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Dmitri

"Your excuses are falling on deaf ears. Let me remind you that these were the terms you agreed to in exchange for valuable information relating to your rebel issue," I continue, not allowing for any interruptions.

"We have planned for a week from today to start renovations and building. Get the land cleared by then, or we cancel the deal, and you will foot the bill for everything up to now with additional compensation for my inconvenience."

My voice remains calm as I continue, "Breach of contract will result in our alliance terminating, bringing with it an end to all intel I receive that could assist you. We will also become 'unavailable' should you require help from my warriors," I end succinctly, allowing my words to sink in to the Alpha on the receiving end of my call.

Alpha Jacobson from the Silver Wood Pack hesitates slightly before reluctantly apologizing and conceding, before I cut the call. Wise decision on his part. He should know better than to think there was any other way. Without my alliance, he would be left vulnerable should the rebels be brazen enough to launch a full-on attack. Information regarding the broken agreement and Jacobson's lack of reinforcements could give them the courage they need.

With his pack closest to the suspected rebel camp in the South, he needs all the help he can get. My intel has already saved two of his pack members' lives just last week when we intercepted communication regarding a planned kidnapping, resulting in a trap being set and four rebels being captured. They were currently being interrogated by the High Council. Unsuccessfully, it seemed.

I throw my phone on the desk and loosen my tie. It has been a long day of meetings and calls, and I hate wearing formal attire. A requirement when meeting with the High Council of Elders. They seemed frozen in time, their beliefs and doctrines still stuck in the old ages, long past their expiration dates. Their futile attempts to extract any useful information from the four rebels have left them anxious. Considering the less-than-humane extraction techniques they use, I'm sure that if the rebels knew anything of value, they would have said so already.

They want me to lead a full-on attack on the rebel camps in the South, based on a rumor that the headquarters may be there and that they may be working with hunters. I'm not willing to lose men based on unvalidated information. Not to mention, it would draw unwanted attention from the human race. I have been quietly working to eradicate it, infiltrating their network and picking them apart from the inside. It takes more time, but casualties are reduced, and we remain under the human radar.

The elders, in some ways, fail to understand that the supernatural world has long since evolved, becoming more modernized and less conspicuous. We no longer live in secluded areas, far away from humans, huddled together. Instead, over time we have slowly taken over small towns and neighborhoods, forming communities alongside human ones, with them, to a large extent, unaware of our true natures. Mine even less, as Lycans are few and far between, resulting in our race rarely entering the rumor mill, if at all. It helped that werewolves lived longer, allowing this to happen gradually as humans in a chosen area died off, assimilation done without force.

"You look like you could use a stiff one," my beta Ivan says as he walks into my office, lowering himself into a large leather chair on the opposite side of my desk.

"Confirm with the builders that we are still on track to start building on the Jacobson land next week. They have two weeks to complete everything." I take a seat in my chair, eyeing the enormous oak desk filled with an array of paperwork. Still to be checked and approved. Meetings have eaten into time that could have been better spent.

He nods in agreement. As the alpha of the strongest pack in the Northern Hemisphere, the White Claw Pack, my orders are rarely, if ever, disobeyed.

"I visited the town bordering the Jacobson land as you requested," Ivan said, referring to Willow Falls.

"Alpha Jacobson spoke to the sheriff of the town as agreed, and he is happy with the arrangement to continue as it has in the past. I advised him of the timeline for the new tenants taking occupation on the land and that he should expect some new faces around the area," Ivan say, referring to our pack members that will move there as soon as the existing housing has been renovated and additional housing erected. Jacobson's people were supposed to be off that land yesterday, but some had not yet moved, which is why the earlier conversation with him was necessary.

Part of the pack members moving to the Jacobson land would be myself, my beta, and my gamma, freeing up space for new pack members arriving at the end of the following month. The location of the land was ideal, as it allowed us to monitor the major entry route into our pack lands more easily than we could from where we were. Better control over who came and went on pack lands meant better security for pack members. Rebels and hunters still posed a threat to us. There would always be someone trying to exterminate supernatural beings. It had been like that for centuries and was unlikely to change soon.

Jacobson had stated that, bar the sheriff, who was aware of what we are, the older, more established residents of the town had unfounded suspicions, but nothing we had to worry about. Rumors about supernatural beings were everywhere, but usually remained just that—a scary bedtime story. We are good at covering our tracks. So long as the town remained protected, as stipulated in the agreement we had when taking over the land, everything would be as it was before. A historic and long-standing agreement between us and the town.

"Sheriff Mauret gave us access to the database containing all the files on all the current residents in the town. There are a handful that are still pending completion," Ivan says just as my gamma Kira enters the office.

I had met Ivan over two centuries ago, and we had become close friends, brothers even. Kira grew up with him from infancy, and they were inseparable, meaning that when I befriended Ivan, Kira came as a package deal. Not that I minded. I trusted her as much as I trusted Ivan. Which is what mattered in the beta and gamma.

Looking at Kira, you wouldn't think her the gamma of such a large and prestigious pack. She was smaller than most werewolves at 5'8", muscular, with a bob cut, brown hair, and brown eyes. What she lacked in size, she made up for in speed and intellect. Her smaller size made her faster, even in her human form. She was also one of the best strategists in all the packs on this side of the equator. Many past wars were fought and won thanks to her ruthless military strategy. She oversaw the training of our werewolf warriors, who were renowned as the strongest and most ruthless for the last two hundred years.

"I've already started running analytics on the database files so that we can check for any anomalies," Kira reassures me, taking a seat on the armrest of the chair Ivan is sitting in.

We ran in-depth checks to identify any irregularities among the residents of Willow Falls. Jacobson's pack already did this when they started living on the land; however, our technology was more advanced and yielded faster results when matching against a broader array of external databases. We also needed up-to-date information as the last checks were done over five years ago.

Irregularities could include ties to known werewolf hunters, large deposits of money, or anything else that stood out as unusual. The checks we carried out wouldn't be considered legal, but we never abused the information gathered, and only a select few had access to the database information and results. Privacy was important to us, but we also needed to protect the residents and my pack. It was a fine line.

Hunters have been known to recruit residents and even implant hunters within communities near packs for surveillance purposes. An entire back in the East had been taken out in this manner twenty years ago. It led to stringent checks being put in place when a bordering town fell under werewolf protection. One that Jacobson clearly hadn't been keeping up with, as the resident checks should have been updated every two years at least.

"Give the Sheriff two weeks to hand over the rest of the files," I say to Ivan before dismissing them both.

I sigh and then pull a stack of papers towards me, dismissing the restless feeling that has been stirred up like silt on a seabed since the acquisition of the Willow Falls land. Something about it is riling my Lycan and me up in a way we have not been in years. 

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