Chương 193: DUNGEONS AND ALPHAS

The men followed my dad up to the conference room. I followed too, and the guys followed me. I guess I didn't really know what else to do. At this point, I was still reeling from the shock that my mate was EVIL. Maybe evil was a strong word. I mean, Beta Lorent was evil, probably. If I was willing to give Beta Lorent the benefit of the doubt, I shouldn't decide my mate was evil. He was certainly cruel and violent.

I would have pegged that down to his fight dog days, but it sounded like he learned to be cruel and violent even before he was a fight dog. Weren't white wolves supposed to be kind and healing? So it came as a shock to me that their healing powers could be used to make other wolves suffer and stay conscious to suffer more. So I didn't have an evil mate, just a cruel and violent one. Whew. What the hell? And the most shocking reveal was my dad's "meh" attitude.

All my dad said was, "I cannot recommend his methods, but I admit I'm relieved that he is on our side." How could you be sure he was on our side? And what's with the zen one-liner?

"No matter what color the wolf, the shadow is always black." What had that got to do with anything? And honestly now, just by a quick show of hands (or comments), how many of you actually thought Rebel was being romantic when he said, "My motive, princess, is you"? Really? No one heard it as a threat? Like that he was out to get me or take over me as Alpha, kind of thing? No? Just me? Okay. Hopeless romantics, all of you! We all entered the conference room and sat down, Harvey pulling out my chair.

I must say I was getting used to this Alpha treatment.

"Our Luna is one big bad wolf," Gamma Endo said as he took his seat.

"But if you have to take a Luna, might as well be the biggest, baddest one out there, right, princess?" The other men laughed politely, so I couldn't tell how much they agreed with Gamma Endo's twisted logic. Gamma Harry leaned back in his chair.

"I nearly lost my dinner halfway through when the Luna turned the rogue to face us. Good thing I have a strong stomach." Beta Gerald cleared his throat.

"Please allow me to congratulate Alpha Sam on the successful opening talks with Alpha Lorent for Night Leaf and Morning Light's merger."

"Not only that, but Alpha says that the Lorents would also like to be part of the merger," Beta Lucas added.

"The Lorents? Merge with us?" Gamma Endo shook his head.

"Unbelievable."

"Well, their future Alpha is now our Sam's Luna," Beta Lucas said jauntily.

"Please also allow me to congratulate you on finding your Luna too, Alpha Sam," Beta Gerald said.

"Thank you," I managed to say. But what are we doing here? I'm sure we didn't all come up to the conference room to talk about my Luna.

"Let's debrief now," Dad said.

"Yes, Alpha," Beta Lucas said.

"Now that you boys have experienced collecting intelligence and disposing of captured rogues, I would like you to all share what you have learned from this experience." Oh, they had taken this as another chance to train the next generation. For some reason, everyone looked at me. Why? What?

"Sam, why don't you start the ball rolling?" Beta Lucas prompted. Very carefully, I released my breath so that it didn't come out as a sigh. What could I say? I've learned my mate was cruel and violent, and probably ambitious too. Since this will be your new Luna, allow me to apologize in advance. Or should I talk about how our dungeons were seriously due for a scrub-down? It was gross. Like nasty gross. Like it might start a plague gross.

I know it's the dungeons, but at least the one just under the packhouse should be sanitary. At least like a very basic fight dog cell. And with added security like cameras. Or maybe I should discourse about the difference between the Lorent way and our way, or perhaps any other way to deal with rogues. What about Free Wolves, who by definition could also be rogues since they have no pack or Alpha but were peaceful and living in communities—were we really going to treat them as rogues?

Such gray areas (see, I can see gray!)... In such cases, I wonder if there was a better way to deal with them. But what came out of my mouth was, "I was only there very briefly. Maybe someone else can start first." The adults nodded, and then we were back to looking around the table. Ben looked at Harvey, and Harvey looked at Ben. I looked at Harvey. He met my eyes and nodded.

