Iron Heart

Chapter 2 - Andre,

    After leaving Cersy in the kitchen, I went to my office to meet with Eren, I needed help figuring out what we should do. My office was on the first floor of the packhouse, close to the library. It was soundproofed, so people knew not to knock and instead mind-link or text me.

    But Eren was patiently waiting inside for me already, as the Beta he had the access code to enter at any time. Luckily he usually refrained from doing so, except in cases of emergency.

    Eren himself was the typical overly masculine wolf, being of larger size in height and musculature, I never could keep up with him there. But I still always beat him in spars, or he let me win as he always said, but I doubted that. His long hair was braided in loops, bands of color tied onto them at different points. As Beta blood, his father had made an exception to the hair cropping he gave our new trainee. But he also was one of the few who had been seeing battles even as a trainee, so he had white bands to signify his lost pureness. A regular recruit wouldn’t usually have those.

    “You gonna be lost in the past all day, or are we going to take care of business?” I shook myself from my thoughts, though Erens green eyes were light with humor. I took my seat at the desk, already pulling out a map of the local territories, knowing we’ll be needing it.

    “Any reports on our borders?” I asked him, and he shook his head-scratching his chin, his beard was actually starting to take shape now. I never had the genes to grow a good one. But Eren had told me all about his plans to grow it out long enough to braid and bead.

    “Unfortunately no, after the last of  Ironflayer’s Birds came out of the woods today, we haven’t seen anything unusual,” I nodded, but a thought I immediately regretted popped into my mind. “No Alpha, none were hidden among them, Hawks got the color meanings out of Maven before the meeting. She was glad to let us know, apparently Cersy had sent out a link to her Kin of the news. And all her Birds had the proper blue mark. I do also get the feeling it wouldn’t be easy to trick getting into their ranks.”

    I nodded, a little bit relieved, searching through our Fresh Bloods for an intruder would not play over well. It was already going to be a long journey for the pack to come together, especially after the incident with Zoe. Now people will fester in quiet, why did she have to be such a b***h about the whole thing?

    Zoe had always been a little tiresome, but useful and I had thought I could ultimately trust her. It’s why I had agreed with Kahn’s advice to make her the Lead Scout, and now I felt that trouble was brewing from her.

    “Now, about Cain, I feel we can’t really ignore what he has done so far and just continue to defend. I think we have to start thinking about going to war with them.” I didn’t realize until I said it, how much of my mind I had already made up, “I’ll consult with Cersy once she becomes Luna, see if there's any way she can think of to get our Fresh Blood’s families out of harm’s way beforehand.”

    Eren nodded thoughtfully, “Alpha, may I ask what the goal is? Do you just want to eliminate Cain, scare them off, or take over?” I shook my head.

    “I’m not sure, I’m thinking we’ll begin with just trying to scare them away from us, but we’re talking about Ironfang. They aren’t known for shying away from anyone. I think we should prepare enough to think about eliminating Cain, I’ll ask Cersy if there’s any other Alpha Bloods in Ironfang that could take his place.”

    “Sounds good, to be honest, we don’t know enough about Ironfang to launch a successful assault right now. I’d like time to integrate Ironflayer’s units into our ranks and learn from them. I think they’ll be able to greatly improve our knowledge and chances of being successful. They were Ironfang’s best wolves after all.”

    I agreed completely, “Please do send Scouts near Ironfang when possible though, but just close enough to observe, make sure they know returning home safely is what is most important.”

    Eren nodded, “Yes Alpha, I’ll let Zoe know as soon as possible, a mission may actually help her.”

    “Perhaps, but I’m not so sure.” I scratched my head, “But in the meantime please double our patrols, and I’d like the Sentinels to start joining the patrols, please have at least one on a shift.” Eren raised his brows, “Yes I know Leah will have my head, but we need her, tell her I’ll pay for pup sitters.”

    Eren had to laugh then of course, as an Alpha it was rather embarrassing to have to convince my pack to do tasks for me. But it was hard to force them if I understood why they were reluctant. Leah had been lax on most of her duties lately, except basic training, in favor of raising her three pups. I had offered multiple times to give her pup sitters, but she always told me she needed a damn good reason to leave her pups at their age. Which was understandable, if her rank wasn't chosen at such a young age, I would have given her paid leave for as long as she desired.

