Chapter 15

Alpha Brent sat in his chair, leaning forward with his elbows resting on the top and fingers steepled as he listened to me. “I understand, Nicole, but sadly the laws are very clear challenges are made alpha to alpha, meaning alpha males only. It’s an outdated thing going back to the days where our women died so often in childbirth before passive silvering rose the survivability rate.”

I wanted to growl and slam my fist against the desk. I felt Dean’s hand on my knee, and he gave it a break squeeze. I let out a breath and forced myself to focus on finding a solution. “There has to be something. We have women leading packs perfectly fine or is it until some guy decides to he wants to be alpha and since women don’t count for crap, they have to step down?” Hell, his niece by mateship was leading her pack alone for nearly a whole year before she mated Mike Howe.

“That’s a sticky gray area,” Brent admitted. “A pack can not change leadership without a challenge, a woman leader, therefore, in theory, would be unchallengeable until she has a mate. However, I’ve heard about and seen several women met with resistance to leading so I’m not sure how this would help your cause, especially when the challenger is your brother and the position would’ve fallen to him originally.”

I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “Is there some way I can contest this without challenging him. Perhaps bring evidence that points him as unfit to be alpha?”

He shook his head. “First, all the annual meeting just ended. No one is going to make a second trip back here. Also, none of the other alphas want to start pointing fingers at other alphas as incompetent for fear someone’s finger may fall on them. It took me years of arguments and meetings to get any of the others to consider Alpha Ryan Howe as unfit to be alpha, but nothing happened until Brook decided to do something, nearly killing herself in the process.”

I flexed and closed my injured fist, the muscles tight and hesitant still. There had to be a way. Brandon couldn’t take my home and people from me.

“Nicole,” Brent said, his voice so gentle it made me look up. “I’m truly sorry all of this happened. It never was my intention, and I’ll do my best to find some loophole or a gray area to exploit, but you have to face the real possibility you may never lead your old pack.”

Anger surged in me. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. There had to be away, and I was going to find it. “Thank you for all your help and the apology, but I will find a way. I won’t let him take the pack from me.” He gave me a tight smile in reply, and I knew he thought I was obtuse and stubborn. “If you find something, you know where to find me. I need to check in with my people,” I said, standing.

“Of course,” Alpha Brent said, then turned his gaze to his son. “I’d like to speak with you for a moment, Dean.”

“Sure thing,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later, Nic.”

I nodded and left, wondering what the alpha was going to say to his son. Perhaps ask him to reconsider taking a rogue as a mate? Or maybe, Alpha Brent was going to ask Dean to make me see reason and give up, let Brandon win. I hoped if it were that one, Dean was smart enough to tell his father it wouldn’t ever work.

I found the others in the gym, all of them were working out - even Sade. “Any luck?” she asked.

“No, the alpha seems to believe the laws are pretty cut and dry — men only and where they’re not, he thinks the other alphas can’t be bothered to care,” I replied.

“I believe it,” Jon said, passing me a weight. “Can you imagine what would happen if you actually do this, if you actually take the alphaship from Brandon? So what? This means every other luna and alpha female could do the same?”

“Meaning alpha’s greedy hold on their power would be at risk,” Wesley jumped in. “It’s the same reason the laws about the change of leadership has always been physical and limited to only the alpha born. If we chose our leaders to say by merit, vote, or whatever quite a few alphas would risk losing their packs and power.”

“So what? It’s hopeless then?” I said, feeling myself deflate.

“No, not at all,” Jon said.

“Only we’re going to have to count on ourselves and no one else,” Sade offered then suddenly her eyes widen, and she stood up from the bench she was sitting on. “Oh, oh, oh! I’ve got an idea.”

“What?” I asked half laughing.

“Dean!”

I scowled at her. “I’m not going to ask Dean to fight Brandon. I told you that already.”

She scowled right back at me. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Okay, fine. What is your idea?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Thanks to Alpha Brent’s attempt to force you to stay with Dean, we have everything we need.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Holy,” Wesley said, his eyes widening. “You’re right.”

“What?” I demanded.

“Alpha Brent said he wasn’t breaking any of our laws because he’d claim it was a pack challenge fight. Why can’t we use it to call foul on your father passing the pack to Brandon?”

“Because it’s not his pack to pass on,” Jon said in turn, snapping his fingers. “We could even get Alpha Brent and his people to back up the claim.”

I bit my lip, hope, and hesitation fighting each other inside me. “But Dean doesn’t want to be alpha,” I said finally.

“He doesn’t have to be,” Jon said. “We could follow our original plan. You take him as your mate. This would make Dean alpha in name only, and you’d be the real one running the show.”

Which would mean, I’d have to officially take Dean, as my mate. I liked Dean, and I trusted him, but I didn’t know him. I wanted to have the time to do that before I did anything so official. I sighed and ran a hand over my head. “I guess that’d work,” I admitted. “But I still would like to find something which doesn’t depend on Dean. We don’t even know if he’d be willing to do it.”

Sade snorted. “You’re kidding, right? He’d do anything you’d ask him to do.”

I frowned again. Why? Why would Dean do that? It’d be stupid on his part. Yeah, the whole mate thing was there, but it didn’t always mean the other person thought of anything beyond their own interests. “Well I would still like to find another way,” I insisted.

Sade sighed. “You need to give him more credit.”

I growled at her. “I give Dean enough credit. This isn’t about Dean being good enough or strong enough! It’s about me! It about who I am. I don’t want to be the one who runs to someone else every time something goes wrong. This is my pack, my people, and I want to be the one to solve the problem. God, Sade! Is that how you are with Wes? Everything he does is always going to be okay with you? Do you ask him permission to go out of the house too?”

“No, of course not,” she snapped back at me. “But I count on Wes to be there if I need him, because needing someone, Nic, isn’t a bad thing.

Perhaps you need to make this less about you and your pride and more about you both. He deserves that much considering all he’s done.”

I blew out a breath and crossed my arms. “This has nothing to do with pride.”

“Right, sure,” Sade said, crossing her arms.

“Okay, okay, Ladies,” Jon said, holding up his hands. “We need to be working together, remember? How about we take five and you guys chill.”

“Whatever,” Sade said, shaking her head and stalked out of the gym.

“What bug crawled up her butt?” I demanded.

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Chapter 956 The Final (Part Two)

“I’ll go talk to her,” Wesley said, following her out.

“Is what I’m saying seriously so hard to understand,” I asked Jon.

“No, I get it. You want to prove your right to lead, and if Dean goes in plays the “I beat him in a challenge’ card some people might see it as lessening your right,” he replied then he gave me a slight grimace. “But Nic, this situation may not allow you the chance to prove yourself, and honestly, those who need such proof don’t matter to you in the long run - not really.”

I frowned. “What is it with people telling me to give up today?”

“I’m not saying give up, just keep in mind the alternatives, even if you don’t like them,” Hon said and pat me on the shoulder. “Come on, you need to do some work. All week long you’ve hardly trained at all. If you’re going to kick Brandon’s ass, you need to be in top form.”

The Alpha and The Fool