I blew out a breath and said, “Sabina isn’t like her.”

“No, she isn’t,” Linda Green muttered. “Remember that panic attack Ariel Johnson had the other day, Elsa? Right in the middle of the kitchen, she was. Thought she was having a heart attack.”

I twisted around to look at Sabina, brow arched, and she just shrugged, but her smile was sheepish.

“She’s a lot more potent,” Maggie confirmed. “That’s for sure. Only fitting that the Mother would grant us a true omega after gifting us shitty ones for such a long time.”

My lips almost twitched at her maligning my family, but what could I say? It wasn’t like I could disagree.

I hadn’t known my grandparents. They’d died when I was only a few years old, and I didn’t remember them at all, but if Maggie said it, then it was true.

And from the glum nods that followed her words, I figured she wasn’t bullshitting me.

“Anyway,” I muttered, trying to get things back on track, “I’m here now for a reason.”

“Aside from spoiling our Wednesday night get-together, you mean?”

“I do mean,” I retorted, rolling my eyes at Maggie. “This, here, is going to be our new council meeting spot.”

Everyone froze at that, even Maggie.

“Jesus, never thought I’d see the day Maggie shut the hell up,” Riley Hunt muttered somewhere behind me, and when even that didn’t prompt Maggie to snark back at him, I knew I’d truly stunned the hell out of her.

“What about the council?”

I pulled a face at Bill’s apt question. “I’m in the process of dismantling them.”

“The process?” Jim Koln repeated, his disappointment clear.

“The process, yes, because most of them run the pack’s businesses and I need to find replacements before I put those businesses in jeopardy.”

Maggie finally defrosted at that, because she muttered, “Those fools don’t know their dicks from their thumbs. Half the people in here do the managing. You don’t need to find your replacements—they’re looking right at you.”

I grinned at her. “Maggie, I was hoping you were going to say that.”

“Then why not just spit it out?”

“Because I don’t need false modesty or people trying to oversell themselves. We’re transitioning to a new phase in the pack’s government, and I need to make sure that all the Is are dotted and the Ts crossed, because if they’re not, we’re going to be putting the entire community in jeopardy, and I can’t have that.”

Maggie harrumphed, but then she muttered, “Jonas? You manage the brewery, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jonas replied, and I arched a brow because that came as a surprise.

Jonas wasn’t a beta-type personality, but the brewery was our second largest business and employed a good chunk of the people in town.

“Are you good at it?”

He shrugged. “Place would fall apart without me.” About ten or so people muttered their agreement, their nods were strident too. Eager.

She sniffed at me. “That seem like a good reference?”

My lips twitched. “Like the best. What about the logging company? The farms?”

Maggie, as she’d done a few moments before, picked out people she knew were the best at their jobs, and as I stared at her, I knew I was looking at my next council leader.

I was a dumbass for not piecing shit together before, but hell, sometimes it took a slap to the face with a fish to figure out what the fuck was going on.

“We’ll have you reporting for duty on Friday. I’ll call each individual council member to tell them that their services are no longer wanted, and that they’re free to leave our pack, or they can join the workforce as a member of the staff.

“I’ll expect the newly appointed managers to deal with the old incumbents fairly, even if they never treated you fairly—a good leader doesn’t treat his old team like shit,” I intoned darkly, loading the words with a threat I would enforce. “We all have to live together, and we all, more importantly, have to work together to make the pack a better, stronger place for future generations to come. Do you hear me?”

When I received a lot of “Ayes,” I nodded, then murmured, “You’re all going to have to accept that Austin and Ethan are my right- and left-hand men. The world is changing, and we need to embrace each other, embrace what we don’t understand, because we don’t understand so much.

“If you have an issue with them, you have an issue with my leadership, and we all know where the challenge circle is. You can come toe-to-toe with me, but we all know how that will end up if you don’t take this seriously.”

When that had a lot of people dunking their heads between their hitched shoulders, I knew I’d gotten my point across.

“Now, for the final matter, Maggie May and Bill are going to be my council leaders.”

Though I sensed her surprise, Maggie just smirked at me. “Was just waiting for the chance to ride roughshod over you.”

“I figured as much,” I said dryly.

Her eyes, however, were filled with pride. “Just knew you were going to be a good alpha, Eli.”

“Give me time, I’ve barely started.”

“No, that’s true, but you weren’t ever like your family, son. You were a good boy from the start to now, and with a strong woman at your side, I’ll be glad to serve as a liaison between you and the pack.”

I smiled at her, touched because I knew she meant every word. “That being said, I will be here every week, and you can come to me directly. No more only meeting at the totem. No more only meeting at the packhouse. You have an issue, you can bring it to me, Sabina, Ethan, or Austin either privately, or we can deal with it together as a pack.”

That had a roar of applause bursting out around me, which I figured meant they were happy with the changes.

Of course, I knew some people who were going to be miserable about those changes, but fuck them.

The council had fed my father’s ego, had built him up into an alpha who was out of touch with his pack, who was disconnected with the world in which we lived.

Only my influence at the logging company had kept us from going too deep into our territory where we were going to be losing valuable running land, and he’d been shortsighted in so many ways.

I had ideas that I needed to run by my family—Sabina, Ethan, and Austin—ideas that would thrust the pack straight into the twenty-first century, but also, I was happy just to change the status quo bit by bit.

Completely wiping out the council was a heavy hit to the start of my reign, but if it was one that defined my rule?

I wasn’t going to cry over that.

I was born to be alpha.

Born to be Sabina’s mate.

And I was born to rule with my brothers at my side.

That was what would define me.

But the Mother’s will had granted me a future that would see these people’s numbers expand dramatically, and I was going to be the father of a new future, with Sabina as the mother of them all.

It would take time, it would take caution, but we had both in spades.

This was the first day of a new era for the Highbanks pack, and I’d never been happier to be its leader than I was right now.