Chapter 26: Red quarters

He walked out of the red quarters into the bright morning sun as the fresh breeze of the new day blew his face and he knew who it reminded him of, Hayley. Staying at a place will only make him wallow in grief and anguish so he wanted to keep himself busy from thinking about her.

He had been busy all morning making sure that Donald wasn’t planning anything that would take them by surprise. He approached the fields towards the place where the hounds once lived, this was where Hayley died after nights of torture by her own mate and husband.

From where Brandon stood he saw someone entering into what was remaining of the structure.

“That’s Jon, what are they up to this time?” Brandon said as he looked closely at Jon and the man with him but could find nothing unusual, so he decided to go closer and hear their conversation.

“When are they coming in?” Jon said.

“The day after tomorrow, tell your King to have my gold ready before we get here” the other man said.

“You don’t have to worry about that as long as you deliver the number we asked, you will have your money” Jon replied with a slight smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“What number? I have only five hundred, the vampires are not doing a really good job of leaving them half dead anymore” the man said and Brandon now knew what exactly they were talking about.

“His majesty asked for a thousand, you claimed not to have and he brought it down to seven hundred but you still claim not to have as much as that, are you sure you are not taking our business elsewhere?” Jon said looking very suspicious of the man.

“That’s the number I can deliver, tell that to your Lord and if my gold isn’t ready by tomorrow, your pack will no longer have an Alpha” the other man said and walked away while Jon stood there looking at his back.

“Thank the gods that’s he going on that journey before then” Jon said almost whispering to himself, he stood there for a while and left.

“Where’s Skylar going to?” Brandon thought to himself.

He immediately stood up from where he was hidden and went to Edgar’s room to report the important information he just heard.

He knocked on the door repeatedly waiting for Edgar to open up for him.

“Come in” Brandon heard from inside the room and he opened the door immediately and walked in on Edgar and Elaine having breakfast.

“I’m sorry for disturbing but it’s really urgent” Brandon said.

“There’s no problem with that, come on have a seat, I’m very sure you haven’t had breakfast” Elaine said very politely as she smiled at him and laid a plate for him on the table.

Brandon was definitely hungry, he did not have breakfast because he too angry to think about food and now Elaine was offering for him to eat breakfast with them, he looked at Edgar for permission to share breakfast with them, after long moments of glaring Edgar finally agreed.

“Come on now Brandon, you need your strength” Elaine said putting every variety of food on the table into his plate.

“Thank you my Lady, you’re very generous” Brandon said and Elaine smiled at him beautifully.

“Bran” Edgar said as he became jealous at how Sapphire smiled at Bran.

“Yes, my Lord” Brandon replied.

“I see you’ve now made it a habit to disturb me in my quiet time, the next time this happens I will have your head on a spike right outside the pack gates” Edgar said not raising his head to look up at him but he knew that he stopped eating for a while.

“I’m sorry my Lord, It will not happen again” Brandon said.

“I hope it doesn’t” Edgar said looking at him and giving him a short smile.

“Brandon, you said you have something urgent to tell us” Elaine said reminding him of why he came here.

“Ohh right, Skylar..” he was saying when Elaine cut him short.

“Shh…” she said as she looked at the closed door, she knew she was feeling a presence outside the door it was too close to be someone passing.

“Someone’s out there?” Edgar said knowing why she was acting like that.

“Yes, It’s someone familiar” she said standing up from her chair and walking to the door.

She opened it swiftly but there was nobody there, that was strange she could feel it up until she opened the door, she closes the door and walked back inside and took a seat.

“You talk freely now Brandon” she said as she sat back on her chair and continued eating her meal.

“Who was there?” Edgar said.

“No one actually, i stopped feeling the presence when I opened the door” she said and she looked calm about it.

“Alright” Edgar said trusting that if something was wrong she would’ve told him already.

“Skylar ordered for five hundred human hounds, they are arriving tomorrow” Brandon said now reducing his voice to the lowest.

“Why would he do that?” Elaine said looking surprised.

“War, he wants to go to war with one of the packs” Edgar said knowing exactly why Skylar do what he do.

“I think so too, because today he is sneaking out of this pack house to the council grounds for an emergency council meeting he called without giving much notice to all the packs” Brandon said and Edgar’s mind began calculating.

“There’s a missing piece in all this” Edgar said.

“Should we go to the meeting ourselves?” Brandon said.

“No, we divide and conquer” Edgar said as an idea popped up in his head.

“What do you mean by that?” Elaine said looking very interested in this new idea of his.

“The slave traders always gave their slaves a mark on their skin to identify that they belong to them and now those slave traders have left the trade of humans for the trade of human hounds” Edgar said and paused for a while.

“How does that have to do with all this?” Brandon said looking confused.

“I’m trying to tell you that there is a staff that the trader of the human hounds holds that make them show that they own them” Edgarsaid.

“Why don’t they just mark them?” Brandon said again.

“The mark will heal itself, because they are half vampires” Elaine replied this time.

“The staff will be given to the person that receives the hounds upon delivery and the human hounds will obey every single word the person says because he is their new master” Edgar said and pause hoping that Brandon have finally caught up with what he was saying.

“No matter who paid for them to be bought, they only obey the one that holds the staff” Brandon replied finally getting the bigger picture.

“So we have to hold the staff” Elaine said and Edgar nodded.

“While I go up to the council grounds and thwart whatever plan Skylar has prepared, you both stay here and make sure you get the staff before Skylar comes back home. And if you both are not able to do this, there going to be a war of all packs”.