I knew that Ares was apprehensive about me spending time alone with Aleks, but he was able to see why I thought it was important, and he respected my decision.
I had a feeling he considered this a last chance for Aleks to prove himself, and I wondered whether I should tell Aleks that Ares was close to replacing him as future Beta. In the end I decided it wasn’t worth further upsetting him. It would make everything worse if he felt he had lost his position because of me, and it would probably make him act more attentively rather than offering a fair assessment of his behavior when he needed to make a good impression.
It was also a chance for me to prove myself. I wanted everybody to respect me for my skills rather than because I was a white wolf now, and I thought it was important that Al
