I woke up the next morning, determined to leave last night's shit behind me. I didn't want to feel sad or hurt, I would channel it into my training today and let it go. I hoisted up the pants, which were threatening to fall down as I walked over to my bathroom to brush my teeth and freshen up. My father was awake in his chair by the time I was done.

"How are you feeling, kiddo?" He rubbed his eyes, before looking at me softly.

"I'm alright." I shrugged and he looked at me questionably, following me downstairs to the kitchen where Valerio was already sitting, giving me a soft look. 

"Please don't give me the pity treatment, I slept well, I feel calm and it's good. It's not like it hasn't happened before to me in a club or something. Way worse things have happened to people, and I'm grateful that wasn't the case for me and now I've moved on and I won't let it happen again." I groaned.

The men looked at each other and nodded to me. It probably wasn't the most healthy coping mechanism but it worked for me. 

We had breakfast and after I was finished I went upstairs to change into some workout gear. When I reached my room I was stopped by Valerio grabbing my arm. It was warming up and I turned to him and frowned. 

What did he want now?

"I forgot to tell you, you looked beautiful last night." He stated blankly, almost like it was a fact.

"Thank you," I smiled. "But you mostly have Agatha to thank for that."

"That's not true. You can pull of anything." He stared at me, and I stared back, refusing to feel anything about that statement, reminding myself there was an active murder investigation going on.

"Speaking of clothing." I cleared my throat, changing the subject. "Are you ever going to wear a full suit? Or a less dark blouse?"

"No." He shrugged casually, slightly annoyed I had changed the subject. "I look good in a dark colored blouse, why change it?"

I mean, the man had a point.

I stayed silent as he went into his room, fully enjoying shutting me up with his confidence, and closed the door.

The next couple of days flew by. It was Saturday, meaning we were going to leave tomorrow morning, which was a good thing because I was done with those boring morning runs. I sat on the hill overlooking the morning training with my father. The training happened in human form this time, and it was pretty amusing. They had to fight one on one and Isaac was paired with the fully recovered Jacob, who tried to cheat his way into winning, only to be beaten up by Isaac, and then by Roman as well for cheating.

Narcissa had recovered too and was paired with Tate, who nearly beat her into the hospital again. Erryn was watching from the side lines, wanting to participate in the action, but she was too young to join this particular training, which was for adults only. Valerio didn't overlook the training today, I could hear he was busy torturing some more rogues his spies had found. Something sketchy was going on with the packs for sure, but I couldn't figure out what.

If I had to guess it was probably related to him volunteering to participate in the conquest, leaving his kingdom open for vulnerabilities since he wouldn't be in it and could possibly be killed. Whatever it was, it sure as hell stressed him out. The man was grumpy as fuck.

"How's the investigation going? Did you get a clearer picture of the werewolves involvement because of our time here?" I asked my father curiously, knowing he wouldn't share anything anyway.

He raised his eyebrows, continuing to stare at the training down the hill. "I did actually."

My eyes widened. "Really? And?"

"And now I still have to investigate the vampires. Besides, I wouldn't actually tell you, it's classified."

"I know, I know. Can't blame me for trying though, those meetings were classified too and now I'm here." I shrugged, making him laugh.

He helped me back up and I narrowed my eyes at him. "You can't tell me you don't have a personal suspicion."

"Oh I have one, but I need the investigation to confirm it." He rubbed my head, messing up my hair, and chuckled. "Just stay on guard, kiddo, you can't trust anyone these days."

Ah yes, more trust issues to add to my already heavily existing trust issues.

I gasped dramatically. "You don't say? That hadn't occurred to me at all."

The two of us walked down the hill, over the fields to one of the restaurants in the city to have lunch, only to be met by a very excited Tate.

She grabbed my hands and jumped from happiness. "Please tell me you're going to the monthly karaoke night tonight."

I blinked a couple of times. Did I hear that correctly?

"You're telling me the most brutal pack in the kingdom has a monthly karaoke night?" I snorted.

"Yes!" She squealed. "It's for werewolves over eighteen only, to give them an opportunity to forget about the stress of fighting for the pack for a night. Obviously, not everyone goes since the pack needs to be protected, but lots of people do, including Alpha Roman and King Valerio."

"King Valerio does karaoke?" I asked, trying very hard not to burst into laughing.

She frowned, thinking about it. "Well no, I've heard he and Alpha Roman don't actually participate. They're there to get drunk, I believe. It's my first time tonight since I turned eighteen last month so I want you to go with me. It's supposed to be super fun, although it usually ends with drunk werewolves getting into serious fights and throwing sharp objects at one another."

Drunk werewolves fighting and throwing stuff, sounds lovely.

"Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen." I laughed. "Count me in."

