The tie around Zack's neck felt like it had a strangle hold on him as he watched the private jet sent by the council start to come in for a landing. This was it. The new alpha had arrived.

And depending on how the man felt about the disrespectful behavior of the inner circle in not greeting him personally, Zack may or may not survive the next ten minutes. The alpha could easily kill him for the slight, and with no repercussions from the council. It was almost unheard of for an inner circle not to greet the new alpha.

Oh man, Zack's life would have been so much easier if his former alpha hadn't been such a dick and challenged someone bigger and stronger than him. But the guy was an idiot, and most everyone in the pack knew it.

Well, truthfully, Dawson was actually pretty damn smart. He was just a cruel and evil bastard that took sadistic pleasure in other people's pain. He was hated by every member of the pack except for the members of the inner circle, who were just as bad as Dawson.

The wheels of the private Lear Jet set down, and Zack felt his heartbeat stutter just as the wheels did when they hit the tarmac. He pulled at his collar again, feeling like the tie was tightening around his throat.

This was it.

The jet slowed and then slowly turned toward the private hanger where Zack waited. The airport was small but so were the town and the pack. They had a mere sixty one members and were one of the smaller packs in the Northwestern Shifter Territory. And that was a lot of territory. It consisted of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

Zack liked having a smaller pack. He knew each member by first name. He knew who they were related to, who was having pups, what couples were mating, and when a member needed a little extra attention. He knew the members of his pack like they were in very own family, and to him, they were.

He just hoped it stayed that way.

There was no telling what the new alpha would do. Most alphas cleaned house when they took over a pack. Sometimes, members were banished or killed in challenges. Other times, new members were brought in.

Things didn't always turn out for the best.

Zack had lost his own parents when Dawson took over as alpha. They had been banished from the pack because they opening disagreed with the man when he outlawed their right to mate with humans. His parents had been forced to join another pack several hundred miles away. Zack had been an adult and was no allowed to leave with his parents. He hadn't even been allowed to see them in the last ten years.

Maybe the new alpha would change things.

Maybe not.

Zack stood up straighter and dropped his hands, clasping them behind his back, as the jet pulled to a stop in front of him. He'd be lying if he said his heart wasn't beating a litter faster and his throat wasn't drying up like the Sahara Desert as the door opened and a set of stairs lowered.

His throat grew even dryer when a tall man stepped out of the plane. He wasn't dressed as Zack thought a new alpha coming to meet his new pack would have been dressed. Where there should have been a suit, instead there were tight faded jeans, short sleeved black t-shirt, and black leather boots.

No matter how the man was dressed, though, he was still Zack's alpha and deserved his respect. "Alpha Khenti." Zack nodded when the man reached the bottom of the stairs.

The man pulled down his dark sunglasses with a single finger in the middle of the frame, and peered over the top at edge at Zack. "Afraid not, dog boy."

Zack pressed his lips tightly together. One, he didn't want to open his mouth and give credence to the insult just handed to him, even if it was to deny it. For two, Zack suddenly understood who this man was even if he had never met him before. He was an enforcer.

If he was a council enforcer, Zack could be in a shit load of trouble. No one crossed a council enforcer and lived to tell the tale. It just wasn't a smart thing to do. Zack nodded to the man, trying to seem as unthreatening as he possibly could. At six foot three, that was usually pretty hard to do. With this man, who stood several inches taller than he did, it wasn't so hard.

Zack actually felt a little intimidated.

"Who are you?" the man asked.

"Zack. I was sent by the Aberdeen Pack to greet the new alpha and take him back to pack territory."

"Identification?"

Really?

Zack pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled his driver's license out. He handed it to the man, and then waited, hoping that he passed whatever security measures were in place.

The man that held his ID, looked at it for a moment, and then looked at Zack. And then he lifted his wrist to his mouth and began speaking into a bracelet that looked like it was made of black paracord, stating Zack's name and giving his description. Communication device?

Cool.

The man apparently heard what he wanted to hear because after a moment, he nodded and then handed Zack back his license. Zack breathed a sigh of relief as he placed his ID back into his wallet and then put his wallet back into his back pocket.

He glanced up toward the doorway leading into the airplane, wondering where his new alpha was, and then back to the man just standing there staring at him as if he was waiting for something.

Zack felt like a bug on a windshield. He didn't want to be standing on the tarmac like a damn idiot. He'd rather get the new alpha home and then go off to do—pretty much anything else.

"Well, boys?" came a voice from the doorway, catching Zack's attention. "Are we done measuring the size of our dicks?" One perfectly manicured eyebrow lifted as a smirk crossed the small man's face. "Because I can assure you, mine is bigger."

Zack's jaw started to drop as he gazed up at the man standing at the top of the stairs. He was dressed simply enough—a white button down dress shirt and a pair of faded jeans. He even wore a pair of black biker boots like the enforcer—complete with silver wolf heads on each side.

Zack's jaw continued to unhinge as the man swaggered down the steps, dropping just a little further with each gentle sway of the man's hips. By the time the golden man reached the tarmac, Zack's jaw felt like it rested on his chest.

"I'm Ibenré Khenti, but you may refer to me as Iben." The man held out his hand like he was just a regular guy and not the new alpha of Aberdeen Pack. "I'm the new alpha."