"Well, I found the process, while necessary, rather distasteful."

"Personally, I agree with our standard protocol to only utilize this method if we believe our pack would be under further security threat."

"As for the Lorent method, that was effective, but impossible to accomplish without a powerful healing white wolf like Luna Bell." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Otherwise, I understand the standard procedures in the area now and found the experience beneficial." Of course I should have known this Beta would have been long-winded and politically correct about it. Okay... I looked at Ben. What would my other beta have to say?

"We couldn't get a single serious answer from those guys, even though we have been working on them every night," Ben said.

"That was pathetic."

"The waiting and observation rooms weren't much better than the cells. It's almost hard to say who was the prisoner."

"And security is lacking. We had no way to stop or even know the prisoners had killed each other until we found the bodies the next day." Of course I could always count on Ben to not pull back the punches. Did it occur to him that he might offend our elders? I wondered if he cared. There was silence. The betas were taking notes, or at least Beta Gerald and Harvey were. Beta Lucas simply wrote down a single sentence on his sheet of paper.

Ben was looking at his screen; he was probably watching Harvey's notes being typed... freeloading. Well, so was I, just riding on their thoughts.

"Well then," Gamma Endo smirked at Ben, so I knew he did take offense, "it's easy to criticize, but do you have a solution?" Ben didn't miss a beat.

"A vending machine, better lighting, more comfortable seats in both the waiting and observation rooms. Not to mention a full cleaning, pest control, and sanitation and security upgrades, for the sake of our own noses and peace of mind."

"Better cell segregation, security cameras, a wash and changing room for guards, an actual scheduled cleaning and guard rotation both when the dungeons are being occupied and when they are empty."

"And basically, we need to up our game during the interrogation to at least get a systematic diagnosis of the prisoner. We were messy and asked the same questions repeatedly."

"We could play good cop and bad cop," Jonah piped in.

"Whatever we play, it has to be systematic and recorded," Ben continued.

"And we need to be way meaner," Jonah said.

"We've been too nice to them. They don't appreciate it at all."

"For some reason, they didn't believe we would kill all of them," Nix added.

"Man, that was frustrating."

"It could be because the last time we captured them, we handed them to the Lorents, and Beta Lorent released them," I said.

"Plus, we usually kill them on sight, and since we didn't, maybe they figured if they held out long enough, we'd release them."

"We should have... just killed them on sight. They were more trouble than they were worth," I realized.

"But we got all that information!" Gamma Harry exclaimed.

"I mean, your Luna did, anyway. Dead men don't talk, you know!" But I refused to be cut off.

"Which we could have gotten from Beta Lorent. And even if we didn't, someone in the Lorent pack would have, right? Those two... That performance tonight—didn't it look practiced to you? They had been trained to do what they did, just as we are being trained now." There was silence in the room. Everyone was thinking now... processing the situation.

"Alpha Sam makes a reasonable argument," Beta Gerald admitted.

"It was my fault," I said.

"I ordered their capture." If I hadn't, they would be dead and safely out of ever meeting Mate in the dungeon.... Wait, was I trying to protect the rogues from my mate? Shouldn't it be the other way around? The irony of it did not fail to escape me.

"But if I may, Alpha Sam," Beta Gerald raised his hand, "I do not believe it was entirely a waste of time. We have uncovered information about the Free Wolves and their forced subjugation to the Rogue King, as well as a bit of detail about Beta Lorent's indiscretions that I doubt would have surfaced from Beta Lorent." I supposed... But so much pain for a little bit of low-level information. And seriously, Beta Lorent's personal love life was the least of my priorities. Although yes, the Free Wolves...

Mum was from a village something like that. Dad nodded.

"On top of what Ben said earlier, we need to find a separate way to deal with those formerly Free Wolves. Also, I'm a little worried about my old friend Fount. But overall, good work, everyone. Does anyone have anything else to say?" Nix and Jonah hadn't spoken much yet. I looked at them, but they simply shook their heads. Then the adults went around sharing their thoughts on the guys' performance, which would be found in the notes Harvey took. In short, it was like this: Harvey: admirable effort.