Later that night, I was sitting in the back of the club, covering my ears at the horrible sound of people trying to sing, fully regretting coming here. There was a full blown competition going on. I sat in between Roman and Valerio in an elevated area, they weren't here to get drunk at all, they were keeping an eye on everyone. The more drunk the werewolves got, the more excruciating the sounds leaving their mouths became.

Narcissa was currently on stage, trying to perform a song from Burlesque, which traumatized me for life. She completely dedicated it to Valerio, who frowned and rolled his eyes, grateful he was sitting on a closed off area.

Valerio leaned towards me from the right, fully grinning. "Why don't you give it a shot, Buttercup? Sure as hell would be better than this."

"No, thank you." I said, watching as the crowd booed off Narcissa.

"Is the fierce warrior afraid of fucking up on stage? I thought you weren't afraid of anything." He teased, trying to get under my skin.

"Everyone has fears, puppy, that's what makes us different from robots." I frowned. "But I'm not afraid of fucking it up on stage."

He scratched his chin, his eyes roaming over my face. "You've got a point there. Then what is it?"

"The werewolves would kill me for ruining their night if I went up there, because then there wouldn't be any competition left." I shrugged.

"You can sing?" He tilted his head.

"You would have known if you were able to eavesdrop on me in the shower, but unfortunately you can't." I teased, scrunching up my nose with a petty smile.

He leaned in even closer so that we were only inches apart, narrowing his eyes. "Prove it."

I sat back in my chair and crossed my legs, a grin spreading on my face as I looked at the people performing. "I don't have to prove anything to you, so I think I'll pass."

"Gotta love your dynamic." Roman blurted out, making me laugh. Valerio shot him a glare and he shrugged. 

Drunk Narcissa had noticed our conversation, her blood was boiling out of jealousy and she threw her glass at me when I was looking at Roman. A satisfied expression covered her face, really ran in the family that one. It disappeared when I caught the glass with one hand.

"Try me, bitch!" She yelled, throwing her hands in the air out of frustration.

My lips formed into a smile. Throwing stuff happened to be a part of my personality. I yeeted it back to her and it hit her straight in the face since she was too drunk to even try and duck. She fell backwards on the couch behind her and passed out.

"Not going to miss her." I mumbled, hearing snickering coming from my right, so I looked at him.

"Are you going to miss anyone, Buttercup?" He cocked his eyebrow.

He made it too easy.

"Of course I am." I smiled and a smug expression appeared on his face. "What am I going to do without Roman over here?"

Roman wrapped an arm around my shoulder and Valerio glared at the both of us while we chuckled.

"Bitch." He groaned.

"Jerk." I smiled.

I said goodbye to most young werewolves when the party was over, I would leave early in the morning and there was a high chance I would never see them again. Walking back to the house, I kicked some gravel out of the way, and I turned my gaze up to the stars, the full moon would be in two days and I kind of wished I could have been around to see it here.

My eyes roamed across the landscape, the hills, the forest, the ponds, the early flowers and the rabbits hopping around through some fields. I wouldn't admit it to Valerio, but I was going to miss this place. The nature, the wildlife and even some of the people, everything felt so much more peaceful around here, even though the murders I witnessed spoke another tale. Still, I had a hard time believing the werewolves were behind the assassination, not because they weren't capable of it, but simply because I felt the way it was executed wasn't their style. But then again, apparently the evidence was there and with the deep hatred for the vampires, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to frame them. Or the other way around.

I shook it off, it wasn't up to me to solve the case and I didn't want to think about it anymore. I simply wanted to enjoy the last night here. Sitting down at the porch, one of the wild rabbits hopped over to me. It sat down in front of me, tilting his head to the side. Confused, I did the same thing. Valerio approached the house from a distance but stopped a couple of meters away from me when he saw the scene.

The only thing the rabbit did was stare at me, and I felt highly uncomfortable. I did something I had never done before and focused on its animalistic feelings, I felt respect and fear, making me even more confused. Before I was able to comprehend it, it bowed and ran off.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't just see a rabbit bow to you." Valerio said blankly, walking past me to the door.

"Yeah, you definitely should." I bit my lip, standing up and following him inside.

Enough nature for today.

It was 2 am, tomorrow was going to be a long day and I really wanted to go to bed, but not before asking Valerio one last question now that we were alone, since the chances of us ever being again were low. I stepped into the living room, where he was sitting with a glass of whiskey in his hand, lost in his thoughts.

I leaned against the door opening, facing his back, and tugged at my shirt. "Can I ask you something?"

He snapped out of his thoughts, placing his drink on the table before him, and stood up. He walked over to the door opening and leaned against the other side of it, facing me directly with a serious expression. 

"Ask away, Buttercup." He crossed his arms, his jaw clenching, already suspecting what I was about to ask.

