ROSHIDA
I didn't have to tell him twice before he accepted. Although he was a little skeptical since there were still procedures that he had to follow with Child Services and all but once I told him that the Queen was involved in this, he was grateful to have something that he could shove in their faces. Sophia helped me carry the bags to the car while Valfred drove us home. All the while, I didn't bother raising my head up and I didn't even realize it until we had gotten home. My whole attention was on Liam. His eyes were finally opened and I just couldn't look away from the tiny little creature in front of me. He had his mother's eyes. While looking through Brianna's things, I'd seen a picture of her and I took it with me so that I could show it to Liam when he got older. I wasn't going to take that away from him more Brianna. He deserved to know the wonderful woman who had raised him. AVALFRED I couldn't say anything to her. When I heard about what happened to her, I wanted to go immediately and check on her by my father said that he would have to be dead before I walked out of the house after just being free from the debris on top of me. I wasn't supposed to go to the Trade Center today but just as the last minute after breakfast, I decided that since I didn't have anything to do today, I might as well get some work done. I'd only entered the building and gotten into the elevator when the alarm went off. At first, I thought it was a drill but then when the elevator door opened and I saw the smoke and the way people were in panic mode, I knew it wasn't a drill. With how big and important the Trade centre was, it meant that there would be a lot of people in it and a lot of people running at the same time meant a stampede. A stampede which I could see before me happening and I
138VALFREDI should have known that something was wrong. The higher I went, the heavier I felt. It was getting hot but I didn't stop. I had to save that kids brother. When I finally got to the sixth floor, I placd my hand on the door handle and it burned me instantly. So I had to use my clothes to open the door. The fire threw me back. There was no way I would be able to walk through the fire. Wait, maybe if I could get my jacket wet. The sprinklers were activated so I went to stand under one. When the jacket was finally wet, I stood at the door knowing that what I was about to do was dangerous but I was already here and I couldn't go back. Flinging the jacket over her head, I ran past the original flames at the door. The fumes were so thick that I could barely breathe and I couldn't see anything past me but I was in now so I didn't have a choice. “Is anyone in here?!”The fact that I didn'
ROSHIDA I was about to lose it. I wasn't a mother, well not yet anyway, but I could feel the burnt. I thought Liam was a peaceful baby. He wasn't. As soon as he woke up later that evening, he cried his lungs out. I carried him, dropped him, snag to him, played with him but nothing could stop that mouth from crying. Sophia rushed into the room and handed me his bottle. “Just the right temperature. Here.” As I placed the bottle in his mouth, the room instant became silent and I could hear myself think again. “I guess someone is a little hungry.” He was so focused on the bottle that until he finished it, he didn't even look at me. “It’s just your first day and you look like you've had it.” That's because I have. I have had it. “What’s the time? I'm hungry.” I looked outside but I couldn't see anything. “Its two am. What time did you think it was?”
ROSHIDA “Evelyn, look at me, please.” I wanted to turn around but I was scared of how close we were standing. Well, he was the one standing close to me. The only option out was to walk away. “Fine, I'm sorry for not coming to see you. I really wanted to but that would mean going against my father.” Was I even mad at him only because he didn't come see me in the hospital? Maybe. Because he was actually in trouble and I couldn't blame him. “As I said, I'm not mad. Now, let it go.” I walked away from him. I didn't even think I was hungry anymore. Of course, he followed me. “Hows the baby doing?” “He’s fine.” “I’m sorry about his mother.” I know, I was too. “Yeah, sure.” “If there is anything I can do-” I turned to face him. “There is nothing you can do, my Prince. I fact, I don't need your help. I'll bury her myself. Thank you.” He was taken aback by my outburst but I didn't give him time to recover. I guess the only thing I couldnt blame him
ROSHIDA This time around, a bottle didn't solve his grievance. Infact, I think it only enraged him. The more I showed the bottle to him, the louder his cries got. I had to taste the milk to make sure that it wasn't too hot. “Liam, please. I'll kill to know what you want.” As I called his name, he suddenly stopped crying and looked at me. “What? What do you want? Will you tell me?”The tears were rolling down his face and he was red. Then I did the stupidest thing. I raised the bottle to his face again and showed it to him. “Are you hungry?” The crying ensued and I just stood in the living room wishing that babies could talk. I had a headache, I was hungry, sleep deprived and weak. “Why’s the little one making so much noise this early?” The Queen came down from the stairs in her night robe and face mask. “Good morning, My Queen. I'm sorry if his cries woke you up. I've been trying but he just won't stop.” She smiled. “Can I hold him? I think I know what's wrong.” At this
