Chapter 76

**Kataleya’s POV**

I watched as Justin started to get angrier and angrier the longer Christopher was inputting his opinion. The moment that Justin started talking, I felt it as his aura blasted from him, causing nearly every person in this room to submit to him. I tried calming him by rubbing his leg or soothingly, but that did not work. He was far too pissed off, which I guess is understandable. Elder Christopher was spouting all kinds of bullshit. He wanted me to go out there with none of our warriors or, as he put it, the bare minimum, essentially stating that it did not matter if something happened to me. I understood that there were people that were pissed at me and did not like me being their next Alpha, but damn, that took it too far. It was almost as if he was trying to get me killed.

Everyone was stuck in an uncomfortable silence before King Lucas finally spoke up.

King Lucas glanced at Justin, then Christopher, before he began speaking, “We will not leave the pack unguarded while we are gone. However, we will not send Kataleya by herself, with the bare minimum for warriors, into those woods. Shame on you, Christopher, for even suggesting such a thing.” The king paused before turning to look back at Justin, “Son, I need you to reign in your aura just a smidge. You are making some of the other people in the room uncomfortable.”

I felt Justin slowly reigning in his aura and everyone was able to begin moving again. I glanced at Oliver and I could see that he was trying to hide his smirk.

‘You find this amusing?’ I linked him.

He glanced at me before responding, ‘Hell fucking yeah! I was waiting for someone to put Christopher in his first place! He wanted to send you to your fucking death. Sounded like he wanted you to be fucking kidnapped by those fuckers. I knew Justin was not going to stand for it. I am shocked though, Michael and Elijah should not have been so affected by his aura, since they are Alpha blood.’

Now that I think about it, he is right. Everyone in the room but my father, the King, and myself was affected by Justin’s aura.

‘I guess you are right. Maybe it is because Justin will now outrank the two of them? Since Justin is my mate and it has already been established that I will become the next Alpha for the pack….that would mean Justin would rightfully be my Luna, which would give him a rank jump.’

Oliver shrugged his shoulders and I tuned back in to what everyone else was saying.

‘….Christopher, I don’t know what the hell you were thinking,” my father was saying. Dad was very mad too. Looking at him, his face was turning red and he was starting to shake. He looked like he was ready to shift and rip his face off. If it was not for the severity of the situation and what Christopher was saying could be considered treason to his pack, then I would have laughed at the expression on my father's face. He was pissed.

“Dad, I know you are mad…I am too. Christopher was out of line with everything that he said, but you looked as if you were about to shift. Would you like to take a break? I need to meet with King Lucas, so we can decide the warriors that I am taking with me.”

I watched my father as he took a deep breath before he spoke next. “Kataleya, I need to be here for that discussion, but I think we can dismiss the Elders from the rest of this meeting and speak of the warriors that will be going with you.”

Some of the Elders moved to protest, but King Lucas held up his hand, silencing all of them.

“You will leave. The Alpha is in charge of choosing which warriors that he is going to trust; therefore, your input will not be necessary. Thank you for your time and unwanted opinions. You are dismissed.” King Lucas stated with finality.

Once the Elders had left the room, my father turned to face me.

“Kataleya, do not get any ideas. We will not be sending you without any warriors. You will have a decent number of warriors for our pack to look after you.”

Well, there goes that plan. I do not want to leave the pack unprotected and I do not want to have to deal with the potential that someone will die because they want me. I do not want to have anyone’s blood on my hands. I do not want my pack members to die needlessly.

I looked over at Justin and he squeezed my hand.

‘Baby, I know what you are feeling and I know what you are thinking, but when these warriors took their oath to become warriors, they knew what they were signing up for. If something were to happen and someone died, it would not be on your head. Every single one of us took an oath not only to our pack, but to the Alpha and his family. And baby, I hate to break it to you, but many of the warriors would die for you if need be. I have not talked to a single warrior that was upset about you being Alpha. They want you as their Alpha. You are very well-liked among them. Just promise me, you will not try to play hero and go after them on your own. Please don’t do that to me. I cannot lose you. I need to know you are safe.’