It played at the back of my mind ever since we met, but I didn't want to bring it up, because I had been able to block it out perfectly fine. However, I still wanted to know.

"Why haven't you rejected me yet?" I asked carefully, keeping any emotions from my voice.

He stared at me for a minute, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. And I waited, almost expecting him to do it then and there now that I had brought it up.

"I'm not going to." He said blankly.

I frowned. "Why not?"

"Because I can't have a mate, it would be way too dangerous right now. If I rejected you, that damned moon goddess would probably throw me an uno-reverse and mate me to someone else, and I don't want that. You're also pretty good at ignoring the whole thing, so it shouldn't bother you too much if I don't mark you, Buttercup." An unreadable expression covered his face, and his feelings were an exact copy, leaving me not knowing what to think.

In fact, I didn't even want to think about it any longer. It was just like he said, we were masters at blocking it out and it should stay that way.

"Right, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining it." I said, pushing myself off the wall and going upstairs, feeling his gaze upon my back.

A couple hours later at 5 am, my alarm went off and I groaned as I got out of bed. It was going to be a damn long day. First, we were going to fly to the human kingdom, where my father had to debrief the generals and where I had to pack a new sets of clothing. Right after that we were going to get on a different plane, one that didn't belong to werewolves, and fly to the vampire kingdom.

My father and I said our goodbyes to the delegation while our luggage was getting loaded into the plane. He went in before me and right as I walked up the stairs of the plane, Valerio grabbed my hand.

"Be careful out there, Buttercup. The vampires are not as perfect as they seem." He whispered, his eyes piercing through mine, before turning his gaze to my hand and letting it go.

"I will be." I said blankly, turning around and getting into the plane.

I sat down in the plane opposite of my father, Valerio's warning running through my mind on repeat along with our last conversation. Sighing, I put on my airpods and turned up the sound of the music, tuning out my thoughts. I didn't want to worry about anything right now, all I wanted was to have a normal flight with a chance of some peaceful sleep. Hoping that would be the case, I closed my eyes, slowly drifting off to sleep.

A hand tugged at my shoulder, trying to wake me up, and I yawned as I opened my eyes. Much to my surprise, we had already landed and I had slept through the whole thing. My father looked at me with a grin and I narrowed my eyes.

He had definitely taken some photos of me sleeping to hold over my head.

He stood up, extending his hand to me. "Let's go, kiddo. We have a small window until our next plane leaves. Two hours to be exact, one hour to debrief the generals and one hour to freshen up and pack new clothes."

Nodding, I took his hand and he pulled me from my seat. The sun was shining bright outside, blinding my just awakened eyes so I put on a pair of sunglasses. Stepping out of the plane, we were greeted by Foxglove, Hemlock, Mallory and Mr. Anders. My father greeted them and I stayed silent. With every step I took down the stairs, I let out a deep sigh, knowing I would have to listen to those men for a whole hour again. Mr. Anders grinned when I threw my head back because Hemlock was opening his mouth to say something.

I hadn't missed those bags of meat at all. In fact, my mind completely forgot the generals existed the second I boarded the plane, with an exception for Foxglove. He was slightly more tolerable, I didn't get the urge to kill him the second I looked at his face.

"Long time no see, Sunshine." Foxglove smirked, holding out his arms for a hug.

Suddenly, the urge to kill him got a whole lot bigger. I completely ignored him and gave a hug to the only man worthy of one with a big smile on my face. The man who could make me popcorn every day if he wanted to.

Mr. Anders.

"It has literally been a week." I shrugged, breaking the hug and looking at Foxglove unimpressed.

He cocked his eyebrow. "Someone has stepped with the wrong foot out of the airplane."

"Someone doesn't have time for this." I smiled a little too happy to be genuine, walking over to the entrance, secretly hoping they would let me skip the debriefing.

I was relieved when they actually did, not wanting me to know too much about the investigation. I went into my room and repacked some of my clothes, not sure of what to expect in the vampire kingdom. Only a handful of vampires had rings to protect them against the sun, so the rest had to live in the darkness. Busy replacing some of my toiletries, I snorted and shook my head noticing the hole in the wall was still there. 

My mind went over that night, remembering it was the first time I had summoned my Seregsword in the light for someone to be able to see and realize what it actually was, wondering when I had to show it again. I was supposed to kill anyone who knew what it was except for my father, but I hadn't and I knew he wouldn't be happy about it. However, he wouldn't have been happy if I had killed the werewolf king either, or anyone at all. He didn't want me to kill, but he knew I probably had to one day.

I took a chance that night, letting Valerio live. A chance I hoped wouldn't bite me in the ass in the future, but I had this tiny feeling it wouldn't. My eyes widened a little as I looked at myself in the mirror, and it dawned on me.

Had I unknowingly trusted someone other than my father for the first time?