down to stare at his Beta.
Shiloh averted his eyes to keep from staring his Alpha in the face.
“Shiloh, get on the plane.” Power rolled through the pack bond. Dylan couldn’t see the ones on the plane but he could feel them. What he felt was enormous relief. Shiloh staggered a step before recovering. Amber grabbed Dylan’s arm in support. The feeling from the plane was as someone relieved of a heavy burden. Dylan’s face lit in a half smile as he gestured toward the plane. “It seems our people are relieved at the power their new Alpha can command. I think it took them by surprise but it feels like a welcome surprise.” But he was talking to Shiloh’s back. Having heard the order, Shiloh was obeying. The bags had preceded the pack members so all that was left was to board the plane for the lower states and and recover his female and her future mate with a short stop at Trey’s before heading toward the airport and home to Australia.
Chapter Ten
William dropped into the chair, exhaustion carving deep lines on his face. His eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep. The United States had less than three dozen official packs but the recent conference had seen packs from around the world in attendance. The initial gathering hadn’t been hard on him. Everyone gathered in one place at the same time meant everyone was on the same schedule. But that was two weeks ago and all the Alphas had long since returned to their homes. For two weeks now he had fielded phone calls and questions from around the world. He and the others on the High Council didn’t have any more answers now than they had before but the Alphas still called. In less than twenty-four hours the decision would be final on whether the wording needed to be changed. So far none of the Alphas had proposed changing anything and even Alice had allowed the wording of such an unscientific endeavor had as much chance of succeeding as it did of failing.
Alice was a never ending surprise and the database she was building beat even the information the Council had on the packs. According to his newest little granddaughter, if the Alphas could be brought to understand her need for information and furthermore give the information she requested promptly and without error she would endeavor to determine within the next decade if the curse was broken. She had further informed him, confidentially of course, that the chance of each of the Alphas being truthful with one her age concerning the births, deaths, rogues, and male to female ratio of each pack for the last one hundred years was practically non-existent. When he had assured her he could get the data for him she had almost smiled. Not a pleased smile. No, the smile was one such as a parent might give to a child to humor them.
Lips twitching he remembered her patiently informing him the chance of him getting the information from the Alphas were less even than the chance she could get the information. He had explained his position. She in turn had patiently explained, as to a child, Alphas were perhaps more proud than the normal shifter and as such would see each rogue produced by their pack as a failure. A failure that would reflect upon their position and therefore where one might be able to get a list of births and deaths, of males to females, a count of rogues produced would be non-existent at worst, under-counted at best.
So for the last week he had not only spoken with the Alphas concerning breaking the curse but also the needed data. He found Alice was correct in her assessment of the Alphas. None wanted to admit to having produced any rogues unless it was to admit to a rogue from the Alpha that may have proceeded them. Even Trey, his own grandson, denied having produced a rogue in his pack. Which, while true also meant the data would be flawed. A rouge had risen to attention while Trey held the pack but Trey insisted the rogue was not of his making. He swore he inherited the rogue from Jordon and the man had stayed under the radar until Stormie came home. If his own grandson would not admit to a rogue for data purposes when he knew good and well Trey was Alpha when the rogue was killed then he had little hope of