I could feel the tears stinging the back of my eyes and I rapidly blinked, trying to clear them.

‘I promise. I will stick to the plan. I will not sneak off to find them on my own. Thank you for standing by me, Justin. I love you.’ I could tell my voice was cracking through the link.

I could feel the trickle of the tears starting to run down my cheek. Justin reached over and touched the wetness on my cheek, using his thumb to wipe away the moisture.

‘I love you too, my queen.’ He whispered through the link.

I turned back to everyone else in the conference room and they were all just watching our interaction without saying anything.

Lucas nodded his head towards me. “Are you ready to discuss warriors?”

I nodded my head at him.

“First thing first…we are going to start with the key warriors. The ones that will directly surround Kataleya. There are a few rare Lycans that are a part of my guard that I would like to directly assist you. Ashton is able to create an invisible barrier around himself and those he chooses. This ability makes to wear anyone he chooses and himself appear to be invisible, which could help us keep a few warriors near Kataleya, without hiding within the tree lines.”

“That would be helpful. If we use your Lycan, then I would want to have Justin, Aziel, and Gael with Kataleya, plus your Lycan.”

I shook my head. “I don’t need all of them surrounding me, Alpha. I would prefer to have only two guards with me, plus the Lycan. I, also, do not want all the stronger warriors with us. A few of them will need to stay behind to help protect our borders.”

“Kataleya makes a point. Some of your strong warriors should stay here, but only one or two. I will have some of my guards stay behind to guard your pack and I am sure Alpha Eric would not mind lending a few of his warriors to help you out too,” Lucas stated.

Alpha Eric nodded his head. “I already have a few of my warriors that are on their way to your pack. They will be more than happy to stay to guard your pack while we deal with these bastards.”

“I want to have Garrison with us,” I stated, “but, I want him to be one of the ones hiding in trees.”

So, for the next several hours, we discussed the pros and cons of each warrior that we would be bringing with us and then we discussed which warriors would be left at the pack and who would be doing the patrols. There were going to be an even number of wolves from Alpha Eric’s pack and our pack. King Lucas was, also, going to send us several of his Lycans that were going to have the sole mission to protect everyone and make sure no harm came to us.

I was shocked to learn how many of the rare form of Lycans lived in King Lucas’ territory. Typically, Alpha wolf’s, once they take over their packs as the new Alpha, will develop some type of gift. It could be something like increased speed or healing abilities. With Lycans, sometimes, they would develop special gifts that aided them as well. Then, of course, their king’s (or queens) would develop special abilities as well, but their abilities would differ from those of the Alpha’s. If a king develops an ability that an Alpha could possess, then the reigning monarch would have multiple gifts. Some of the most common Lycan monarch's gifts consisted of control over one (or multiple) elements, necromancy, or the ability to talk to the Moon Goddess.

Legend has it that while Alpha’s, Lycan’s, and reigning Lycan monarchs have these special gifts, female Alpha’s possess many gifts. On top of the gifts that they possess, their mate bonds are different. Unfortunately, there are not many documents that contain much about female Alpha’s and the abilities that they contain or even what makes their mate bonds different from those of a regular mate bond, but I was determined to find out. Not only for myself, but also for Justin’s sake. I could feel that he was taken aback by his newly-found powerful aura, but he was not sure how exactly to hand that.

After we left the meeting, Justin and I had to alert the warriors that were chosen to be a part of my special guard and the ones that were going to be travelling with us for this “mission” and what everyone’s role was going to be.

I will admit that I am worried everyone agreed to allow Justin to travel with me, but I was nervous, incredibly nervous. What if something happened to him? How would I handle that?

And the other thing that neither one of us has bothered to talk about yet is my heat. What are we going to do when I go into heat? How will we handle something like that? What if my heat hits while we are out searching for those bastards?

The heat can attract wolves from miles away. Depending on the rank and status of the wolf, the worse the heat is. Not only was I born to an Alpha and hold the rank of an Alpha female, but I am destined to be the Alpha for my pack…which means that my heat is going to be strong and powerful.

Hopefully, we can end this quickly and efficiently.