Chapter 76: Grace
The crowd seemed to hear Rhys’ words and took them seriously. No one else dared to question him about me and my place here, at least not now anyway. I was touched by how quickly he came to my defense, and how absolute he had been with his words. He made me want to learn everything even quicker, so that I could become the absolute best Luna.
Rhys nodded to me before continuing. “I am grateful to have Grace by my side and cannot wait to see what good she does for this kingdom. In honor of my recent mating, we will celebrate by having a pack hunt in two days!”
The crowd cheered again, but I still felt apprehensive. This was now, but what if when they learned what was happening in the Blood Moon pack they turned on me? I wasn’t them, but would others be able to see that?
Instead of sinking in these feelings though, I smiled and waved at the crowd as Rhys led me back to the car, his hand on the small of my back, tucking me in close to him which I appreciated. Being with Rhys made it easier to face just about everything... I just had to block from my head that just a few streets away, I had been nearly kidnapped, witnessed a friend get her, and saw a dead body. Yea, easy peasy to just block it from my head. Ugh Grace, why did you have to go there? I yelled at myself.
Rhys opened the car door and helped me in before following behind me. I was grateful that we hadn’t driven ourselves, and that Sawyer was our driver, Rhys didn’t trust anyone else right now, minus maybe Leon.
“I think that went well,” Leon stated once the car was moving.
I nodded, “I agree.”
“I actually expected more pushback,” Rhys admitted, “But I’m glad it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, you’ve been around the pack for a couple months now, so a lot of people at the very least have seen you around. And I’ve never even considered introducing anyone to the pack before, no one ever felt right, but when it comes to you, Grace, I want to scream it from the rooftops.”
“That would be very unlike you,” I smiled at his dramatics.
“You make me feel like a new person,” He kissed my hand gently. “I promise to never abandon you, Grace. You are stuck with me for life. All I want to do is go home and rip these clothes off of you and spend the rest of the day in our room.”
His kisses trailed up my arm, and I felt my worries melt away a little, but I still had one foot set in reality.
“Don’t we have things to do?” I attempted to remind him.
“No.” Rhys answered. “Nothing important.”
I laughed because we both knew that wasn’t true, but we were enjoying this moment to ourselves.
“Rhys?” Sawyer’s voice rang from the intercom system in the car, since the dark divider was up.
Rhys groaned in annoyance, but he answered back, “Yes?”
“Hate to interrupt, but Allison is standing on the side of the road, waving us down.”
Rhys rolled his eyes but told Sawyer to pullover just the same before getting out of the car and marching toward her.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to follow or not but sitting in the car alone felt unsettling.
“What’s wrong, Allison?” Rhys asked, but there was a sense of boredom or lack of care in his voice that as his mate, I appreciated.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?!” She asked, her voice hysterical. “What’s wrong is that you decided to take a monster as your mate!”
Rhys’ face immediately transformed into anger, but he was attempting to keep his cool.
“As I stated earlier,” Rhys said coldly, “Any dissent will not be tolerated. Grace is my mate. I have marked Grace. Grace is an amazing person, who does not need your doubts. Any move against Grace will be considered treason against the Kingdom, so I would tread carefully if I was you.”
“Rhys, you are making a mistake!” She tried to grab his arm, but he shook her off and looked at her like she was vermin.
“This is your last warning, Allison. I will not be so lenient next time.” He then turned to me and forced a small smile. “Come on Grace, let’s go home.”
I took his offered hand, unsure of how I felt. There was something about Allison that didn’t sit well with me. She was clearly not the kind of girl who was used to not getting her way, but how far would she go? Sawyer and Leon had both been worried for me when she had come back. I hadn’t seen her since that first day, but was I being too naive? Should I be worried for my own safety within the pack? I realized that Allison had personal reasons to hate me, but did others even need a reason?
The rest of the car ride was spent in silence, both of us just lost in our own thoughts. Everything just felt like it was spinning out of control, but in reality, nothing had been in my control in a very long time, if ever.
“Oh good, your back!” Arlo exclaimed happily when we walked in. “Come, I have something to show you.”
We waited for Sawyer and Leon to join us, then followed Arlo back to his cottage in the woods, and I wondered what this was all about and why he was so excited about it.
Rhys and I sat at the table, my hand in his, but otherwise, we didn’t say anything, and Sawyer and Leon as Arlo rushed around looking for something.
“So, you said something in the meeting that really caught my attention. You stated that Lycan’s are similar to wolves but are bi-pedal and more or less one and the same, just in a different form. And it reminded me of an ancient text I have somewhere...” He trailed off for a moment and all we heard was shuffling before he said, “Ah there it is,” and an old dusty leather-bound book was place on the table.
“I don’t understand,” Rhys said as Arlo frantically flipped through it. “Does this book have something to do with Lycans?”
“I read this book many years ago when I was writing my own book about pack history. It doesn’t explicitly say anything about Lycans, but somewhere in here, it mentions, “wolf-humans”. I had chalked it up to legends before, but now, knowing that their real, I’m sure that there is more information in here.” He paused for a moment, frustrated that he couldn’t find the section he was looking for. “However, there is a story about a wolf-human who was repeatedly bound, and they died on the third binding. That was the most that have ever been done according to history...”
He found the page at that moment, and looked up at me, looking me dead in the eye before saying, “So theoretically, Grace, you should be dead.”
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