Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“A pie to the face? How crudely primitive. I love it.” Satan was beaming as he and Shane started to laugh and joke about various topics. I let it go on for a few minutes, we all needed a break from the seriousness for a moment, and no one really seemed inclined to make them stop. Also, we were all so tired that we were slow to respond and react. We all definitely needed some sleep.
“Oh, I have some stories I can tell you.” Shane looked over at Shawn as he spoke. “My brother and I have a whole treasure trove of them.”
“Shut up.” Shawn snapped at him while shaking his head, the good humor coming to an end for him.
“Oh, come on, Shawn, we love these stories, remember?”
“You love them. I hate them.” I swear I could see Shawn shiver as he thought about whatever it was that the two of them were talking about.
“Oh you remember though, that time you told me about Dietrich’s-.”
“SHUT UP!” Shawn snapped at him. “And go to hell, asshole.” He was mortified, whatever the story was about.
“Ooh, please do.” Satan grinned. “I can show you the sites. And don’t worry, Shane my boy, you won’t be tortured. Unless you want to be.” They started to laugh then, they were big cackling gales of laughter too, ones that made everyone else in the room laugh. Well, everyone except for Shawn. He was a little grumpy and mad at his brother.
I was hoping to get this situation figured out soon. We needed to be done with this plan before the day got started. There was so much work that we needed to do. We needed to call in reinforcements, gods and super naturals alike. We needed to be ready for a battle that may or may not be coming to the castle. And we needed to be able to protect our people, and our families, when the fighting started.
“I can see that you are trying to work out a plan, Riviana.” Hades spoke through the joking spirit that Shane and Satan had going. “I will call the others here to help us. I will call in Hel, Yama, Mictlantecuhtli, Erlik, Mot, Supay, Ereshkigal, Batara Kala and Susanoo to help us. With all of us working with you, I am sure that you will have no problem at all with those beings. We will help you to end this before it gets too bad.” I wanted to tell him that it was already too bad. That losing close to a hundred members of my community was horribly devastating, but I knew that he wouldn’t understand that. He most likely didn’t view their deaths in the same way that I did. Not to mention, he was most likely giving them a peaceful afterlife, so in his mind, he was making this situation better on his end. Yeah, he just wouldn’t get it at all. I knew he wouldn’t.
“Thank you, Hades.” I decided to just thank him and let it slide. We were different people from different worlds, I didn’t have to worry about us seeing eye to eye here. I could just appreciate the fact that he was willing to help me out with this.
“Of course.” He smiled before stepping away. “I will send them a message right away. I think that the sooner we do this the better.”
“Yeah, I agree.” I didn’t even have to think about that. I knew that we needed to get this ball rolling. “The next step for us right now, is to call in backup. And we need to send someone to scout the mountains. We need to know where the Jaegan, and possibly the Ancient Ones, are staying. If we find them before they find us, then we can take the fight to them instead of them bringing it to us.”
“Yeah, that would be a good idea. Let’s not bring it into the city at all.” Joaquin was nodding in agreement. “We don’t need humans seeing what is happening in the world beyond the veil.” He reminded me then that there was so much that was happening in the world and that the humans were bound to find out about it all, no matter what we did to stop it. I didn’t want them to find out now, not with a battle on the horizon, but I knew that it was coming soon, no matter what I did.
“Who are we going to send out on the scouting mission?” Vincent asked as he tried to move the conversation along. “Will it be one of us?”
“No.” I shook my head and thought about who would be best. “We all need to get some more sleep. I think we should send someone else. How about Javier and Kiernan. The two of them are good trackers, and I am sure that they will manage to take care of things quickly. They can speak to Gustav about where he thinks that they might be.”
“Alright. I will let them know.” Vincent nodded. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Call in everyone that we can. I don’t know when this battle will be, but I know that we can’t leave things up to chance.”
