I inhaled the rest of my sandwich and shooed the girls off to their rooms for bed.

"Daddy likes the smell of Jasmine," nodded Giselle as she left. "If you have that perfume, I'd wear it."

"Honey, this is a business meeting, not a date," I scoffed.

"We'll see," she replied cryptically with an impish smile, all but skipping away.

Oooh she's trouble I mentally chuckled, turning to grab a note book and a few pens.

I didn't know exactly where I was going, but I let my ears guide me, after all Giselle hadn't pointed out the Alpha's office on our whirlwind tour. I could hear the soft murmur of voices in one of the offices and spotted light peeking out from beneath the door.

I took a moment to smooth down my shirt, brush any stray crumbs off and took a deep breath to steady my nerves before knocking politely.

"Enter."

The well oiled door swung open noiselessly and I stepped into Gordon's office. He was seated at his desk, the Alpha mask was firmly in place on his face, though the tired pinch at his temples betrayed him. Another man was already there, broad-shouldered, mid-thirties maybe, with storm-grey eyes that flicked up as soon as I entered. The room hummed with a quiet tension that matched the pinch at his temples.

"Allison," Gordon said evenly, motioning me in. "This is Noah, my Beta."

"Pleasure," Noah said with a polite nod, though his assessing glance made it clear he was already trying to gauge whether I was worth the chair I would be sitting in. He still offered a firm but measured handshake regardless. At least he had manners.

"Likewise," I returned, slipping into a chair along the side and flipping open my notebook.

"I'll keep quiet and let you do your thing," I said. "If I have notes, I'll keep them here."

"Good," Gordon murmured, appreciative but clipped. Then, leaning forward to the laptop in front of him, he tapped a few keys. "Let's go over tomorrow's negotiations. The other pack is being stubborn on mineral rights—they want a bigger cut than their territory entitles them to."

Noah's mouth tightened. "Those dicks have always been like that."

My pen hovered over the page. "Question," I said, tilting my head.

Noah raised an eyebrow and his vision went distant. I could already guess he was sending a I thought she said she was going to stay quiet mindspeech quip to Gordon.

Gordon exhaled noisily through his nose. "Answer."

"Who currently owns the land? You or the other pack?"

"Is she kidding?" asked Noah.

"We do," replied Gordon.

"And does the other pack own the mineral rights on said land?" I followed up.

Gordon's brow furrowed. "I'm not following. They should be one and the same."

I grimaced. "Welcome to American politics. It's not. Your ownership of the land is from the ground surface into space. Technically anything below ground is a separate entity. It's how oil companies screw over small towns with fracking."

The two men shared a surprised look.

"With this in mind," I added, "do you know if Bitterroot currently owns the mineral rights of the contested land? If not, does the other pack hold those rights?"

Gordon and Noah stared at each other for a long while before Gordon said slowly, "I don't think they do, and we don't have anything recorded that we do either."

"That could be a problem," I said with a groan. "If the land is unpatented, it technically could belong to the government. Or a third party could own it outright, or it could even be split ownership. Any way you slice it, it needs more research."

Noah sat back with a skeptical grunt. "And you just happen to know this offhand?"

"My cousin tried to pull the same stunt three years ago," I said flatly. "He had beef with a neighboring pack, and I told him to stop being a dick. He ignored me, of course." My jaw ticked. "Never even paid me for the research, either."

Gordon's eyes sharpened at that. Crap, he's filing that away for later, isn't he?