Chapter 54

REID:
“Geez, it’s like I can’t feel my arms,” Hunter says as he tries to stretch both of his arms a little while later after complaining about how numb they were.
It’s been two days since we released him from the silver chains. The good thing about it is that he has not reacted in a way that would make us have to be cautious of him. Still, precautions are in place to ensure that nothing goes wrong with him.
“It will take a while but I’m sure you’ll be fine soon,” I tell him as a way of consoling him about his arms.
“Yeah, I know,”
While he continues with the stretching, I look ahead as my thoughts wander away. Don't have anything precisely to think about as I sit right in front of my quarters but it felt kind of peaceful to be here. And perhaps to take my mind off a few things.
But there was something that starts to bother me in no time. It was from a discussion from two days ago and now that it invades my mind, I cannot help but feel like I made a mistake.
“Do you think I did the right thing by telling Venice and Ryu about my mate from the Green Dales?” I ask Hunter after contemplating the whole issue.
“Wanna hear the truth?”
“Of course,” I urge him.
“Ryu? Not a problem. But Venice? I think that was a bad idea and you know why.”
I guessed as much. I think I really did make a terrible mistake if not the thought would not have gotten into my head.
“Enlighten me,” I say moments later.
“Your father, man. Once she gets back to him, she is going to certainly let him know about it which means your father would be aware that you truly now have a connection with our rivals. And trust me, it won’t end there because he is going to come over and start to question you about making a terrible choice.”
“A terrible choice? I never chose the girl as my mate. It was the whole bond thingy so why should he have to blame me for that?”
“Trust me, he will. His whole idea about it would be that your going to the Green Dales caused you to have a connection with the girl but little does he know that it all happened when she trespassed into ours,”
That was enough summary about everything. Yes, I was acting like I do not know how my father would react but I just wanted to get proper justification for it. How terrible could my old man’s ideas be that even Hunter could dictate a lot about him? Shows how wrong he might have been during his tenure.
“I think I need to tell Venice to keep her mouth shut when she leaves. It might as well save me from having my father know about my mate. Or what do you think?”
“A good idea,” Hunter says. “But do you think Venice would even consider keeping her mouth shut when she gets back to him? Not to be rude but your sister is not known for keeping discussions to herself. Yes, she doesn’t discuss it with outsiders but you know very well that your mother would be the first to hear it. And when she does? Your father will as well which sums up everything that there is no way it can be kept from him.”
“Ryu...” I blurt the name out of my mouth without even realizing it.
“What happened to him?” Hunter brings that to my notice which makes me eventually realize what I did.
“Sorry I was thinking out loud,” I state. “But if you think of it, how sure are we that Ryu has stopped keeping tabs with my father. At least even if I get to prevent Venice from saying anything, who knows if Ryu would do that instead?”
“I thought he already stopped working as an intel for your father?”
“He has,” I admit to that. “But I cannot genuinely say where his loyalty lies. I know nothing that goes on in his mind so he could still be working for my father without me knowing,”
“Have you ever thought of the fact that someone asides from Ryu could be doing that as well?”
That was new to me, I must say. “That thought hasn’t crossed my mind at all,” I say with all form of honesty because it really hasn't.
“You should think about that once in a while. Because knowing your father, he could have gotten through one of the warriors that would serve as an informant to him, especially since Ryu has failed in doing so for a while now. And if Ryu was easy to get, how easy would it be to get through to the others?”
I sigh. Not because I am frustrated. But because I cannot believe I am having a discussion that pertains to my father’s intrusion into pack affairs even after his whole tenure was completely over.
It should not even be a topic of discussion that my father still wants to know what goes on in the pack. He handed it over to me already some years back which means that it is the end of anything that has to do with him in the pack. Yet he is still trying to meddle.
“You want to know how tired I am about this whole issue with my father? Dog-tired. It's like I have no control over the things going on around me anymore.” I say that to get back into a conversation with Hunter.
Hunter chooses to say this as a response, “No lies, it is frustrating. And even unconventional to think about. Your father’s actions toward the whole situation is making you seem incompetent in performing your duties as alpha and trust me, anyone in your shoes would be frustrated as well. But I think I understand where he is coming from,”
“And where could he be coming from? I hope you are not trying to justify his wrong attitude. I could as well believe that you are working for him that way,”
Hunter’s expression after that statement sums up how I feel right now. Absolutely annoyed.
“You think I would want to work for him when I am your right-hand man? Come off it. You know me better than that.”
“Just get on with what you wanted to say about my father,”
“Yeah, about that,” he starts to say. “What I wanted to tell you is that he could be very well thinking that your ideas in running the pack could falter every idea he had when he was alpha... and still has. Even before he stepped down, it was obvious that you were not in line with most of the things he did so it is simply what made him insecure.”
That didn't sound like a justification. And trust me, I was having that conversation with him.
“Isn’t that absurd from him? I mean, when he took over from his father, did he do everything the same way his father did? Absolutely not. So why would he think I would want to do what he did? I cannot. Especially knowing how much hatred he had for the Green Dales. Something of which influenced you as well,” I go e him the eye to ridicule him for his constant annoyance toward the Green Dales pack, especially when the topic was on the table.
“This is not about me, Reid. Yes, I might detest them, let us just say I do, it does not mean I would be a hundred percent against the idea of working with them. I might have declined the idea a few times — No, many times — in the past but it is justified.”
“You sound like you are just finding an excuse to prove how terrible a person you have been toward them. But I will not hold it against you because your reason is still genuine other than my father’s. You were brought up in that light like everyone else. As for my father? He knows the right thing to do but he chooses not to which is why I am going to cond—”
My speech was cut short because of a tingling sensation in my back. It was purely instinct, I could tell. And before anything else could make sense of the sensation, I have bent my head.
A ‘whoosh’ sound follows up when I do just that and it is that time I knew that something was about to hit me from the back.
Swiftly, with my head still bent, I look up the side to see that Hunter did the same.
“Did you see that?” I ask while thinking of raising my head to take a look at what just occurred a few seconds ago.
“I didn’t,” he tells me and with a nod from me to him, we both proceed to raise our heads to look ahead.
Upon doing so, we notice something out of place ahead. Because right in front of us, a building has been destroyed by whatever it was we dodged our heads from.