I'm the Alpha's Crush

Chapter 10

Monday morning found me in the Archives, grumbling over a stack of moldering legal documents.

"How have we not digitized this far back?"

The records, from the early nineteenth century, detailed a territorial agreement between two packs in Tennessee.

They had also, unfortunately, spent most of the twentieth century in somebody's basement.

"Don't blame me," River answered from their workstation, "The Council's got me prioritizing their meeting minutes – I'm currently slogging through the mid-sixties."

Delicately turning the yellowed paper over, I griped, "We really need to hire somebody else."

"Tell Gerald that."

"Tell me what?"

Peek over my shoulder, my eyes caught sight of a moderately tall, moderately pudgy man in his early forties.

"We need to hire another computer person."

"Yeah." He sighed, "I know, I need to get on that-"

"Ger? Look at this thing." I pointed down at the record on the table, "This is ready to crumble into dust – it's going to fall apart if I breathe on it. If we don't get someone in here to start working on the older documents, we're going to lose them."

"You're right. River-"

They didn't even glance up from their monitor. "Don't you dare try to pin this on me – I've already got my plate full."

"Okay," he held his hands up defensively, "Okay – message received. I'll get on it.

"Thank you."

"Now, back to what I actually came down here for; is that the treaty?"

"Yep. I was just about to put it back in storage. I'll have those scans to you as soon as I can."

"About that..."

The hesitation in his voice caught my attention. "What?"

"Both packs are insisting on seeing the original."

"What? Why?" Transporting a physical copy that was this delicate, this damaged... I mean, it was possible, but it would also be incredibly expensive.

Gerald shook his head. "I'm past asking 'why' at this point – the Council approved it, and as long as it gets those two blowhard Alphas to shut up, I don't care."

"They do realize that somebody's going to have to travel with it, right? And they're the one's who are going to be footing the bill for the plane ticket, the hotel stay..."

Gerald groaned, "Listen; I just got off of a conference call between them and the mediator, and you would not believe the egos on both of these guys. I'm pretty sure this is all just a pissing contest – but I don't have to get involved in it, I just have to make sure they don't damage the document."

"What are they even arguing over?"

"There's a small strip of land between their territories, and now both of them want it, but they can't agree on who actually has a claim on it."

I grinned, mischievous. "You know, they could always go the Old Way and just fight it out? Hand-to-hand, claw-to-claw?"

Gerald snorted. "As much as I would love to see one less asshole in the world, a civil negotiation is probably better for everyone."

"Just throwing it out there." Slipping the paper carefully back into its protective sleeve, I set it aside, pulling off my white, cotton gloves. "So, you're going to be the escort for this?"