Wolf's Pack (Wolves Next Door #3) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,18

passing Trent's phone back. "Well, I guess we need to worry about what happens when the bears end up sleeping with some woman in the pack."

Trent just nodded his head slowly. "Yeah, I can do that. Think we should tell Elena we're in on this?"

"Not until afterwards, because I'm not convinced that she won't smirk or smile at the wrong time. Trent, she should still be in bed, not making cross-shifter treaties!"

"But she's Elena," he reminded me. "She's never realized that it's ok to let someone else do for her, because no one's ever done it before."

"Which means we need to step up our game," I decided. "Her first day on her feet and she came face to face with not just one bear, but three? How the hell did she keep from screaming and running out of that office?"

"She's Elena," he said again. "Look at how she handled finding out about wolves."

"She fainted!"

"That was mostly because she couldn't watch us shift." Then he paused, his eyes flicking to the side. "I wonder if it's different now that she's shifted?"

I waved that away. "We'll worry about that later. Right now, I'm thinking she's putting on her strong face for the rest of us. Trent, those were bears. Plural. In that little lobby. As soon as she smelled them, her body would demand that she get as far away as possible, because bears break wolves."

"And she's still Elena," he countered. "Pax, you know as well as I do that fear has never stopped her. I'm willing to bet her heart was pounding and she wanted to run, but she just lifted her chin, smiled as sweetly as possible, and tried to figure it out on her own. Sounds like Ashley and Ian intervened - although I really want to know how that went down - and now Elena is completely pro-bear. And, don't you dare make her feel weak for this. Right now, she's figuring out her place as a wolf, and I'd kinda like that to be right up there with Ian and Ashley."

"You want her to be an alpha?" I asked.

He nodded. "I want her to finally have everything it takes to believe in herself. Besides, tell me you'd hate having her order us around in bed?"

Ok, he had a point. That would be pretty damned hot. It also chased off the last of my worries about her. Letting out a laugh, I slapped his arm and tilted my head back toward where we'd parked.

"C'mon. We're supposed to tell Seth about this."

Trent kicked at the brush, making it into something resembling a pile. "I kinda like your idea of hiring the bears to do this shit."

"And, if Elena's already on board with them moving in, it's one more reason to convince Ian it'll work." We started walking back toward where we'd parked.

"What if it doesn't?" Trent asked. "Not Ian, but the working part, Pax. What if this is a very bad idea? I mean, wolves and bears?"

"If Ashley can crawl into bed with one and live to talk about it, then I think we can figure out how to live beside them."

He nodded. "Point. But is this going to push the other wolves too far? The last thing Wolf's Run needs right now is someone challenging Ian's right to lead us, and this is exactly the sort of thing that would cause a rift like that."

"We made it through Karen," I reminded him. "He kicked out the daughter of an original wolf bloodline, and the pack thanked him. I think we just need to make sure we present it properly."

"Democracy?" Trent asked.

I could only shrug, heading around the front of the truck to call back at him, "Let's not go that far. I think we can add in some democratic aspects, though. I mean, that's kinda been what we've been doing for the last few years, isn't it?"

"But wolves don't do..." He paused to climb into the driver's seat. "...Democracy like humans."

"So we'll have to figure out a wolfish way to do it," I decided. "I have a feeling our converts will be the ones to ask about that. They have both the instincts of a wolf and the memories of a human. Somewhere in all of that, there has to be the answer."

"And Elena's a convert," he reminded me, glancing over with a smile. "I bet she already has a few ideas.

I actually hoped so, because I liked the idea. Sure, I could see the problems with it,