Warmth ✔

Chapter 24

I took a deep breath after reaching my decision. I will tell him the truth. He deserves to know.

I show him my phone and he reads Lucy's message. After he's done, he looks at me and questions, "Who is Selena?"

"Gamma Tyler's sister," I answer.

Alarick becomes confused. "How will she be helping you and Lucy? And what's the plan?"

I took a deep breath and exhale slowly. The moment of truth is finally here. I start from the scratch, "Lucy and I want to empower women by training them, we want them to be strong, we want them to be able to defend themselves. And so, Lucy came up with a plan. We will go to every pack in the world and convince the leaders to start training their female pack members."

"What if the leaders don't get convinced?" Alarick asks. It's no secret that we live in a patriarchal world. There are men who believe in equality but also there are men who don't want women to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with them. These male chauvinists want to exert their so called "superiority" on the women. And Lucy and I are exactly planning to break this "superiority".

"Then, we're going to challenge them."

Alarick's eyes go wide in shock. When he returns to a calm state, he asks, "How?"

This time, my eyebrows rise in astonishment. I didn't expect him to react in such a restful manner. "Since Lucy, Selena and I have undergone the same training that the pack leaders do, we will be able to give them a tough fight. It will be their choice who they want to fight with. But there's a condition though, if they choose me then they'll have to send their Beta to fight with me. Same condition will apply to Lucy and Selena as well."

Alarick keeps quiet for a while. But when he speaks, he surprises me, "That's a brilliant plan."

"You think so?"

"Yeah."

I give out a nervous chuckle. "When I started telling you about Lucy's plan, I thought that our conversation would go downhill but I'm really happy that our conversation is going well."

He places his hands on my shoulders as a comforting gesture and tells me, "I trust you and I completely support you."

I hug him. A tear escapes my eyes. "Thank you for believing in me." He rubs my back in a soothing manner.

When we pull apart, he wipes away my tear and he says, "Thanks for telling me the truth."

I smile at him.

"So, how did Matthew and Darius react to Lucy's plan?" He asks.

"Well...I haven't told them yet."

"Why haven't you told them?"

"I know that they won't take the news well so I'm not planning on telling them," I say.

"But they will eventually come to know when you carry out Lucy's plan. And getting to know from someone else would be worse than getting to know from you."

I think over his words. He's right. If Matt comes to know about Lucy's plan from someone else, then he'll be hurt that I hid things from him. This will make a dent in our already strained friendship. I want to save our friendship. I want our friendship to return to its previous state. And for that to happen, I will have to tell Matt about Lucy's plan.

I look at Alarick and nod.

*

This is a bad idea.

Alarick and I are presently in the sitting room of my pack house with Matt and Darius. Everyone can feel the tense atmosphere in the room. I'm nervous, Matt and Darius are confused and Alarick is calm.