Accidental Surrogate for Alpha

#Chapter 344 – Preparations

Sinclair

“All right,” I say, keeping half an eye on trouble and sister-trouble as I look around the room at my assembled team. “We’re here today to make a concrete plan regarding our next moves against the Cult that attacked our pack and attempted to kidnap my child. Everyone here has been briefed on the events that occurred yesterday. I applaud your work in coming up with the information we need to make the next best step we can. But now it’s time to act. Dad?”

I turn the group’s attention to him, eager to hear what he has to say regarding the reconnaissance that we assigned teams to complete yesterday and last night.

“Right,” my father starts, leaning forward in his chair and glancing over his papers, though I know he’s memorized every word on them. “Our capture of a Dark Priest yesterday morning resulted in a great deal of new information, if not yet definitive answers regarding how to stop these attacks. However, one of the most significant pieces of information that we’ve gathered came in last night.”

I listen while my father speaks but keep my eyes on everyone in the room, wanting to judge my men’s physical reactions to the information. I know that we’re going to need to put together an assault team at some point, and I’m going to want the best and most engaged on it. At my father’s last line, everyone seems to perk up a little, but I spot a few men whose eyes burn with a particular hunger at this turn.

“Last night, there was significant consideration of the fact that, while Ella and Dominic shifted into their wolves to attack the men who came for Rafe yesterday, the attackers themselves did not shift. I want to particularly applaud Conner O’Mally for noticing this particular fact.”

All eyes move, then, to a bulky red- haired young man who nods humbly, even when a slight blush at the recognition colors his pale cheeks. I nod at him, marking him mentally as one I might want by my side.

“At least one of the men,” my father continues, “would have had to stay in his human body in order to carry the child, of course. But the others continued the assault without shifting which, as we all know, is unique. And put them at a particular disadvantage.”

that neither of us noticed this. It’s true – considering the

yesterday, that they were, instead, a distraction meant to get Dominic and Roger out of the room so that the captured Priest

fact and the entire room

dad continues, looking now to a slim dark-haired young man down the table, “Simon suggested an alternative. Simon?” Henry invites, “if you

to

wanting her input. Does this

how fast they entered and how they came through the window. It is difficult to describe but…it was not something the

thanks and she smiles at me in return. I can’t help the little smile that twitches

keep a straight face around her. Roger’s right

and inviting him to continue. As he begins I consider that he’s a little too small for an assault

explanation for this,” Simon continues, “the lack of shifting, as well as the use of magic – is rooted in my understanding of how certain priestesses of the Goddess operate. It is not a common practice, but there are certain enclaves where priestesses worship remote ones, monasteries really – where priestesses actually bind their wolves

our chairs. It would be …incredibly painful, and isolating, I consider, to choose to turn away from the wolf that lives inside me and forcibly bind him. An act of cruel self- flagellation

wolf bares his teeth at the idea, snapping at it. I run a mental hand down his black fur,

this,” Roger asks, sharp but curious. “I’ve never heard of this

perhaps a little embarrassed. “My mother…lives in one of