Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
Among those new guards, six of them were coming with us. That would provide me with a dozen total guards and that in my opinion amounted to my husband being an overly paranoid moron who just couldn’t stop thinking the world was out to get me.
I let Fido do as he pleased though; I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of making him stop. Instead I packed our bags and made sure we had way more stuff than we needed. OK, I am overly paranoid as well, but mine was at the expense of space in the car and not wasting someone’s time.
Mom was worried about what to bring so I decided that it was best to go over to their house and help her pack. I think that the real truth of it was that she was just nervous about meeting the Fae Queen. She didn’t know what this might mean for all of us, and she wasn’t Fae. Of those going, not counting the guards, there were fourteen of us; of those fourteen people, six of them had no relation to the Fae aside from marriage. Five of those six people had never dealt much with the Fae and were nervous about their first big excursion into the Fae world. The others were excited to see what we would find there.
“Riviana! Help me please!” The moment I walked into the house Mom ran up to me and started shaking me by the shoulders. “I don’t know what to do, and your dad is absolutely no help at all.”
“Calm down, Mom. It’s not like you’re flying to the moon. You’re just going to the Fae compound for Christmas so we can try to find out who our Fae relative is.”
“I know that, but we will be meeting a Queen. I’ve never met a Queen before!”
“Ha?” I Couldn’t believe what she just said. I just crossed my arms and stared up at her as I tapped my foot in annoyance.
“Oh, you know what I mean. You’re different. You’re my daughter, and I raised you since you were a little baby. You’ve been my princess your whole life. Don’t go acting all high and mighty now.” I laughed at her and shook my head.
“Queen Gloriana is a really nice person, so you don’t have anything to worry about. Let’s just make sure that you pack something nice because there will be a ball and probably a banquet or two. We will be there for three weeks and that will include Christmas and New Year’s Eve, so we need to make sure we’ve got everything covered for that whole time.”
“That’s just it, I don’t know what I need for all of that.”
I watched as she put both of her hands on her face and threw her head back in frustration. She was so out of her element right now. To be fair, this wasn’t exactly my element either, but I was better at it now since I had gotten some experience.
I worked with Mom for at least an hour figuring out what all she and Dad had that would work for the trip. We managed to get them each two large suitcases filled with the clothes that they were going to need for the time that we were gone. And just as I was leaving, Nikki called me to ask for help as well.
I went and offered as much help as I could to my sister in law so that she and Noah wouldn’t have to worry. She was even more of a wreck than Mom since she had to pack for Elias as well. I told her not to worry too much about the babies since they would be with Acacia’s family for a good chunk of the time if we had something important that required all of us to be there. I trusted Acacia’s family and knew that they could handle all the children at once since they had nothing but multiples.
When I got home Emmalee video called me and asked for the same assistance as Mom and Nikki. The benefit of this call was that I didn’t need to be there, and I could spend some time with the babies. Emmalee loved clothes and had a lot to choose from so hers had been so much easier than Nikki’s had been.? Really since she had gotten so many new clothes for Carter so all his suits were new and nice. Noah had nice suits too, but not all of them were exactly the newest they could have been.
Luckily, Lila and Grandfather didn’t seem to require the same assistance. That was a relief, that meant that I was done and free to enjoy Ilana and Rowan’s birthday party tomorrow before we left on Saturday. We needed to get to the Fae compound before the Yule celebration started after all.
The party for Juniper and Paul’s twins was a lot smaller than the one that I had to throw, but they had one thing going for them that I didn’t; they weren’t shadow world royalty that needed to follow certain protocols whether they liked it or not.
Joaquin had to finish up some work before we left so I took Reagan and Rika to the party with Izzy, Thoma, Shawn, and Pierre who was one of the new Sentinelle warriors. Everything went smoothly, and the twins loved playing with their friends. I was really glad that we got to have this one last little thing before we left for almost a month.
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Riviana
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Everyone had gathered at the Estate before it was time to leave for the Fae Compound. This would allow us to arrange the seating and store the luggage properly for everyone. Which was good because we ended up needing to take eight SUVs after we accounted for everyone’s luggage. This was surprising since the SUVs could fit up to eight people each, and we should have only needed four of them at the most if it wasn’t for the luggage.
The guards were not all in the same vehicle as me, Joaquin and the twins, but there were still a couple with us; Shawn and Shane to be exact. I hadn’t gotten much time with either of them over the last year, all things considered. I sometimes missed the days when we all just basically hung out at the house and were able to have fun even if it was still them technically guarding me.
Now though, all of our babies were the ones that would be doing the hanging out while we adults were all devoting our time to our families.
“You look like you’re lost in thought about something?” Shawn smiled at me as he got my attention. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, I was just reminiscing about all the times that we used to hang out and goof off before we moved on with our lives. It hasn’t been all that long really, but in a way it feels like it’s been years.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I had thought about that when mine and Dietrich’s babies were born. They changed our lives and turned everything upside down, but not in a bad way. I wouldn’t change any of it. I love them and they’re perfectly mine and Dietrich’s.” I could tell that Shawn was happy and quite enjoyed being a dad.
“You wouldn’t change any of it?” Shane turned in his seat to look at Shawn with a grin. “None of it? Not even the fact that you ended up getting pregnant up you-?”
“Shut up.” Shawn glared at his brother who just started laughing, I even saw Joaquin’s shoulders shake as he drove the SUV toward our destination.
“I was just asking, you know, for clarity. I thought that you had hated that part of it all. That’s all.” Shane was still grinning, he would always give his brother a hard time, but I knew how much he loved Shawn. I never told Shawn this, but the entire time that he was gone, Shane was a mess.
“Oh, hush now, Shane.” I grinned at him. “I think you’re the one who would have changed it. You cried so much while Shawn was away just because you couldn’t see your brother. I think that’s why you want him to admit he would change something, because you wish you could.”
“B..b..but, n..n..no..nn..no, I..I, I didn’t, I mean, th..that’s not, it wasn’t-.” He looked so shocked that I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t because he didn’t seem like he could handle it. “Urgh!” Shane growled frustratedly and was about to turn around when Shawn called out to him.
“Don’t worry Shane, I missed you a lot too. We had never been apart like that before and it was hard on me as well. But we survived, and we’re not separated anymore.” The resulting smile on Shane’s face was worth what I had said, even if it was kind of mean of me.
“I’m sorry I said that, Shane, but you really shouldn’t pick on your brother like that. You need to be honest with your feelings and talk to him. I am betting that in the ten months since he has been home you never once told him how much you missed him while he was gone.”
“I know, I need to be better about it all. And you’re right, I didn’t tell him. I was too embarrassed.” He turned back to look at Shawn, and I swear his eyes had misted over a little bit. “I love you Shawn, you know that. Even when I make fun of you, I do it because I love you.”
“I know.”
Finally, the brothers might have finally gotten to where they talk openly and honestly, after what, twenty eight years, that’s quite the accomplishment.
When we arrived at the Fae compound, we found that there was once again an entourage waiting for our arrival. Breon and several others were there. once again with an all black golf cart to guide our envoy of SUVs into the compound.
We were taken to the garage again where we exited the vehicles. The luggage was already being unloaded by a team of servants that moved silently and efficiently. We had made things easier on them and labeled all of the luggage so that they could separate it all into the proper rooms.