    But Sentinels are trained from the moment they are chosen, and the Sentinel to replace Leah; which she requested early, was still only five years old. But they made it easier for Leah to train I suppose, it just meant she had to train four pups instead of three. If that could ever be considered easier.

    Before I forgot, “And remind Leah that her lil'Viper can’t do patrols with her yet,” Eren laughed, the bastard.

    “Of course Alpha, especially since we both know she would have made it work somehow if you hadn’t explicitly said so.” That made me smile, I cared for my pack so much. With all of their quirks included in the matter.

    It was then that my intercom buzzed from the kitchen, I pressed the button “Yes?”

    “Dinner is ready Alpha,” And with that, I could swear both mine and Eren’s stomachs grumbled hungrily. I had to stifle a laugh.

    “We’ll be right down.”

    Dinner went fine, I was glad to have surprised Cersy when I got down. And happy I could give her a proper back hug, I had feared that the height difference may have ruined it, but it didn’t appear to.

    I introduced everyone to Cersy, she looked a little overwhelmed with all the names so I stopped before I got to the Sentinels and their kin. Cersy didn’t seem to mind at all, maybe even subconsciously grateful.

    I did notice Zoe wasn’t there though, strange for a she-wolf who rarely skipped her meals. She must have been quite upset about everything. I would ask Eren about Zoe when we talked later.

    I was surprised though when dinner was over and Cersy was stolen from me in a flash, I supposed they had decided when to leave and that was tonight. I finished up and helped clean up the dining room, much to the staff’s embarrassment. Not gonna lie, she-wolves hurriedly taking plates out of my hands was quite amusing. You’d think they’d be used to me by now but I suppose not.

    I saw Eren talking with the Sentinels, and everyone seemed okay with it, Leah even gave me a smile. I suppose she didn’t mind working a shift away from pups too bad then. How time changes things.

    This time when Eren and I walked back to my office I prefaced that I think we’ll wait before making more plans about Ironfang as we discussed before with needing more information first.

    On our way, we stumbled into Cersy and Tien leaving, Eren kept right on his way to the office. But I was dumbstruck by how gorgeous Cersy looked, she was always going to be beautiful to me.

    And that realization made me want to complete the mating bond as soon as possible. I mind-linked Tien as they left to make sure to get Cersy Luna clothing, and I heard Tien’s laugh in my mind before I cut the mind-link and went back to my office.

    “Do you know how Zoe was doing after the meeting?” I asked Eren, he shifted in his seat. That wasn’t really a good sign. Zoe had been friends with us both since we were pups, so Eren knew when she was in one of her moods just as well as me.

    “She went to the training grounds and practiced her throwing knives, I tried to call her for dinner, but she completely ignored me. I felt it didn’t warrant using my Beta voice though, she needed time to cool down Alpha.” Exactly what I wanted to hear, I rubbed my forehead with my hand as if it would relieve my headache.

    “Perfect, just keep an eye on her once in a while, ask Kahn to work with her too. She needs friends right now, and I’ll probably just piss her off more.”

    “Understood Alpha,” Eren seemed relieved with my decision, glad to be able to share the duty with Kahn, so he wouldn’t have to play babysitter all the time. Eren ended up taking the older brother role in Zoe’s view on our friend group.

    After that we just discussed business about the company rather than the pack, everything was going well, the acting CEO or fake one was as happy as ever with his position. Even though he really only held power for the public eye, it meant he got an excellent paying job with benefits and he only had to look the part.

    I on the other hand actually dealt with all the business bullshit, oh to have those roles be swapped and to have no responsibilities. But, that company paid for this pack and our luxuries. Most of my ranked members were on the council for the company as well, so no human could ever cost me the company. Not that I didn’t like humans, but corporate humans were a different breed entirely.

    We were making life-saving technology, and they were trying to squeeze the cash cow dry. As rich as we were, we were also one of the cheaper medical brands for hospitals.

    It was an interesting dynamic, but the company had always been passed down through the family with the pack’s Alpha.

    After all of that business was cleared away, I dismissed Eren and wished him a good night. I continued to work on my computer till Cersy and Tien got home.