I wake up to Amara shaking me, a golden light is shining through the curtains, telling me its probably past five in the afternoon and I slept way too fucking long.
"Aylin just called for us. She said to bring your head warrior, beta, and gamma. She told my dad and Az to come too" Amara says.
I look at her, she's sitting up in bed, one leg held to her chest, the other crossed. Her eyes are red like she's been rubbing at them and the black and blue under them tells me she didn't sleep at all. I can't blame her, I only fell asleep so easily because I was practically a walking zombie. I got a solid two hours in the morning, but after a battle it just wasn't enough.
"Alright, I'll mindlink them to meet us in my office. Did you sleep?" I ask her, sending them all a quick mindlink. She shakes her head
"Too much on my mind" she mutters and I nod my head
"We'll get through this, we have plenty of people on our side. You've come such a long way. I'll hand my soul to Hades himself before I lose you." I tell her, rubbing up and down her leg. She smiles at me and grabs my hand, running her fingers across my knuckles
"I love you" she says
"I love you just as much. Now come on, let's get this over with" I say getting up and pulling on a shirt and track pants. She does the same, taking off the shirt of mine she was wearing and swapping it out for one of her tight black ones with gray sweats. She looks fine as hell when she dresses up, but I love this version of her the most. Messy hair, sweats, and no makeup. She looks up at me and raises a brow
"Can I help you?"
"Not right now because we have somewhere to be" I tease back, she only smirks and rolls her eyes, grabbing my arm and portaling us to my office. Aylin is already there, sitting in one of the chairs in front of my desk.
"You're getting pretty good at not dropping me on my ass every time you do that" I tell Amara, she glares at me for a second before my legs fly out from under me, and my ass hits the floor. Aylin snorts, and Amara just giggles and smiles proudly at me
"That's my girl" I say getting up, laughing. A few seconds later Aston, Max, and Seth walk in. Seth and Aston take the remaining seats in front of my desk while Max crosses his arms and leans against the wall. I go to my chair, pulling Amara down with me.
"I assume you filled your men in on my updates?" Aylin starts. I nod, I had mindlinked them all when Amara was in the shower. "Good. What are your plans? I have my armies on standby should we need them. Wolfsbane and belladonna won't affect them, but that doesn't mean they won't get blown up. We have flamethrowers, which would be the most valuable resource considering we can't manipulate the sun."
"The Fae can manipulate the elements and nature, though" I say, remembering Thayer's promise to aid us.
Max goes to speak, but he's cut off when King Armaros and Azrael appear out of nowhere. Seth, Max, and Aston all jump.
"Fuck." Aston mutters
Amara smiles, getting off my lap and hugging both men.
"Sup, Az?" Seth says, fist bumping Azrael
"Sorry we're late, what did we miss?" Azrael asks fist bumping Seth back and clapping him on the shoulder
"Not much, we only just started" I say, standing "Armaros, Azrael, this is my beta Aston and my Gamma Max" I say gesturing to both of them. Everyone exchanges polite nods, as Amara and I sit back down.
"What were you saying about the Fae?" Aylin cuts in. Man, she is all business, no formality
"They allied with us, for Amara. I almost bloody forgot, we can send out a request for aid. We know the vampires will attack at night, so the Fae might be able to manipulate some type of UV light into the sky" I say
"That will at least give us another advantage in battle. Az and I can portal them and their armies here when the time comes. They'll likely be willing to send more if they only need a handful camped out here." Armaros says
"I can portal them too" Amara butts in
"I would really rather you stay on the territory for the time being, here or in the underworld" I say back immediately, anxiety rising at the thought of her out in the open
"So I'm allowed to leave the realm but not the territory?" she huffs
"He's right, Mara. They're directly after you, even if you weren't my sister and I didn't care about your wellbeing, it's still too much of a risk to the world if they get you" Seth says to her. She growls, but nods. I let out a breath of relief.
"And just for the record, I don't allow you or not allow you to do anything. I just ask that you don't be reckless" I tell her. Her eyes soften as she looks back at me, and she nods again.
