Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“You can tell us and ask us anything, Riviana. You know that.” Aunt Glory added as she looked at me.
At that moment, Roisin and Abigail brought the food in for us so I waited to say anything. Once our plates were in front of us, I asked that the room be cleared.
“Everyone, except for Gloriana and Valerian, please leave. I would like a closed meeting.” That raised a few eyebrows at me, but I didn’t care. I knew that I never asked for closed meetings, but I didn’t want my people to know what it was that I was truly feeling. I wanted this kept a secret for the time being.
Once the room was emptied, Aunt Glory and Athair m貌r looked at me with serious and critical eyes.
“What is going on, Garin铆on? This isn’t like you.”
“I know, Athair m貌r. It’s not like anything that I thought I would be doing. But I never thought that I would ask this as well.” I sighed and looked at them, feeling my heart pounding. “I need you to help me. I feel like I am not doing something right. I feel as if my kingdom is going to suffer if I don’t fix this.” I looked at them with serious eyes and I could feel my heart pounding a mile a minute.
“Is that all?” Aunt Glory’s voice held a note of relief. “Riviana, you had me so worried.” She was almost laughing now. Was it that obvious?
” Garin铆on, there is no need to worry. Glory and I have both felt like that several times over the last couple dozen centuries and more. It’s normal.”
“It is?” I tilted my head in confusion at Athair m貌r’s words.
“Yes, it is. I mean, you’re still learning everything for one, so that is to be expected. But, you hold the fate of so many people in your hands that it’s understandable that you would get nervous about it from time to time.” He smiled and reached up to squeeze me on the shoulder for comfort and support. “Don’t let this get to you.”
“But wouldn’t it be bad if I showed how weak and incompetent that I am to everyone else?” I could still feel the pain and the worry surging within me.
“You’re not weak or incompetent, Riviana.” Aunt Glory snapped at me a little. Her voice was firm and stern. “You’re learning, that is all. I would like to see anyone that would call you weak or incompetent to do your job. Let’s see just how fast they would end up running for the hills. You’re a good Queen, Riviana, you really are. You just need to accept that.”
“I hope so.” I shrugged to myself, not bothering to hide how little confidence I had in that statement.
I tried to brush it off, though. Instead of saying anything more, I took a bite of my food. It was a specialized Fae dish that I asked to have made in honor of my two guests today. I knew that it was Aunt Glory’s favorite and that Athair m貌r liked it as well. I was doing my best to cater to them and make sure that they had a good time during this lunch, even if I was too messed up to even taste the food right now. I’m sorry, Roisin, you and Abigail worked so hard on this meal, and I can’t even appreciate it properly. I truly am the worst.
Athair m貌r and Aunt Glory didn’t let it slide though. They kept pushing me until I agreed to their suggestion. They were doing this for me and my future, so I didn’t really mind.
We came to the conclusion that I was going to ‘assign’ different tasks to different people, even if I had to hire them to make sure that it all got done properly. I was to have an entire entourage of staff that could handle different aspects of my kingdom.
Obviously, my entourage had to be people that I could trust, so that meant that I needed Gabriel and Vincent to help me with that part. Here I was giving them more work to do. I hated making people do more than they had to do when they were already so busy. It made me feel like a bad friend. Even though I was the person in charge and I needed to do it, it still made me feel horrible.
I listened to all of their suggestions, and I was certain that they were right about them all. I just needed to not try and do it all by myself. I seem to remember a time when I did let other people do things in the business aspect of the kingdom, but then I saw how many mistakes I had made and everything that I needed to fix.
Now that they were all fixed, now that everything was better, would I really be able to hand off some of the responsibility again? Would it really be OK? I guess I could try. That was the only thing that I could do. I needed to do something to save myself. Though, I was sure that the process would be slow and I wasn’t going to be handing the jobs over immediately. I still had time.
[1] Garin铆on is an Irish word that means granddaughter.
It is pronounced gar – in – EE 鈥?on
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Riviana
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I couldn’t believe that it had been a month already. I couldn’t believe that everyone was getting ready to leave today. It was a sad day and I didn’t want them to go, but at the same time, I think it was time.
For one thing, them leaving would let me get back to work. I could start looking for the people that I might hire to help me with my work. I could get everything done early and spend time with my family and make sure that the voice never came back to bother me.
‘…they die…you…run…mass destruction…your fault…murderer…run away…murderer…killer…your fault…destroyer…all dead…’
That voice still hadn’t left me alone. I had heard it all month. I had heard it since I took off work for this visit and I was sure that when the visit was over and I went back to work tomorrow, then I would feel so much better. The stress would immediately dissipate and I would feel instantly better. I was sure of it.
“I love you. Make sure that you keep up with those weekly calls.” Daci was hugging me tightly. I think she could sense something was wrong with me, she had been a lot more clingy with me than she used to be in the past. I know she was just worried as a family member should be, but I didn’t want her to see that part of me, that weak side.
“I will, don’t worry. We all love the weekly calls.” I assured her with a hug.
I watched on as the kids ran up to say their goodbyes. Reagan and Rika were older and more outgoing, so they were going to everyone on their own. Even though Talia knew everyone here, and even though she just spent an entire month with them, she was too shy to be going up to them on her own.
Talia only went up to say her goodbyes to Aunt Glory with Joaquin holding her hand and giving her the courage. I saw a bright, happy smile on Joaquin’s face and knew that it wasn’t because of Talia being nervous or scared. No, he was just happy that she still needed him. When Levi and Luka were here, he seemed to have lost some of his daddy’s confidence.
I don’t think that Joaquin knew that a little girl will always need her daddy, no matter how old she gets or how capable she is. Sometimes we just need our daddy, or the man that we saw as our daddy. I still needed my dad, who was also my uncle. Joaquin was never going to be left completely out of the loop when it came to the girls. Talia and Rika were going to need him for a long time still.
For a little while, I was just hanging back and watching everyone. I watched Joaquin take Talia to say goodbye to the babies. She seemed to like having Torben, Lily and Rose around. Maybe Joaquin and I should have another baby sometime soon. I didn’t want to be done but I also didn’t know where to stop with the number of kids we had. I mean, we’re wolves, we’re immortal, and we’re royalty. All of those factors basically say that we’re supposed to have a lot of kids. Well, the royalty part is depending on which culture and point in time you’re looking at. Still, most royals that I remember reading about had a whole mess of kids.
“What are you doing, hiding over here?” A gruff voice rose behind me while a set of thick, strong arms closed around me from behind. I had been so lost in thought that I hadn’t even noticed that Trevor had come up behind me.
“EEEEP!” I squealed loudly when he picked me up and held me like an older brother scaring his little sister. Actually, this exact same thing happened to me when I was a kid. Carter had lifted me up from behind and scared the shit out of me.
“HAHAHAH!” Trevor was laughing hard while everyone was watching us.
“I was lost in thought, you grizzly. I wasn’t paying attention.” I snapped at him.
