B: destroy the ring and leave the entire coven to go rogue

OPTION C: exterminate Lord Edward and the entire coven

OPTION D: Take their ring, sign a contract. Might as well take a tribute too.

Now that I thought about it, the correct lycan answer should be OPTION C.

But this wasn't why I thought it was shady. The real reason why I found it shady was because we didn't even accept their tribute directly from them. So far, Henry's pack would be the one forwarding us an amount every month (They coven was paying the tribute in monthly installments.) I guess that's part of our "strategic alliance." This way, our pack accounts had no dealing with vampires (that we were still shooting on sight, should they dare step into the Green Packlands), and Henry's pack got a small cut for "administrative and agency services".

Soooo shady. I was sure one day, we'd be audited and then I'd like to see Henry and my betas wriggle themselves out of it. But Harvey had assured me that agreements signed between packs/kingdoms/covens didn't follow the same regulations and policies that governed business agreements. Harvey was very good with rules, so I was sure he was right, but still...

In our defense, we weren't the only pack who had contractual agreements with vampire covens. It wasn't terribly uncommon (terribly unfortunate, but not uncommon), for packs to find themselves situated next to a vampire coven. In all reality, its not like either side could simply continue co-existing while completely ignoring their neighbor, so whether it was sharing a common spring water supply, or roads, or simply a memorandum of understanding not to kill each other on the street, something had to be signed.

Vampires liked to mess with you head, and trusting one was like trusting a rat, BUT they were known to honor the written contract. A contract sealed and signed by a vampire was iron clad. And we knew this because? Because as much as we hated to admit it, we've signed contracts with vampires before. In reality, I realized now, that for most packs, due to their proximity to covens, and the shared natural resources or the need to cross territories to travel safely, signing a contract with a vampire lord instead of attempting to exterminate the coven, was probably the most practical solution.

Actually, Alpha Solomon and his Black Forest Pack might be the only ones who would pick this extermination option. Now that I've seen their video, I knew the option was violent and required no small amount of resources. It wasn't anything like the small band of heroes kind of stories that I've heard. You'd need a very large and specialized army to be able to pull off exterminating your neighboring coven.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Henry's pack had been in a peace treaty with the Ciara Coven since forever. (Not that it would ever be listed in the presentation.) What was surprising though, was how the peace treaty between the Silver Mountain Pack and the Ciara Coven had been largely criticized. I remembered the issue was one of those that Dad and Beta Lucas debated over after one of the Lycan High Council meetings. I think it was something about Silver Mountain profiteering from some trade clause on the treaty. It was one thing to sign a treaty for the safety of your pack, but trading with covens was frowned upon.

Something like that anyway. At the time, I didn't think much of it. I totally ignored Dad and Beta Lucas because I was busy with my crayons and papers. I'm actually amazed I remembered such an incident. I even remembered that I was drawing on Dad's documents and the priceless look on Dad's face when I showed him my masterpiece. I drew a flower, it had so many petals! See! Now that I remembered the incident, I was sure Dad was seeing the contract that I had drawn on.

Dad shouldn't leave his important documents lying around (on his desk).

Come to think of it, the tribute thing was totally Henry's idea. He even calculated the estimates for us. Wait, and now he was the disbursement agent too? Oooooh... that Henry! That was a sneaky way to earn a tidy little fortune for doing NOTHING. But I couldn't really be mad at Henry. He was smart and capable, and as far as I could tell, properly keeping his end of the deal.

I would never have thought of that. It just didn't seem fair for some packs to have smart Alphas and others to be stuck with me.

It didn't help that the presentation had moved on to the transition phases of the pack and for some reason, Silver Mountain's transition phases all came with dollar amount estimates. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it because we were talking about how the elder alpha and leaders of the pack were doing to hand over the leadership of the pack to the future alpha and the new generation of leaders right?

At home it would look something like this:

Beta Lucas: Okay! Ben, you're in charge of the dungeons now. Make sure you get the leaking pipes fixed, and keep the cleaning roster updated. I won't even be checking the place, but if the packhouse sewage chokes or it overruns with rats again - it'll be your problem, not mine.

Ben: Yippee. I can't wait.

Beta Lucas: You better watch your attitude. Hoo man, its worse than the dungeon. One day, I should lock you down there, and let you see how it feels like to put up with you.

Ben: Except I have the keys now. I'm in charge, remember?

In Silver Mountain, it was more like the detention center and facilities asset would be be reassigned to the Silver Mountain's FAO (Future Alpha Office)'s accounts, as well as the related budgets for the maintenance, programs, audit, and other expenses. And their FAO would be allocated a percentage of expense budget for admin and PR etc.

Because we all know even dungeons needed their own social media presence. Hahaha. Can you imagine? "Rogue 354 had just checked into Silver Mountain Detention Center"? Or "Top 10 things to do at Silver Mountain Detention Center."

Hahaha.

Anyway, my point was that everything had a dollar sign tagged to it, and was transferred neatly on phases, from their security to social budgets. They spent the longest time explaining the phase on trade agreements and various other investment opportunities.

I perked up at the mention of Lorents at a few of the joint ventures. Henry's FAO and the Lorent's FAO had a couple of upcoming top secret projects going on. Big things, which they would unveil in time. I wondered if Alpha James was aware of it?

I was even more surprised to hear that Night Leaf FAO was also a key investor in several of the new secret projects - including everything that the Lorent FAO was doing.

Henry was there presenting key developments and investment opportunities. It made my fund raising for the Princess Town feel like a girl scout selling cookies.