The battle we fought may have been short, but the aftermath of it was a neverending nightmare. Many wolves, nymphs, and witches died in that battle, which had to be dealt with first. I should have been able to delegate giving condolences to my beta, Andrew. Still, he has too much of a mean streak to be compassionate. I had to send Darrel to extend the pack's condolences even though his hands were full with the children prisoners and taking care of any orphans who would have been the beta female's job if we had one. Max was supposed to hold any prisoners of the battle and locate any lingering threats. Still, since my beta decided that was his job, Max had to serve the most needed and annoying role, the go-between for Andrew and me, since he was deliberately going against my order. Things were hectic, but after hunting everyone down and transporting them to the holding cells in the dungeon, we were closer to returning to normal. 

The only thing left was to invite anyone who wished to join the pack. We collected the prisoners all together in the training area. They were looking around nervously; some females were clutching the hands of their pups. They were terrified, and with reason, some packs killed prisoners instead of taking them in. I stood to the side, observing them squirm. 

"enjoying the view," Max said, appearing next to me, 

"what are you doing here? Aren't you in charge of the guarding of this event?" I asked, "And where is Andrew?" 

"the answer to those questions is the same. Andrew came in while I was assigning positions and deemed me inefficient. He reassigned everyone, mind you, he assigned them to positions they were not trained for and told me if I couldn't do my job correctly, I could do his paperwork like a... I am not going to repeat what he called me. I shouldn't be said in the civilized company." 

"he hasn't grown up about that yet?" I was severely frustrated with my beta and trained Max to challenge him, but Andrew was a machine, not something to be trifled with. 

"I don't think homophobia is something a person grows out of Alpha." 

"Well, maybe one of these wolves can challenge him, so you won't have to since I know you don't want the Beta job." 

"taking care of all the whiny wolves of this pack, no thank you." 

"let's do this then." I walked into the middle of the training fields and was flanked by the masters of each skill. 

Master of arms, master of the hunt, master tracker. These were the traditionally masculine positions, but we were trying to fix that by training more females. The historically feminine roles were master chief, master maintenance, and master of education. Master chief and master maintenance were positions occupied by men, so we were not very representative up here. "Everyone, please listen carefully as we go through your options moving forward." all eyes were on me submitting to the power of an alpha. 

"Firstly, you are all invited to earn a place in this pack, but I will not force you to join. If there is another pack you wish to join, please go to my Gamma on the other end of the field and speak to him about this; we will see what we can arrange with the alpha of that pack." As I suspected, many females migrated to Max. Generally, a female will move to their mate's pack, so females have an original pack to return to. "as for everyone else, as I said, you can earn your spot in the pack. Only adult wolves will be included in this since all children hold the same rank in a pack. Any children in attendance, please go to Darrel, our Gamma's mate, to get registered for the school system in this area. He will also ensure that you are placed with a surviving relative if you have one, or if not, he will register you for our foster program." 

The remaining females were hesitant but let their children go over to Darrel. I saw one pair of brothers fighting because the younger one wanted to stay, but he must be barely under 16. 

"as for the rest of you, this pack is run under my command; I am Alpha Baxter; I have no Luna. Beneath me is Beta Andrew. He has no Beta female. Beneath him is Gamma Max. He is mated to Darrel, who is in charge of educating pack members. Beneath him is Delta Denis and his mate Martha; Denis and Martha are in charge of the medical needs of the pack. If you have medical training and would like to join that workforce, please go with Warrior Natalia now, and she will take you to the pack hospital for evaluation and job assignments." Three wolves followed Natalia out, one male and two females.

"We separate the workload into six masters of their trade; each trade is equally important and deserves respect. The master of education is Elise. She will take anyone interested in working in education with her for evaluation. The master's maintenance is Kevin, and he will take anyone interested in working in that field now. The master chief is Gavin, who will take anyone interested in working in that field now. The master of the hunt is Heath, and he will take anyone interested in working in that field now. The master tracker is Charlie, and he will take anyone interested in working in that field at this time." we had 15 wolves left that would be interested in working as a warrior, and there were three females among them. 

"the rest of you have chosen the position of a warrior. We are a proud field. Everyone, from me down to a level five first-year warrior, is in the same field. Now I am going to explain how you earn your position..."