"Fine"
"The other issue here is whatever the hell animal they created" Azrael adds, we all nod in agreeance
"We have no idea what the hell they are, what can we do about it?" Amara asks
"Not much other than prepare for the worst, unless you guys have hellhounds" Max says "Let's assume they're like the kludde-"
"The what now?" Amara asks, for which I'm grateful. I remember reading about it at one point, but other than the fact that they look like a dog and a bear with bat wings, I don't remember much else.
"The result of a vampire draining a bear until there's less than a cup of blood left in their body. They mutate into what can only be described as a zombie-vampire bear with wings. The vampires used them in the war 400 years ago, and in bloodlust, they could take out 3 fully shifted wolves easily. Their only instinct is hunger, pain, sleep, and shit. If they're hungry, they're deadly. So naturally, the vampires bred and starved them. After the war, we burned them all, and eventually the gene in bears that allowed that to happen died away. That's not to say they didn't manage to keep a few though." Max explains.
I send a silent thank you to Selene for making him a history fanatic.
"Oh. That sounds...nice" Amara says, wide eyed
"Anything but. If they're anything like them, hellhounds would help. Their only weakness is fire, but if we stand a chance then they will need to be dealt with first." he finishes
"We have hellhounds, plenty of them. I think you're on the right track, in my 700 years the kludde was the only beast I've ever heard of them using. If it's not an actual Kuppe, it probably shares DNA." Armaros speculates
"We'll talk battle strategy when the Fae King arrives. For now, let's get something to eat and put this out of our heads for one night. Our mates are in the living room, let's go sit with them for a little" Seth says and we all nod. Yes, a night of normalcy is just what we need.
"Good idea. Do you want me to order sushi, babe?" I ask her, knowing she probably didn't eat much today.
I'm utterly confused when a wave of nausea hits me through the bond and she shakes her head
"No, anxiety has my stomach all messed up. I'm not hungry, you guys order what you want, I'll pick at whatever you get." she says, and she takes a couple deep breaths.
"Okay...do you want a ginger ale?" I ask her and she nods
We all get up, I tell everyone to pick something and hand them my card while I go out to the kitchen and grab her a can, a little worried. She needs to eat, especially with how much training she's done and will be doing. I look at the bread in the fridge and decide toast would at least get something into her system. Popping it into the toaster and looking for something else bland in the fridge, I decide an apple and peanut butter might be okay. I cut that up while I wait for the toast, and put it on a plate. Once the toast pops I throw some butter on it, grab her ginger ale and head to the living room.
She's sitting on the loveseat. Wrinkling her nose as everyone else argues about whether to get pizza or Chinese. I hand her the plate and she smiles and kisses me as I wrap my arm around her
"Thank you. This is actually perfect. Usually, my anxiety makes me want to eat more, but this is all just too much" she says
"Of course baby, and I get the same way too sometimes."
She rests her head on my chest, eating her toast as she picks out a movie to put on. I watch as she smears all the peanut butter I had put on the plate onto the toast and inhales it.
"We have more peanut butter?" she asks between bites and I nod, she goes to get up
"I'll get it. How much do you want?" I say, putting a hand on her leg so she doesn't get up
"Just bring me the jar and a spoon" she says
I get up, grab what she asked for and sit back down. She decided on 'Big Daddy', saying we all needed to laugh when everyone except Seth and Azrael gave her odd looks. She pauses it until the pizza everyone finally agreed on arrives, and we all settle in.
Throughout the movie, she kills half the jar of peanut butter. Odd. I never saw her eat peanut butter like that before, but at least it's protein, and I still have plenty to learn about my mate. Maybe it's just what she gravitates toward when she doesn't feel well. My mom used to always make me raspberry leaf tea and rice when I was sick as a pup, and it's still my go to sick food. Not that we get sick much as wolves, but it happens. But regardless, she ate most of the apple and all the toast so I'll accept it. Eventually she falls asleep on my chest, I linger around after everyone gets up to go to bed, not wanting to disturb her, but I'm still tired too, and I at least wanted to leave a message for Thayer so I pull her legs onto my lap, and get up, carrying her to our room.