Fated

Chapter XI

The quiet knock on the door signaled the time for dinner. Adira brushed her hands on the apron, dusting off the leftover flour, before grinning and opening the door. Eden stood smiling on the other side, holding a bottle of wine with one hand. Behind him, Sebastian and Cassie cheekily grinned at her, with Sebastian adding an overexaggerated wink. Next to Eden, Amor scowled but somehow managed to look less displeased than before. As they entered the house, each of them brushed past her, patting her shoulder and giving her a quiet thanks. Adira could only assume that Adrian had informed them of her change of heart. 

After their lunch, Adrian had followed Adira to her room bringing along his laptop. He had categorically refused to leave Adira, terrified of the past attacks, and also still recovering from the lingering effects of his completed bond. For her part, Adira didn't mind the company, choosing to sit by his side as she edited some manuscripts. It was only half an hour ago that they had separated, Adira to make dinner and Adrian to make some important calls. Their routine felt natural, almost as if they had done it forever. 

Following her friends into her home, Adira smiled as she plated some lasagna for each of them. 

"Hand to god, this smells amazing, I knew that it was the right decision to take you with us as soon as I smelled freshly baked bread," Sebastian declared walking past her sitting on the table with his back to the door. "Yummmm, a woman that can cook. Seriously though, when are you going to leave Adrian for me and" - he gestured widely to himself - "all this goodness?".

Cassie guffawed as Adrian entered the kitchen at that exact moment and slapped Sebastian on the back of his head. Eden snickered, giving Adrian a fist bump, and even Amor cracked a small grin. Adrian walked past the kitchen table to Adira, pausing to kiss her slowly on the mouth for a moment, before grabbing two plates and pulling her along to the table. Adira blinked, dazed. Then she flushed as red as Cassie's hair when she realized the entire kitchen was staring at her laughingly. She looked pointedly at her plate as she ate it, causing Sebastian and Eden to laugh. The next ten minutes were only punctuated with the sound of the cutlery as they all wolfed down their meals.

"So, Cassie. Let's start. I'm cool with setting up guard rotations for patrol. Do we have any more comments on that or shall we continue to revise item number 2?" Adrian called out moving towards the whiteboard. Taking their silence as affirmations, he continued, "I think we will need to call upon our reserve forces for guarding the prison. Currently, we don't have any prisoners, so that's okay, but Cassie and Seb need to start prepping reserves in case we need to increase security again and still guard the prisons. We can try to make this preparation a usual thing, now that we've learned about something like this, but we don't need to figure that out now, so that's cool. Okay so item number 2, get on it, Eden." Adrian threw the marker at his beta.

"Let's talk rogues," Eden proclaimed, catching the marker mid-air, and continuing as if speaking to fifty people instead of just five, "got some major issues there aside from the obvious one that we don't know how to stop them from coming. One, how were they able to get wolfsbane and pour it into Cassie twice without getting injured themselves? Two, how are they getting so far into the territory? Three, how the heck are manic rogues able to think clearly enough to escape?"

"Hmm. Well. I think we obviously have a snitch otherwise how would they know enough about patrols to get in? Like we discussed at lunch its probably Tim if his body can't be found. But for the rest, I've been looking into fables and lore and I have no clue how this has happened. Only Lycans should be able to even hold wolfsbane in their hands."

Adira interrupted, "What a Lycan?" 

Somehow forgetting to give Adira a dirty look, Amor continued, "Lycans were the immortal primordial werewolves.  They're built differently from wolves. I can't explain it. You'll instantly identify them when you see them. They were the first six wolves made by the moon. Strong and powerful, each Lycan has a special ability like a magical power. Sort of like Superheroes, they're larger and faster than common werewolves. Killing a Lycan is extremely difficult as they share the power of the moon amongst them. Over the years, through interbreeding with humans and evolution, wolve's emerged. Even though we are successors of Lycans, we are mortal and don't share any of their abilities. Basically, way less powerful versions of them. We don't even now if Lycans exist anymore. The last sighting was a hundred years ago."