Castor PoV.
“How could you do this to us, Pol?”
I was lying on the muddy ground. The raindrops that dripped on my face seemed to add to the misery I was feeling right now. My knuckles are still bleeding after hitting Pollux’s face so hard.
There was nothing more I could do or we could do. We searched all day for Godiva, but couldn’t find her. It was as if the earth had swallowed our Luna and covered her tracks with pouring rain.
‘Forgive us, Moon Goddess. Pollux and I could not take good care of your daughter.’
The exhaustion I was in at the moment had blocked my mind from thinking clearly. Both of us dueled fiercely until our bodies were equally exhausted. Neither of us won because Pollux didn’t fight me and chose to let me beat him up.
As his brother, I felt so angry and sorry for him, but Blake burned my emotions to take them out to Pollux. For whatever reason, the gaping chasm opened by Pollux made me want to jump in and leave everything behind.
“I’m sorry, Cas.”
I was silent. Dozens of times, I heard the same words from Pollux’s words. Repeated and sounding so bitter that I could feel the connection between us becoming strange.
“I will continue to look for Godiva, but I don’t want to see you anymore, either. From now on, our paths are different. I can’t bear to hate you when I see your face. Leave my sight.”
I woke up and went to the car. After getting the car keys, I told Alvise to take Pollux wherever he wanted to go. I wanted to find peace by walking to the apartment.
My brain was too exhausted to think, but Blake was still demanding that I find Godiva. Despite my pleas for rest, Blake’s relentless roar echoed in my mind. I desensitized all five of my senses to gain some peace of mind.
Armed with the coat I had picked up from the laundry on the side of the street, I would ward off the chill in the air after the rain stopped. I walked out of the laundry, paying no attention to the human’s eye movements and the faint whispers that I knew were directed at me.
“Humans! They often strip naked for attention, too.” I muttered.
I had no clue about the time while walking. From the few shops that had shop signs that read ’24 hours’ and the contrasting scenery as two-thirds of the street I was walking on was already dark, I thought it was early morning.
Not once did I feel hungry or thirsty? All I could think about was the soft bed in my apartment and getting away from Pollux.
I arrived at the apartment. Two guards bowed their heads at me as I was about to ask them not to let anyone see me. Isolating myself to rest and find a way out of this mess would be something I would do from the apartment alone.
My body felt pampered by the enormous bed in the apartment. The stiffness gradually disappeared as I spread my legs and arms wide on the bed. I recall every detail I went through when Godiva first came to this room.
Sleepiness begins to take over me. I decided to relieve my fatigue by sleeping for a few hours. Before I started looking for Godiva again later, I had to prepare myself for the worst.
I missed a whole day and woke up in the middle of the night. Looking up at the moon from the apartment window, its light refracted my misfortune at Godiva’s departure. I was reluctant to connect with Moonstone’s affairs, Blackmoon, or anyone else.
“My precious, where are you?” I sighed in sorrow.
An idea finally occurred to me. I grabbed my cell phone that I had not activated since last night before and pressed the power button. The one contact number I dialed did not respond to my first call. When the number connected, my eyes widened, and I immediately put my phone to my ear.
“I need your help, mom.”
I explained the situation to my mother. She listened and suggested the steps I should take while waiting for her to come to Burze. Still, I concluded from our long conversation that I needed Bice for clues.
I took a deep breath and let it out roughly. I called Alvise and asked her to come to the apartment with Bice tomorrow. He reported that Pollux hadn’t come out of his room since last night, and I paid him no mind.
Hunger was killing me, so I resorted to ordering fast food that humans usually eat. After being recommended by the apartment guards when I contacted them about human food that could fill me up, they delivered the food to my unit.
The food filled with red sticky liquid slid down my throat as I sat on a chair in the mini kitchen. Finishing it off with two glasses of mineral water, the torture of a living creature’s instinct to survive ended because of compulsion. I forced myself to hurt my tongue and stomach to satisfy my hunger.
I salute the human agility that can sell such food in the middle of the night and fulfill orders to deliver them to the customer.
Wait!
Godiva was also a junk food delivery person back before we met. I had stood up to actualize my idea of looking for her at her old workplace, but I remembered that the restaurant was not open for 24 hours. I finally aborted my move and plopped back down on the chair.
“Oh, Moon Goddess. Where can I find her?”
I didn’t do much in the apartment until the morning. For all the time spent, I would make up for it by starting the day with a visit to Mauricio’s restaurant at its early opening hours. Before I stepped out of the apartment unit, I called Alvise to ask Pippo to drive me to the restaurant.
In the apartment lobby, I saw Pippo standing tall in a long coat and sunglasses hanging from his nose. He exuded Blackmoon’s dark aura, superior to me today. I had told Alvise not to let Pippo be too conspicuous with his funeral-style all-black outfit, but it seemed like Pippo himself had made a style for himself.
“Take off your glasses, Pippo! This is an order because I’m sick of this gloom.”
“I apologize, Alpha. I was focused on your absence from the pack house, and Alpha Pollux didn’t display his usual color.”
“Are you baiting me to pay attention to my brother?”
“No, Alpha Castor. Alpha Pollux has not come out of his room since last night. Even Beta Alvise looks overwhelmed because… by the Moon Goddess, I almost gave away her secret.”
“Secret?”
“Don’t worry about it, Alpha Castor. I was just rambling.”
“You should try human food once in a while. It’ll make you more normal because you’re bound to upset yourself.”
“I will follow your suggestion. I have something to tell you, Alpha. Mrs. Frost had just arrived at the mansion when I came out of the gate. I was asked to deliver a message to you, instructing you to meet her immediately.
My forehead furrowed as I found it strange that mom didn’t tell me directly. There must be a reason mom didn’t call me or communicate with me through her telepathic abilities. I canceled my plan to visit Mauricio’s restaurant and preferred to meet Mom first.
“Is there anything else Madame has to say to me?”