AVA
The next week dragged by in a mess of patrols, problems, and absolutely no solutions for anything at all. No one found anything useful that would point us in remotely the right direction, or even just a direction that wasn’t wrong. We had no idea where Matthew was hiding. No idea where Elijah was hiding. We hadn't even found any of Elijah's rogues in a while, and we had absolutely no idea if Matthew was working on his own or if he had an army behind him.
We had nothing.
We were trying to make an effort to carry on like normal, at least as much as possible. We had to try because today was Callum and Oscar’s eighteenth birthday.
Normally, today would be the day that their wolves would identify their mate for the first time. Of course, we’d known for much longer. Desp
AVAWe all needed to unwind with the party, but of course, we were still caught up in the middle of an absolute shitfest, so the happiness and chill-vibes were never going to last forever.I sat at the desk in my office, staring at the map of the Kingdom I had pinned to my whiteboard. My Kings, Jacob, Alex and Jeremiah were all with me, and we had extra guards on both my office and the packhouse door. I refused to get caught short again.Jeremiah and Alex between them were marking all the locations where there had been known rogue attacks and where there had been encounters with either Matthew or Elijah over the last few months so we could try to work out where either of them would be hiding. Was it going well? No.
AVAThe next morning, I made a point of distracting myself from as many problems as I could. I went for a run with Alex, swam in the lake with my Kings, and made cookies with Paula.I needed to clear my mind of nonsense to give myself a chance to solve some of the pressing questions that were floating around my mind. What better way to solve a problem than to not think about the problem?It was shortly after the cookies went in the oven that I realised something. Something… big.Why wasn’t I pregnant?I had been having a lot of sex, unprotected sex, with four men for months. I had my usual monthly cycles, and everything seemed normal. But sure
CALLUM“Paula. Paula let Matthew out,” I growled. “Ava trusts her.”“I know,” dad replied, his voice pained as he winced under the weight of my aura. Realising that… I forced Ares to tone it back, but he was not calm, and he really wanted me to know that.“We need to talk to Ava’s parents.” Noah sounded just as pissed as I felt.I nodded. “You’re right. They’re close to Paula too.” I linked Jeremiah and then Ava’s parents, bringing them all to Jacob’s office as quickly as possible.
AVAProblems are like buses.For a while, everything is all hunky dory and there are no problems for anyone to worry about (apart from Paula being MIA, which she now had been for a week). But they are like buses. So after a period of calm… three come at once.We were woken up in the middle of the night by an emergency alert across the pack. Rogues.“Ava, you need to get to the safe room,” Jacob insisted. “They’re here for you, you know that.”“I’m not hiding, Jacob,” I replied as I ran around pulling shorts and a t-shirt on, before sprinting out of the room with my Kings behind me, the six members of my Queen’s Guard who were on duty quickly catching up. The other six were out look
AVAMy stress levels were still through the roof the next morning. We had an appointment with the doctor to talk about the chemicals that he’d found in my bloodstream, to see if we could work out what the long term effects might be.My four Kings made a point of truly worshipping my body… but it didn’t help, not really. No amount of explosive orgasms was going to distract me for that long.When we reached the hospital, it was crystal clear from the doctor’s face that it wasn’t good news.Once we’d all sat down and exchanged pleasantries, he ran off a list of chemicals and compounds that were used to make this poison that was in my blood. It was a long list.“We have people running simulations, my Queen, a
AVAThe whole thing with Paula… was a shock, and it wasn’t a shock I really knew what to do with. I'd known and loved this woman for a long time; she was key in helping me feel at home here, or, at least I believed she was.And now, to find out she betrayed me, my family and everything we stand for? No. That was a fact neither Artemis or I really knew what to do with. We needed closure, but how do you get closure when someone has maliciously tried to stop you ever having children of your own?I hardly slept that night. I just kept remembering my mum's face as she sobbed on the floor and the look of utter disgust that my dad gave Paula.The morning after, I got a frantic link from Alex. Far too early in the morning for problems to be coming up.
AVAWe had a time and we had a place. A time and a place that as far as we knew, Paula believed to be correct. Of course, we weren’t going to put all of our eggs in one basket, I didn’t trust her that much after everything she’s done, but… we had to try.We moved kids, the elderly and anyone else who couldn’t fight, including my parents straight to the safe room as soon as we finished talking through a plan. I couldn’t risk it any longer. I needed them safe.I needed my mum safe. Since it reduced the chances of me trading myself for her, everyone else was on board with that plan too. I assigned four members of my Queen’s guard to look after the safe room, and Jacob had assigned another six of his own warriors.
Three weeks laterAVAThe three weeks following Elijah’s arrest were chaotic. The police had their work cut out for them, as did the courts. In the end, Elijah was sentenced to death for crimes against the Crown, as were some of Elijah and Matthew’s closest and most dedicated cronies.As for the rest of them, they were locked up, and most of them would stay in prison for a very long time. A few were genuinely forced to cooperate by Elijah, and so had to undergo a lengthy rehabilitation programme to make sure no traces of his influence remained.I even succeeded in charging Minister Byron for encouraging the breaking of laws that were fundamental to the safety of millions of women and girls. He’d spend the rest of his life locked up too.