Lorag shook his head. "And who says you can't? Most of you have known each other basically as long as you've known me. You know each other, you trust each other. It's not like a stranger would be taking over. Besides, I'm sure in Oblivion not gonna give up [i]all[/i] my authority. I'm asking [i]one[/i] of you to step up and become the Alpha's second. Anyone else'll have to challenge me for my rank if they want to get ahead of me."

Lorag looked around the room with a demanding expression, reminiscent of the attitude he usually carried when training recruits. "So, whose goin' to step up? How many of you are goin' to try? I'm expecting volunteers here. I'll be honest, some of you are more qualified than others, but all of you are qualified in at least some way."

---

Since he had been thinking about his plan for hours, Julan had thoroughly convinced himself that it was a good idea, so Rhazii's doubts did not bother him. "He won't be mad, not once his parents know about him. I think he's just afraid or something. I don't know why. Who would be afraid of their parents? I'm sure they'll want to see him once I tell them about him, and I'm sure everything will be fine after that. My grandparents won't let him punish us."

Julan glanced quickly towards the door. He was eager to leave, so he wanted to convince Rhazii quickly. "And if they didn't want to come see him...well it wouldn't matter, since my father won't know we're gone. Uncle Lorag looked serious, so that meeting will probably take a while. And we can just leave a note here saying we went to the kitchen or something. For dinner. They didn't say we [i]couldn't[/i] do that. It would give us plenty of time."