My Best Friend's Boyfriend

13 Did I really just bite him?

Noah stands beside me, looking at the men. Beta Rick stand  in the very front of them with his hands clasped at his front. The younger men stay at the back.

A warm midsummer's evening breeze blows through my chestnut hair.

Apparently Noah has to evaluate the rankings of every man in the pack before he can decide what to do with them.

"We don't have time for this," I mutter under my breath. "The only men in this pack are from the same pack." All I can think about is the silver in the air the night before burning through my nasal cavity.

He taps my arm and we both turn our backs to the men.

"Some of them haven't even been ranked yet. If those hunters try something you need to have the most capable men in charge." 

We're whispering and our distance from the men is the only reason they can't hear what we say. "There's a reason they haven't been ranked," I hiss. "They haven't even matured yet. Do we really have the time to rank wolves that aren't going to shift anytime soon?"

He nods and leans in more, "All we have to do for now is test their dominance."

"But what about the other two skills?"

"There isn't enough time and you don't have the manpower. Testing dominance won't take even an hour."

"So are we going to assign them shifts today?"

He shakes his head, "you are."

We turn back around to face the men. Judging by their faces, talking amongst ourselves seems to have gotten them nervous.

"Everyone line up in front Noah," I point to him. "One by one you will attempt to command him to shift into his wolf."

He steps forward to make obvious which person they must line up in front of. They all look around hesitantly to see who will line up first. The first one to line up is not Beta Rick but the young blond who had attempted to attack me two days ago.

"Shift," he orders. I'd have expected him to bark it but so firmly yet also calmly. Noah doesn't move but seems impressed.

It must have taken less than half an hour to go through every man in the pack. Like I expected, nobody could actually command Noah. What we wanted was for him to be able to feel how easy it was to resist the commands so he would pinpoint each of their rankings.

I would need to use the rankings to make patrolling shifts but at the moment I have no idea how to.

I begin putting the men into groups of 20. When I am done there are five groups arranged in a circle.

I step into the middle so that they can all see me. They all are watching me and my heart speeds up in anxiety but I know I have to appear powerful and collected so I try to steady me breathing like I did when I first had to address them.

"Some men from The Brotherhood have been sighted near our pack." They begin to talk amongst themselves with urgency and panic. They manage to stay in their groups despite their fear. 

"Quiet," I command, my voice not cracking thankfully. The voices die down almost instantaneously and they all look back to me.

"We will all need to work together to ensure that no one in our pack will be endangered. For now what we need is people to patrol our pack's perimeter. That is what you will all be doing. The first group," I point to the closest to me, "will take the first patrol."