He was the only one (besides his dad) who took notes. Their sessions were the most systematic, with a fixed list of questions and proper recording of the answers, even the c*** ones. Ben: sharpest interrogator. He was praised for being able to discern their answers and see through their lies... which was pretty much everything. Jonah: ate in front of the rogues. I can't believe he ate in the dungeon. Blech. But otherwise, he did a good job and disposed of the bodies quickly too.

Nix: was the meanest, but he didn't really ask anything. Just focused on riling the rogues and getting riled by them. But he did okay with the disposal part. Apparently, even though the Betas were expected to know how to dispose of a rogue or two, it was important for Gammas to be able to dispose of a few at a time. And also to clean up after everything was done. I wondered what the Alpha was supposed to do.

Theoretically, the Alpha decided whether the rogues lived or died at the end of the day and was only needed in hard cases. I wondered if Bell played the Alpha role in this instance. No one said it, but I was the weakest. I wasn't there all the other nights, putting up with the putrid smell and generally uncomfortable rooms of the gross dungeon. I didn't even last past the first 15 minutes of Rebel and Killion's performance. And after all that, I didn't even see a dead body, much less dispose of one. Weak.

Why was I so weak? No one said anything about it. I would have thought Gamma Endo would, but since swearing his loyalty to me, he had been very supportive. The worst part of it was that they probably think it's because I'm a girl. It's one thing to fight it out. It's another to torture someone who was chained and unable to defend himself. And it's a whole new level to stand there watching and listening to the suffering, allowing it to continue without lifting a finger to stop it.

And because I stepped back and stepped out, my betas knew—not just my betas, but everyone knew—my newfound weakness now. I cannot stand by and watch when the strong bully the weak. But of course, in everyone's eyes, it was because I'm a girl and got scared by the brutality of the scene. They were not entirely wrong. I was scared. I didn't like the screaming and crying or watching anyone being inflicted with that kind of horror. But more than scared, I felt really sorry for the poor rogues.

Beta Lucas picked up his sheet of paper with the one line written on it.

"Ben, you recommended a lot of changes. I want you to be in charge of it. Have the place cleaned up, the scheduled rotations and system procedures drawn up, a recommended procedure for questioning and recording. Then send me a proposal for the other things you need. And based on your personal results, we will decide the budget we will spare for it." I looked at Ben, waiting for him to roll his eyes or groan, but he only nodded.

"Understood." Was Ben planning to clean up the dungeon on his own?

"I'll help," Jonah said.

"Yeah, me too," I said. Everyone froze.

"What?" I asked.

"I will need your input in the system and design," Ben allowed.

"Sam, let the Beta do his job," Dad said. Stop telling me that! Why was Jonah allowed to help but not me? Because Alphas can't clean dungeons? Because Alphas can't pull weeds or take the crap or do anything but give their "input"? Grrr... But I simply nodded. Then I remembered how we used to play as kids, raking leaves in Beta Lucas' backyard. That had been Ben's job too, but the more the merrier, right? I grinned.

"Let's have a dungeon party to celebrate Ben's new assignment."

"What do you mean, 'party'?" Ben asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

"We're going to have a creepy dungeon tour. Then we're going to play games... It'll be fun, with soap and water and brushes..."

"You're going to clean the dungeons, aren't you?" Ben asked.

"Nope, I'm playing dungeon party games."

"There are rats there," Jonah warned.

"Lots of them." I refused to let that deter me.

"We'll play Rat Hunt and then Water Balloons!" I was in my element again.

"Call the whole gang. It's gonna be fun!" Ben smirked.

"Anything you say, Alpha." We were going to clean the dungeons. But big picture here, this new generation was going to own our packhouse from the ground up, just you wait and see!