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Stiles had been worried about how inter-pack relations would go after Scott left. Werewolves were very hierarchical; Stiles always had to be careful, when negotiating on Scott’s behalf, not to seem like he was overreaching his authority. The pack called him their Alpha, but he still wasn’t a wolf—what would other packs think of that?
He certainly hadn’t expected relief.
“I’ll be glad to see our eastern border properly secured,” Alpha Seward says, shaking Stiles’s hand in… congratulations? They’ve already done greetings. “I know you and Hale did your best, but it leaked threats like a sieve under Alpha McCall.”
Stiles swallows the instinct to defend Scott. It would make him look weak, and Seward wasn’t wrong. “Please let me know if we miss anything,” he says instead. “Border security is a priority.” And then, because getting the word out will help, “As is expanding the Hale pack.”
Seward raises an eyebrow. “Not the Stilinski pack?”
Stiles shakes his head. “No. The Hale lineage is an old, strong one. I want to build on that foundation.”
Alpha Seward nods approvingly.
Apparently, the respect Stiles had always gotten from him had never been for Scott.
It was always for Stiles.