ROSHIDA“Why do you have that look on your face? What is it?” She dropped the tray and walked over to me. “How dumb do you think I am? Really? Did you think I won't find out?”I didn't know what she was talking about but I could see that she was in a bad mood so I didn't say anything that would make her more angry. “Sophia, I'm sure you know I'm not a mind reader or else, I would have read Liam's mind and not have him screaming my head off early in the morning.” She didn't seem to find what I said funny and that's when I knew there was a problem. “Sophia, what is it? You're scaring me now.”“What did you eat last night?” I knew she had caught me. There was no need to lie..“It burnt. I trailed off and the prince had to walk in and turn it off himself. I'm sorry I lied to you. I got into an argument with him after that and I didn't want to tell you that I hadn't eaten. I didn't think you'd want to hear that.”“Well, you're sure damn right about that! I can't believe you'd look me
ROSHIDA After I finally got Sophia to stop staring at me like I was the first sinner in the world, we got to the place. “Where are we?” ”It's the funeral home that's planning and preparing her. We need to make sure that her body is ready and so is the casket.” I followed her in and a certain dense feeling suddenly settled upon me..it was like my body knew that we were in a place of death. There was a smell that made me sick and.i couldn't help the way I felt. “That’s the embalming fluid. Don't worry, we'll be out of here soon enough.” The place was quiet. I followed closely behind her while she looked for someone around. The smell wasn't the reason I felt sick. “Hello? Is there anyone here?”There was no response at first but as we walked through the curtains, we saw a man bent over something. I was guessing it was a body. “Excuse me? Mr Folk?” The man turned around immediately and removed his glasses and mask. “Ah! You're here. I thought you wouldn't show up. Please, come
ROSHIDAThe King and Queen were already waiting for us at the cemetery. I figured that Sophia must have texted them on our way here. Valfrd stood on the other side of the grave, and as we walked up to them behind the pallbearers, we locked eyes. I could see the way Liam was still in the Queen's arms. There was a priest there and I wondered if Sophia had arranged for that or not. I figured that I was the chief mourner today. When the priest asked me if I wanted to say anything, I just stared at the coffin with the words in my throat. Was it the right thing that was about to come out of my mouth? “I barely knew her. So I can't really say that I did. But I can say that there is someone here who will miss her greatly. She would have been such a good mother, doing everything she could for her son. She seemed like a very interesting person. I saw her reading a book the day I met her, I haven't got round to reading that book. But I can do so soon enough. It's just sad she got to live a
ROSHIDAClarissa was waiting for me outside just like she said she would. “I’m so sorry for calling you out here at this time. I just don't have a good feeling about this.”I walked over to go and meet her and give her a hug. “I should be apologise for making you stay up and wait for me by this time. You should be sleeping. Where is the Queen?”She led me inside the house and once in, the guards surrounded us immediately. “What madness is this? Get out of the way, we need to go through.”Mark came to join the party. “My apologies, My Princess but they're under special orders to arrest her as soon as they lay eyes on her.”Had things gotten this bad that there was even a warrant out for my arrest? Clarissa stood in front of me. “Well, you didn't see her. You saw her with me, so when you see her alone, you can arrest her. Right now, you will move out of the way because we need to get to my mother.”I hated the fact that all this was happening because of me. The tension, the stand
VALFREDIt took me a while but I finally figured it out. That's why I made the trip without telling anyone. Well, anyone in my family.“So you want to go over there to say what to them? You're supposed to be running away from them and not running to them.”I should have known he would never be in support. “She needs to stop the bullshit and stop sabotaging my life! Does she know how many steps back she has taken me now? Roshida won't even pick up my calls.”I spent days trying to figure out who the hell could have said anything to her. I crossed out all the people who knew about it before finally settling on Isabella. She was the only one with a reason to tell Roshida and who knows what else she told her. “I thought we were trying to sort this whole thing out. Listen, we don't need to blow things out of proportion. Just focus on sorting things out with Roshida. Going over there isn't going to make anything better.”No, it will. It will prove to them that I wasn't down for their bu
ROSHIDAI should have known that my troubles weren't over. Working in an environment like this meant having to deal with things I didn't want to and that entailed being called by the King to appear in his presence because those stupid men had reported that I had spoken against the King.When the order came, I had to read it two times to understand what I was seeing. Spoken against the King? When the hell had that happened?I tried to recount what happened, wondering if I had even mentioned the King in my fit of rage but nothing was coming to mind. Sophia came to read the letter too. “What did you say?”“Nothing. I said nothing about the King. I wonder what those pigs have gone to tell him. The order says as early as the sun rises tomorrow, I should be in the Capitol.”They're trying to sabotage me, that's what they're trying to do. I mean, they knew I had a good relationship with the King and they wanted to do what they can to ruin that. That's the only way they can take the Fortre
