Young Mate (Wattys2016)

Chapter 23

Nickolas

“Wake up Lexi. The meeting’s in an hour!” I hate to wake up my sleeping mate, but she has to attend her first meeting. This was sort of a practice for her; I didn’t invite every pack leader around but just some of our closer allies that Lexi would have to get along with. 

Lexi groans and gets up. She grabs some clothes from her closet and goes into the bathroom. I use the time and change into some dark jeans and a button up shirt. 

“Is this appropriate?” Lexi has emerged from the bathroom and stands drying her hair. She looks both beautiful and proper. I eagerly nod. 

“You’re beautiful.”

“Thanks. You’re not too bad yourself.” She opens the cage to release the birds. Today would be a long day and I’m sure Lexi doesn’t want them to be cooped up, like us. 

Together we leave our room and walk down to the first floor. A small buffet table of breakfast foods are set up outside the board room, where the meeting would take place. Lexi grabs a granola bar and juice pouch while I pick up a quick sandwich. 

Lexi

Inside the room, each couple is seated next to each other at the large, granite table surrounded with wooden armchairs. Charts and folders are lined up on the table along with notebooks and pens. Each couple talks privately to each other, most likely to pass the time. It makes me wonder how Nickolas felt when he went to these meetings alone. 

We all take our time to finish our breakfast before Nickolas starts the meeting. 

Remind me to bring a book or some music for the next meeting.

You got it. 

The meeting spent the first two hours discussing current pack matters. That meant going over current populations, new born wolves and new mates. It also meant calculating the deaths, whether by old age and health or by pack attacks.

A chart revealed that the number of deaths by attacks has steadily been increasing for a few months. There was no confirmation of a rogue pack from any Alpha. It was just endless, insignificant information. 

Another hour was spent discussing the treasury for all wolf packs. The human government in this country set aside a large amount of tax money for us; not that they knew about it because we had wolves on the inside doing it for us. Each pack would get a certain amount of money based on their population. 

Then we spent another three hours discussing news of packs from Europe. The biggest pack in the world was currently in Spain although' our place of origin is unspecific; we’re from Europe though.

I also learned that Nickolas spoke fluent Spanish, and so did several other wolves. I had been learning the language in school and was taken by it; the language itself was soft and fascinating. It was also somewhat close to French, Portuguese and Italian because of the Latin base. 

Nickolas was very serious throughout the meeting, as were the other Alphas. The Alfas however seemed occupied by their phones or nails. They didn’t seem to give a care about the meeting.