ROWAN.
“… And remember, you have to make sure to stay in your room. If you need something, ask Lily. Don’t come out, okay?”
“Yes, mummy.”
I give Jhnelle a kiss on her head before getting to my feet.
“Don’t worry, princess,” Viktor tells her with a little peck on her hair. “We will be back before you know it.”
“That is a lie,” she mutters with a pout. “You all are having some kind of adult meeting, it is going to take a long while.”
“Okay, you got us. But I promise to make it up to you, okay?”
“You promise?” She asks.
“Of course, ” he says. “What would you like?”
“How about we go out to the park? Do you have one here? With plenty of swings?”
“I am sure we can find one with swings,” he says as he pecks her in the head. “You have our word. Now, behave. Okay? For your mom and I.”
“Okay.”
I give her another peck before we both walk out of the room.
“You need to relax,” Viktor says as he takes my hand. “These alpha can smell fear, you need to pull yourself together.”
“I am not scared of them. I am… worried that all our plans will fall through. That all that work will come to nothing.”
“They won’t. Trust me,” he says before raising my hand to his lips. “Everything is going to work out just fine. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that. Not when we have a loose cannon called Dominic.”
“If Dominic proves too much to handle, then I will just kill him.”
“Viktor.”
“Fine. I will hold him down and let you kill him. Okay?”
“Hmm. That is much better,” I say with a smile before winding my hands around his arm.
“Good, you two are here,” Andre calls as we get to the landing.
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing. Just that the alphas just started driving in,” he answers. “They should be pulling up to the mansion in a few minutes.”
“Hmm, thank you,” Viktor tells him before turning to me. “We should be seen waiting for them.”
“Hmm.”
We all walk out of the mansion, stopping at the very entrance while we wait for them to show up.
“I think I am going to throw up,” I mutter.
“No, you are not,” he debunks.
“Oh, I am. I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. You handled me, the dreaded Viktor Thorn-”
“I didn’t know who you were then! I thought you were just some warrior wolf at best.”
“-you handled Maxwell, Fin, and Sven, three very renowned and respected alphas.”
“I was trusting your judgment of them.”
“Then trust me now. And them. We promised that we would do everything in our power to avoid a war and we will. Can you trust that?” He asks while looking into my eyes.
I stare into his, for a good few seconds, drawing strength from them before nodding.
“Hmm, I can.”
“Guys, they are here,” Andre says with his eyes trained forward.
Viktor And I take a few steps away from each other -we are still standing firm on the decision to not let anyone know about us just yet- before looking out in front of us.
Like as if it is planned, a long convoy of cars begins driving through the pathways, stopping at the curve of the pond to allow the passengers to alight before driving off to the park as directed by the wolves along the path.
As one, both I and Viktor descend the stairs with Andre following a few places back.
Sven, surprisingly enough is the first one to reach us, and he makes a beeline toward me
“Rowan!” He exclaims, loud enough for the other alphas to hear. “It is a mighty delight to see your face,” he continues before pulling me into a hug.
What?!
Okay, we weren’t exactly in a bad place when we left, actually we were okay.
We were… tolerant of each other.
So what is this… show for?
Right, a show.
Of course.
Man, I hate pack politics.
Of course, he could also have done it for the simple pleasure of pissing Viktor off.
“Get your paws off my mate, you mutt,” Viktor growls at him from the corner of his lips, his face still set in a neutral star to not alert the others of his irritation.
“And why would I do that?” Sven asks, still hugging me. “Your pissed off face brings me way too much pleasure to do that.”
“I am going to punch your face.”
“In a council? Where we are going to talk about peace? Shame on you?”
“You-”
“For the love of god,” Maxwell’s voice reaches us and I look over to see him and Fin walking towards us. “Can you ever behave yourself, Sven? And you, Viktor, can you try not giving in to him?”
“What did I do?” Viktor mutters. “He started it.”
“No,” Sven, the crazy man responds to Maxwell in simple indifference as he lets me go, completely ignoring Viktor’s pissed off face. “This is my default state.”
“Well, get your default state in order. We have guests. Rowan,” Maxwell greets as he reaches for my hand and raises it to his lips. “It is a delight to see you again.”
“Likewise.”
“Quick sidenote,” Viktor whispers as he and Fin embrace. “We are not revealing the fact that Rowan and I are mates. We don’t want to give our detractors any leverage.”
“That sounds smart,” Maxwell says. “We will abide by it.
They give way for the next wave of alphas to approach us.
The bloody convoy hasn’t even ended.
It does no favors to my growing nerves.
It is a long, mindless, numbing continuation of empty greetings and handshakes, each one ending with Viktor or Maxwell or any of the other two introducing me and me reviving weird looks.
Some are curious, some suspicious, some indifferent, and others downright mean.
This is going to be a long day.