ROSHIDAI was completely confused.“No, I do not think it's a women's party. I know it's a meeting for pack leaders-”One of the Alphas interrupted.“You mean, Alphas.”These men piss me off so bad and I'm going to bed help, a lot of help to be able to deal with these people. “No, I mean Alphas and Lunas. If you have a problem with me being here, then maybe you should not have invited me. So tell me, do you have an issue with me being here?”The guy standing laughed. I didn't even know who he was and I was sure I hadn't seen his face before. “The only reason we invited you was because the Blue Ridge Fortress is in your territory. And apparently, we can't do anything without your approval. That's why we invited you. If not, this is a meeting for men only. So do we have access to it or not?”Wow, so this was how they wanted to play it? Very well then. There was a knock on my door and I saw the guard that I had sent to get that man from earlier. Before he could speak, I held my hand
ROSHIDAThe thrill and celebration that came with being crowned Luna had washed away and what was left was the work load and the meetings and the sanctions and the judgement. It was like the people of the pack did not live before I became Luna because as soon as I started work, every little thing was brought to me. The other day, two women came to report each other to me because their kids had gotten into a fight and they both decided that they also needed to sort things out so they got into a fight as well. “What exactly were the kids fighting over?” Before that, I had barely gotten two hours of sleep in three days and I would be anywhere else but here. “Some girl in school that they liked. My son saw her first and asked her out while her stupid son went behind my son's back to snatch her away from him.”I finally looked up at them, trying to manage the headache that was raging in my head. The scene before me wasn't making sense. “So let me get this straight. You grown ups dec
ROSHIDAI gave Liam to Marie that morning and asked her if breakfast is ready. “Yes, it is. The King and Queen are at the table already.”Well, it's a good thing that they can still eat without me being there. I had had another thing to worry about. What if the King and Queen were mad at me for what happened last night? This morning, I thought about it properly and realised that it seemed like disrespect. Not even that, it was disrespect to walk out of the King and the royal family. And I didn't want anyone to them to think that it was because we had become so close that I had the guts to walk out on them. As I stood in front of the door,.I pressed my ear to see if I could hear anything but I couldn't hear any conversation or cutlery clanking. What were they doing if they weren't eating already?“Roshida?”Sophia's voice startled me so much that I hit my knee into the stood beside me and the silent scream that I had to endure made me see stars. “Are you okay?”.When the pain had
VALFREDAs she stormmed past me and walkrd to her room, I just stood in the same spot while Reggie went to take a seat.Now I knew that I had officially messed up. I should be glad if she ever looked at me again not to even speak of talking to me again.“What the hell happened out there? I mean, I heard you guys had a fight earlier..is it because of this?”At this point, I was beginning to think about all my life choices. Maybe I shouldn't have followed them to the pack. At least, I would have avoided having to have the conversation with her and letting her find out that I was her classmate.If that handt happened, this wouldn't have happened.I told my family everything that happened and Reggie just sat there like a sponge, taking everything in like he was the one that had been caught in a lie.“I told you! From the moment you told me about her, I told you to tell her the truth. She doesn't have a wolf that would tell her who her mate is so she needs you to tell her the truth. And no
ROSHIDAI didn't look back until I got home. There was nothing to look back to. All I could see were faces of liars. I stormed right into the house, not even sitting for either of them to catch up with me. Ss soon as I entered the living room, I asked where everyone was and the guards took me to where they were. Why were they locked in a room? I wanted to ask but the way the Queen ran to me and grabbed me like I was a thief, pulling me closer to her threw me off balance. “You’re okay! Oh gosh! Where were you? What happened? We were all so worried, did they take you anywhere? Are you hurt?” Without first answering, I went to pick Liam up. He was crying in the corner and I'm sure it was because of all the pandemonium. “I wasn't taken. No one kidnapped me, I'm fine.”Valfred and Reggie joined us in the room and their faces looked looked like they had just found my dead body. “What is going on? You found Roshida so what's the matter? Why do you guys look that way?” I wonder if the
VALFRED“Are you sure you even know where we're going or are we about to get kidnapped too?”I didn't bother turning around to look at him because I didn't have anything to tell him. There was no time to be wasted and we needed to hurry up so we can get to her as fast as possible.“I won't lie, I actually don't know where we're going. I've never been here before and I can't track down her scent. I am picking up another scent though but-”“Shut up and stay down.”I turned around to look at him, hoping that he had not gone mad.“What are you on? Let's keep moving-”“Shut up! I saw something move in the trees. Get down.”I finally listened to his instructions and got down, holding my breath to see what he saw.After a while, I saw the movements a few yards from us, it was slow but steady.“Who do you think it is?”The silhouette of the figure was obviously a woman but we didn't want to take our chances so we didn't make a move.“Do you think it's her? I'm blind as a bat in these woods.”