19 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, CONTINUED
The glass room led to the pool room, so naturally Ki would want to show off the jewel of the Alpha House - the shimmering indoor oasis lined with turquoise glass tiles and accessorized with palm trees in woven baskets and ratten lounges.
Our pool heated salt water pool also came with my Luna Bell who was currently swimming in it. I guess he was just taking his frustration out on the water, but he seemed to sense us enter and slowed his strokes... either that or suddenly everything went in slow motion, and we (or I) watched as his strong steady strokes got him over to our side of the pool, and get out - completely nude. Like I guess he had jewels to show off too. Hahahahaha.
I didn't see anything though. Ki might have already anticipated it and had magicked a towel out and wrapped it firmly around Bell's waist.
"James! How could you!" Apparently Ki's magic trick wasn't quick enough and Lady Amber was immediately offended, "Shame on you. There are young girls in this house!"
Bell nonchalantly dried out his hair in a second towel that Ki had magicked as if out of thin air. Ki pretty much shoved him to the back of the pool room where the changing room was. He reappeared again, his smile never flickering, "Please excuse our Luna Bell while he gets dressed."
Then he proceeded to one of the rattan chairs and picked up Bell's discarded clothing, "As you can see, this is the indoor pool..."
Ki continued the tour explaining the heat pump and salt filtration system, and the stylized glass mosaic design in white and turquoise, with flecks of gold - apparently it was customized by some really famous local artist, Micheal Ark... in the Green Packlands. Wasn't he a Night Leaf Wolf?
Mum made an "Oh" face. Yes, she knew Micheal. He had a daughter around Savy's age.
Lady Amber and Luna Edith had both heard of him too. He was well known for pottery and had exhibited in Gate City. Recent news was that one of his early works had auctioned for six figures.
"That's too much for a flower vase!" Lady Amber tutted.
"Well, its for a good cause." Alpha James brushed it off, "The proceeds were for the Gate City Community Chest."
"You're one to speak - didn't you buy a few yourself?" Lady Amber accused.
Alpha James laughed, somewhat sheepishly, like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, except in this case he was caught with just the empty jars, really expensive empty jars, "But the ones I bought were only for a few thousand each and they were for a good cause."
Apparently the really expensive flower vase was the last existing piece from a rare collection made by Micheal Ark in his early career. They were distinct from all his other works because the blueish green pots were tinted pink during the glazing process, resulting in a range of earthen pots in Micheal Ark's signature pale blues and greens... but for the pale pink tint of the glaze which art critics praised as "comparable to the beauty of the first blush of day in the morning sky."
I frowned at that... I used to have one just like that, except it was probably exploded with the rest of the house. Oh wait! No! We still had it!
"Wait! We have one too!" I said, "But it isn't a vase."
I dashed out of the pool room, and down the basement. I knew it had to be here somewhere. I had packed it in a cardboard box when Mum made us spring clean our bedrooms one summer. I know, I know, we were supposed to spring clean in spring, but Savy and I had procrastinated till the summer holidays. We would have procrastinated further except that Mum told us that if we didn't, she wouldn't let us go to Angela's pool party that year.
Anyway, I was trying to make my room cooler since I was a teenager and all, and as much as I liked the pot, it was kind of old fashioned. So I poured out all my pens and pencils (I had used it as a penholder), and I dumped it in the cardboard box... Here!
I pulled down the dusty box from the shelf and in my excitement, shifted out a single claw to sliced down the tape in the center to open it. Wow. That was convenient.
The first thing I saw was Bluebell and Flora (Savy didn't want Flora to be lonely, so we packed them together.) Oh! And my elementary school class photo.... What else? A yellow crocheted blanket someone had made for me. And tada! My six figured sum pen holder by Micheal Ark.
I wrapped my treasures in my yellow blanket and ran back upstairs.
Everyone was now in the glass room. Even Bell who had changed into one of his sweatsuits.
"Look what I found!" I showed Savy Flora and Bluebell. They still squeaked.
"Oh no." Mum recognized the sound and groaned. Hahaha.
"Oh yeah, and this." I pulled out the clay pot next.
"Oh." Now it was Ki's turn to make the Oh face. He even forgot to smile.
I gave it to him to take a closer look.
Ki turned the pot around in his hands and then checked the underside and marvelled at the M.Ark scratched out on it, "This is the genuine article."
Ki looked inside. Opps... I remembered the ink stains and pencil markings, I mean, it was a pen holder, "Urm... I used it as a penholder."
"I see." Ki answered like he was about to choke. His alpha was a barbarian who used pottery worth six figured amounts with beauty comparable to the morning sky to hold leaky pens and blunt pencils!
"Micheal Art gave it to Dad when he first opened his studio." I said.
"He did?" Dad frowned, trying to remember.
"Yes. And you gave it to me cos I saw it on the mantle and said it was pretty." I told him.
Dad nodded, "I probably would have, I wouldn't know what to do with something like that anyway."
