In love with my StepSon

Chapter Nine

Kelan

"It is a few weeks before your coronation and we are under rogue attacks, what is your solution?"

Elder Henry's voice hit the ceiling of the council chamber and came back down twice as loud. Every man seated around that table turned to look at me with the particular expression of people who had already decided the answer before asking the question.

I stood at the head of the table and kept my face completely still.

The chamber was full, every elder and council member present, which meant someone had organized this before calling me in, and the fact that I was the last to arrive to a meeting about my own pack told me everything I needed to know about how this was going to go.

"The rogue activity at the southern borders has been escalating for three weeks," Elder Henry continued, spreading a map across the table with his thick hands. "Three small communities have been hit, livestock taken, two families displaced, and one of our border guards is still missing. Your response has been to sit in that mansion planning a wedding."

"I have had my security team monitoring the border situation since it began," I replied evenly.

"Monitoring," Henry repeated, and the word landed in the room like something he had scraped off his boot. "Your father would have had boots on the ground before the second attack, he would have had those rogues neutralized before they touched a second family, and you are telling me your solution is monitoring."

I looked at him across the table and felt the familiar pressure behind my eyes that came every time Henry opened his mouth in a room where other people were listening.

"With respect, Elder Henry, I am not my father yet, the coronation has not taken place, and the decisions I make in the interim have been within the authority granted to me by this very council."

"Which is exactly the problem," Henry replied, and he leaned back in his chair with the ease of a man who had been waiting for this particular conversation for a very long time. "The authority granted to you by this council can also be reviewed by this council."

The room went quiet in a way that told me everyone else already knew where this was going.

Henry reached into the folder in front of him and slid a document to the center of the table.

"There is a second matter," he announced. "Alpha Draven of Dark Moon Valley is currently fielding investment proposals from three neighboring packs, a winning bid from him would secure Slytherin's infrastructure development for the next decade, new housing for those displaced communities, upgraded border defenses, medical facilities for the outer territories, everything this pack has needed for years and has not received because the leadership transition has been sitting in uncertainty."

"Then we submit a bid," I said.

"Draven does not do business with packs he does not respect," Henry replied. "He requires a personal meeting with the Alpha, not the Alpha heir, the Alpha, and he requires a demonstration of military capability, which means the rogue situation needs to be resolved before any meeting takes place, Draven will not sit across a table from a man who cannot control his own borders."

I looked around the room and every face looking back at me was carefully neutral, which meant every one of them had already been spoken to before I walked through that door.

"So what exactly are you proposing," I asked, keeping my voice flat.

Henry folded his hands on the table. "Resolve the rogue attacks within one week, secure a meeting with Alpha Draven and bring back a signed agreement, do both of those things and this council will proceed with your coronation as planned, you have my full support and the support of everyone in this room."

"And if I do not," I said.

Henry met my eyes without flinching. "My son Tyler has been assessed by three independent council members as a capable and battle-ready alternative. He has military experience you do not have, relationships with neighboring packs you have not built, and the respect of the border communities that have been asking for stronger leadership for months, if you cannot demonstrate fitness to lead then this council has a responsibility to this pack to consider every available option."

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

I felt something ignite in my chest that was past anger, past humiliation, something that went all the way down to the place where everything I had been told I was my entire life was stored.

"This is my birthright," I said, and my voice came out very quiet and very clear. "I was born into this seat, I have prepared for this seat my entire life, and you do not have the authority to hand it to Tyler or anyone else based on your personal assessment of my capabilities."

"I have every authority granted to me by the pack charter," Henry replied calmly. "Which you would know if you had read it as thoroughly as your father recommended."

"I will have you removed from this council," I told him directly.

Henry smiled for the first time since I walked in. "You do not have the votes for that, and we both know it."

I looked around the room one more time and counted the faces and knew he was right.

"One week," Henry said, gathering his papers. "The coronation is postponed until you fulfill both conditions, consider it an opportunity to show this pack who you are, we are all hoping you succeed."

He said the last part like he meant the exact opposite.

I walked out of that chamber and kept walking until I reached my car and sat inside it with both hands on the wheel and the engine off. The first thing I thought about, the very first thing, was Melissa.

Not Cindy, not my security team, not my border generals, Melissa, because Melissa had always been the person who could look at an impossible situation and find the angle everyone else had missed, she had been doing it since we were children and I had taken it completely for granted until she was gone.

I pulled out my phone and stared at her name and knew she would not pick up.

I scrolled to a different contact instead.

"Find Melissa," I said the moment the line connected, "and send me everything you get tonight.”