CHAPTER FORTY SIX

“And what makes you think that she would talk to you? Do you know what damage she could have done without us knowing about it?” Sally argued
“But she didn’t!” Alex said, defending her
“How do you know? We have always wondered how Phillip has always been one step ahead of us. She was the one feeding him with information. C’mon, Alex. I know you feel some sort of emotion for her but it is an obvious explanation. Every time Phillip has beaten us at our own game, people had died. My mom, Caleb! Your mom! We don’t know the exact amount of damage that your girlfriend had caused. How can you still want to reason with her?” Damian asked
“She is my girlfriend okay and Phillip might be manipulating her for all we know. She has been there for me through thick and thin. She has been there for all of us! I don’t want us to make a mistake that we would regret later on. She has an explanation for all of this! Arielle isn’t someone to switch sides on the people she loves. She has an explanation. I know what I am saying!” Alex defended her for reasons he couldn’t say
“Your sister is dying because of her. How can you stand here and talk about reasons for betrayal?” Justin asked him
“Because there has to be some sort of explanation here. There has to be a reason. There has to be something else because this story doesn’t add up. How did she meet Phillip? How did she get to team up with him? I don’t understand that part and I have to hear her out. We would find a way to get Annabelle back to her normal self but till then, Arielle is my top priority. I would have to find her and find my answers” he said to them
“Go ahead. If you want to waste your time on a lost cause, be my guest. Just make sure you get a witch here tomorrow morning and we move on from this. If Raphael turns out to be right, we are bringing him in regardless of what you feel!” Damian said to Alex
“That is fine by me. I guess I’m on my own in this” Alex said
“You can get your girlfriend to help you with it. How many more secrets are you keeping from us?” Justin asked
“C’mon, this is my private life we are talking about right now. I can sleep with anybody I want to sleep with. I don’t think who j hang out with or make out with is anybody’s business” he said back to her
“You are so unbelievable!” Sally said to him
“Guys! Can we not do this right now? We have to stay united. It is the only way we can beat Phillip at this. Sally is right. You should have told us what was going on with you and at the same time, Alex has a point. It is his business. It is his private life and if he wants to sleep with every girl in the state, as long as they allow him, he can go ahead. That is not our concern and we have more important things to worry about. One of it being how we can cure Annabelle without killing her and even if we are down with using my venom, we have to make sure it is completely safe for her” Damian said to them
“You heard him. If we do cure her now, her condition would be permanent. She would never remember any of what happened to her. She would never remember you. She would never know herself” Sally said
“We don’t know if that is true, c’mon” Damian said
“Yes we don’t but we can’t take that risk either. So far, everything Raphael said had been true. He had opened our eyes to Arielle and Odette. I still think that he is keeping something from us but so far, his words have been true. I don’t think I want to go against them” Justin said to Damian
“Alright then, we wait!” Damian said as he got up. “We have other issues to deal with while we wait for Grace to show up. What’s going on with the rebels, Sally? And Justin, is there any progress on the security issues at the borders of Cordina?” Damian asked them
“I was thinking of moving a few guards up state down to Cordina” he said
“That would leave the community exposed to external attacks. I don’t think that’s a good idea” Alex said
“I didn’t say it was a good idea. I just don’t think there is another option” Justin said to him
“What if we recruit? I mean, we have a lot of guys doing nothing and they just want to help out. What if we recruit some guards and then we train them ourselves?” Damian asked
“That is a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” Justin asked
“I guess you are really lagging behind. We can make a general announcement about it first thing tomorrow morning and see who shows up from there. We need to tighten the security issue. We have more humans in our midst now than we do with wolves and vampires or even witches. We need to sit up with the security issues” Damian said. “Sal” he called, turning to her. “Let me know when you have any update on the revels” Damian said
“I will. What do you plan on doing with them though?” she asked Damian
“If they have so much time on their hands and the want to cause trouble, let them cause trouble the right way. We would see how skilled they are and recruit them. It is that simple” Damian said. “Alex, you would be in charge of recruiting and Justin and I would join you with training them. When Sally has some free time in her hands, she can join us. We all need to train ourselves for what is coming” Damian added
“Yes, your highness” Justin said and they all started to laugh
“In the mean time, I think everybody should just get some rest. We’ve had a pretty long and eventful day. It has also been a very stressful one and we would need all the energy we can get for another day. I don’t know if dinner is ready yet. It is so funny how we never bother about food anymore. We would have to make more healthy eating habits” Damian said
“With all the fights going on, I don’t think that would be an easy task got any of us. We just have more important things to do” Alex said
“And I agree with that but Damian is right. We need to be our best to fight this battle before us. We still have no idea about what we are up against or how many people we are up against” Justin said
“The first step to building a healthy habit is to start now, like my mom would say. We would have dinner together like we once did before all of this started. We may not have breakfast or lunch together because of our different and busy schedules but we would make sure of dinner” Damian said to them.

They agreed with him as he knew that it was the only time they had the chance to bond. There was no bonding time between them anymore and they needed to stay united. He looked around and saw that everybody was on the same page. After dinner, everybody retired to their various abode but not to sleep and call it in for the day. They all had their different struggles and they headed in to face them. When Alex dropped on his bed, his mind went to Raphael. There was something about him that he could not wrap his fingers around about him and did he mention that Raphael looked really familiar? Alex had no idea why he looked that familiar but he was going to find out. Telling the pack that he was digging up whatever secret Arielle kept buried was just a cover up for what he was really going to be doing. He was going to be digging up whatever was there to dig up about Raphael. He had to talk to Arielle though. A part of him knew this, just like that sane part knew that she was aware that he wasn’t loyal to her. He was convinced that she knew he was cheating on her. He had to talk to her because he felt like he was the reason she decided to turn to Phillip. He looked around and saw the empty side of the bed. When they first got to Cordina, they used to share a room. He wondered where everything went wrong. Where did it all go wrong? Was it his fault? He has loved her when they were back in the central so what changed? Even when they got to Cordina, he loved her immensely. He protected her and fought for her. He was willing to walk to the ends of the earth if she demanded that so what the hell happened? He thought, turning from one side of the bed to another