Whenever Talia had had a vision in the past, it had been three days before the event had occurred. However, I wasn’t going to rely on that as a universal constant. I knew that it was possible that the battle could start sooner than that, or it could be further into the future. We just never knew for certain. And, frankly, I would prefer to err on the side of caution.
“We all need to be at the top of our game and ready to go when the time comes. We need to make sure that there are no surprises to come.” I looked up into several pairs of determined eyes. My entire crew as well as the gods were prepared for this situation. We all knew what it was that was likely to be coming our way.
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Riviana
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I left the calling of the others up to Joaquin and Vincent. I knew that they would tell them all to be here as soon as possible. And for some of these people, those that were comfortable with it, I would be opening up a door to bring them to the castle. And, luckily, there were a lot of them that would be willing to come through a magical portal door. I think that a lot of them were just curious as to how that was supposed to work.
Before anyone was to arrive, Joaquin and I took a nap. So did all of the others that had been up most of the night and woken early from their first nap this morning. We were all exhausted, including Talia and Alexio. Actually, my daughter had been so tired that she had fallen asleep at the table while we discussed what was going to be happening. I felt bad for her at that moment, because I knew that it was worry and fear that had kept her awake all night long. She was exhausted now, especially after having had her first shift. She needed to rest before she could do anything else. And Alexio, who had had just as little sleep as Talia had, ended up needing to carry her to her bed so that they could get some sleep. Thankfully, I had already put Peter on the job of getting Talia’s door fixed. It had needed to be done before she could go back to her room again.
We all laid down, again. We all tried to get some rest, again. And we were all unable to do that, again. I think that at this point, we were all just a little too keyed up and worried about what was going to happen. I knew that Joaquin was worrying about his pack, his land, and his family. He was also worried about the rest of our people, even though they weren’t here in the city and, therefore, weren’t in immediate danger. I was worried about them all too, I was just doing my best to hide it from him and the others. Nothing good would come from the others seeing me panicked or scared. It would just make their morale plummet.
When I failed to fall asleep, I started to quietly leave the room and let Joaquin rest some more. That didn’t work though, because the moment that I left the bed he sat up and glared at me.
…..
“Where are you going?” He asked me in a stern tone. “We need to rest so that we are able to fight later.
“I know Joaquin. I know. I am just not able to sleep. I have too much on my mind. And way too much pent-up tension.”
“If you’re still keyed up, Little Bunny, then we can go for a run. I can’t sleep either. And I think that running out the frustration that we’ve been feeling would do us some good.”
“I agree.” I hadn’t thought about doing that, but now that I did, I felt like it was the best option that we had available to us at the moment. “Let’s go, Joaquin.” I held my hand out to him. “Let’s go for a run.”
As Joaquin left the bed and started to walk toward me, I opened a door that would take us to the private woods behind the castle. There was nothing like having your own place to blow off some steam. And this place, these woods and mountains, they held a lot of memories for Joaquin and I.
I had the door open up on that crescent out look that we went to several times over the years. It was one of the first places that Joaquin and I were alone together on the property, and it was also where we watched the stars on one of our first dates. It was a special place for us, and I loved having picnics here with the kids as they were growing up. It was beautiful and packed full of memories.
“Ahh.” Joaquin sighed as he exhaled. He had just taken a large, deep breath of the fresh mountain air. It was chilled with the crispness of the impending change of weather that accompanied autumn. And soon after that, it would be winter. That was when the true beauty of this spot was able to be seen. Looking down at the scenery that was below when it was blanketed in snow, I loved it so much.
“I know what you mean.” I grinned as the cool and refreshing air washed over me. “I have missed this. Getting away for even a few minutes as we forget all of our problems.”
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” He looked at me with excitement in his eyes. “I don’t even remember the last time that we ran like this. Hell, even shifting is getting to be rare for us these days.”
“Yeah, we’ve been busy. A long run in our wolf forms will do us some good.” I started to reach for my shirt as I spoke.