Ki held it up for Lady Amber to admire, "It's true, the glaze is beautiful, but 300 thousand dollars for a pot is still too much!"
While the adults were admiring the penholder, I slipped over to where Mate was brooding in the corner. I tried jump up and ride him, but he caught me and put me back on my feet.
Meanie!
Bell stroked my hair, and then he lifted up a lock to his lips. It was something he always did just before he disappeared when he was dream travelling - but he was here in the flesh. So he can't disappear on me now. Hahaha.
He was so close I could smell the laundry detergent Ki used on our clothes, his caramel scent, and the salt water on his damp skin.
"I have to go." His words were low, but poignant.
"Huh, where?" My words sounded dumb, even to my own ears.
Mate pulled away, but I grabbed him by the hem of his sweatshirt, "Where are you going?"
I must have been too loud because suddenly everyone had stopped admiring the pot to look at us.
Bell took my wrist and removed his sweatshirt from my grasp, "Princess..."
And then a sigh was torn from his lips, "Don't make this harder than it has to be."
WTH was he talking about? Who was making things difficult here, huh?
"Son, what is going on?" It was Dad, he was frowning.
"You better not be making trouble - what's all this about?" Alpha James sounded like he was about to become angry.
Bell sighed, "You're right, old man."
"I am?" Alpha James blinked, totally surprised by the unexpected admission, "In what way, what are you talking about?"
"The path I am about to take is not something I can drag my princess through." Bell said.
A really bad feeling started to bubble up from deep within my guts.
Bell turned to me, "Wait here for me, Princess. There's something I have to do. I'll be back for you. This I promise you."
"What...what do you mean by that?" Alpha James demanded, "What are you going to do?"
"What I should've been doing all along." Bell said, "But she showed up and I got totally sidetracked."
He gestured to me, like it was my fault, like I was a bad thing.
"I'm going to declare war on the Rogue King and destroy him." Bell growled darkly.
"No!" Alpha James growled back, "The Rogue King is slippery, till now we don't even know his face. To catch him is a futile excercise. There is no point in chasing a shadow of the past. You're young, our land is at peace now, and you have your whole life in front of you."
"And you've gone soft." Mate was growling ever so quietly, "You're a fool to call this peace... How long will you let it lull you into a false sense of security? And have you not forgotten what he had done to Mother?"
We all looked at Luna Edith, did the Rogue King do something to her? Luna Edith looked just as confused.
"Shut up!" Alpha James lost it then, he swung a punch in Mate's direction, "I told you to never speak of it!"
"When have I ever done as I'm told?" Bell snarled back, dodging his dad's blow, "And Ki's family or the families of all the other wolves he had destroyed at the hand of your traitorous brother, I will absolutely avenge them."
"You really needn't bother." Ki said, his tone a forced mildness and his smiling mask on in full force, "Really, Luna, I believe it would be best if you stayed."
But Bell would not be swayed, "I know Ki, you hate me. I was nothing but a self centered brat in your eyes. I understand it now. But your father was the only one who had ever brought me food when I was chained in the dungeons. The one night I had gone hungry, was the night he died. So I'm not doing it for you. This is about ME. I will have my revenge. I am going to end the war with the Rogue King once and for all."
"Foolish boy, even if you kill him, another would rise." Lady Amber cried out, "The death of a rogue king will only beget another."
This was an old saying. I've heard it before too. I always thought it was the way old wolves explained why the Rogue King kept popping up in our Lycan history.
At this, my mate smirked, his eyes glowed, "Do you think I did not know that?" His deep, deep voice like a rumbling of the sea, "But not this time."
Now his smile took a dangerous edge. He languidly stroked my cheek and I could only stand there mesmerized by him, the power that radiated, the way his voice hypnotized me like the sound of the crashing waves, "I will make it such that he would have no where to run, and then no where to hide, and then I would destroy him... He can run, but he will find no place to hide, not from me. I will not return again until I his crown is in my hands."
"Wouldn't that make you the rogue king?" Ki pointed out lightly.
"Not me, the death god would wear his crown and I would return to my princess." Bell answered like it was the most logical conclusion.
Wait, hold up a second - so to get rid of the Rogue King, my Mate was planning to become the Rogue King? Omo. Yeah, how could anything go wrong with a plan like that?
"What about your investiture?" Alpha James asked accusingly.
"I never asked to be the Alpha." Bell said.
His father turned livid, "You ungrateful brat..."
"Old man, if I were the Alpha, half your leadership would have their heads on the chopping board." Bell informed him, "But now I am going to give them a chance to redeem themselves. I will take your advise and make a compromise."
"How so?" Alpha James asked, his anger momentarily diverted by this new nugget of information.
"If they please my princess, I might forgive them." Bell promised - but it sounded like the kind of promises classic bad guys made, "But mark my words, when I return, whoever dares to go against my princess, I will put to the sword. Whoever withholds anything from her, I will starve to death. No one will escape. Not the Rogue King, nor his minions, nor any of the fat Lorent dogs in your keep."
See, I told you. Classic bad guy.