Hope glanced towards the ground as a frown made its way to her lips while her heart suddenly faded into nothingness, as though she couldn’t feel or hear the bounding of her chest.
From the sound of it, Hope could tell that Harley was telling the complete truth. He wasn’t lying and she could tell from the look of his eyes.
Harley knew well enough that Hope knew him a little too well. So he had to mean it.
Plus if he was just going to let her go and hand her over to Ace, he needed to start looking for someone else despite bearing the pain of giving her up. He had to start thinking of Anna being his potential mate.
She was a complete opposite of Hope, bit at least she was going to return his feelings strongly, just as he wished Hope would.
“I can’t say no to your decisions.” Hope forced on a smile as she glanced up to him, resisting the urge to tell at him for confusing her with countless emotions, only to later ignore and pretend it never happened, then just decide on loving someone else. She utterly confused, not knowing who Harley really was now. “it’s okay too, we can talk once we arrive at the pack, it wasn’t anything urgent.” She smiled weakly and walked past them, walking towards the car with a clenched jaw and tight smile.
Harley glanced up at Ace who glanced back down at him, wondering what he should do to cheer her up. He simply shrugged and walked back to the car with Anna, as Ace remained trailing behind.
During the entire way, Hope had completely stopped talking to either Anna or Harley. Instead, she spent the entire rest of the days chuckling and laughing to what Ace had been saying, forcing her to almost return to normal. Anna had been talking animsted to Harley who couldn’t help but listen to her stories. Of course others were slightly off point and others were just surprising to hear which kept him intertain.
The next day was spent mainly talking to each other with one last stop for meal before they were back on the road once more. At some point they had all fallen asleep taking a while longer before they woke up again.
“gosh how long?” Ace groaned as he stretched his arms over his head and sighed as he glanced towards Harley’s back.
“we should be arriving at their pack any time soon.” Harley yawned as he leaned back and sighed out shakily. “I’m pretty exhausted.”
“same here.” Ace sighed out as well as Hope glanced up to Ace who stared outside. She shifted her gaze to the back of Harley’s head, suddenly noticing how close these two had suddenly become after that toilet break.
She didn’t say anything since of course, she didn’t want to interfere with his life any more.
“We have arrived.” The driver announced as the car slowed down before coming to a complete stop at the gates. Harley glanced over his shoulder to Hope who raised her brows before realizing she had to get down with him as alpha and beta. She nodded and he got up from his seat and jumped out of the car with her following behind.
“where are you going?” Anna asked as she glanced out to Harley who began to walk away.
“We have alpha and beta stuff to do. Just stick close to Ace and you’ll be fine.” Harley smiled as he waved his hand while Hope walked ahead and towards the gate, where Jason, the beta and Kelvin stood waiting for their arrival.
Both of the men, Jason and Kelvin didn’t seem to be having things going their way. They both looked pale and sort of depressed and stressed out.
Well that isn’t as difficult to spot out since Jason has been having trouble confessing in front of Emily’s parents that he is the father of the child. Kelvin on the meantime was becoming more stressed because as tomorrow is the ceremony, he was expected to become the alpha and finally the son-in-law of Valentine, which he did not want. He wanted to forfeit but it would send up red flags to the entire pack which will only cause trouble for Jason and Emily of everyone found out on their own what truly happened.
Despite those two looking rather depressed, Hope and Harley didn’t look very joyful either. Even though they were smiling as they approached Kelvin and Jason, it was almost too obvious something was off.
But Kelvin and Jason were also too troubled to ask why.
“Hi, I’m Hope, alpha of the Grallen pack and this is my beta Harley.” She smiled charmingly as she reached out and shook Jason’s hand first before Kelvin.
“I’m the beta and this is Kelvin.” Jason forced on a smile back as he shock Harley’s hand last before stepping back as Kelvin shook hands with them. “the alpha won’t be meeting with you today since he’s retiring, but instead, you will meet up with the new alpha chosen after the ceremony, since all decisions made now will be his to carry.” Jason explained as he glanced down at Hope who stared back at him. He shifted his gaze towards Harley after a while and guessed out why the two in front of him didn’t look so happy.
Something went wrong in their trip and it was probably between them. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but he just had a feeling.
“Did you have a wonderful trip?” Jason chuckled out as he asked not because he wanted to know, but he just had to ask them as a polite gesture.
“not really, I’m just really tired.” Harley raised his hand as he yawned again and batted his eyelids. “I could die any moment.”
“Well that would be awful.” Jason chuckled out as Kelvin glanced between Harley and Hope, also noticing the oddness. Despite not meeting them before, he could still tell something was wrong between them.
“I heard you two had been friends since you were very young.” Kelvin pointed out as he caught both Hope and Harley’s attention. “is that true?” he asked and Harley glanced to the side for a moment as Hope glanced up to the sky for a brief second, forcing Kelvin to nod his head that there really was something wrong.
“yeah.” Harley nodded slowly as he reached his hand into his hair. “she’s my best friend.” He smiled out as he stared into Kelvin’s eyes.
“Okay.” Kelvin nodded as he shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced towards the ground instead.
“Anyway,” Jason cleared his throat as he noticed the awkward atmosphere. “let’s talk inside, plus we can’t keep talking all day, you’re probably tired and hungry. It’s almost dinner time and you can all be shown to your rooms.” He smiled as he explained, getting Harley to mindlessly nod to his words as Hope simply smiled animatedly.
Jason waved up at the guard at the top of the gate to open them. He nodded and turned the wheel, slowly opening the heavy gates. Once they were fully opened, the van drove in as Harley, Hope, Jason and Kelvin walked in behind them before the guard closed them back up.