Chapter 182: Tantrums

Chapter 182: Tantrums
Thorne’s POV

“How is she?”  I throw at Carlos, who has been giving me a heavy look ever since he stepped foot back on the grounds. I couldn’t make it to see Ruelle yesterday and have heard all about the visit already, but I still want to know this. “What did she say?”

“She hates you”. He says flatly, his eyes dancing in amusement. 

I nod my head. That is expected. Especially since I haven’t seen her in ages. “I expected that. She says it all the time…”

“She told me to tell you that she means it this time. Even asked me to give you this”. Carlos shoves his fingers into his pocket and slips out a folded piece of paper and hands it to me. I unfold it quickly, immediately sighing and raking my fingers through my hair at the slaggy ‘I hate you’ scribbled on it. 

Right. She means it this time, down to sealing it in writing. I shake my head and toss the paper aside. 

“What did her mother say?”

“Nothing important. All they practically did was grieve together.”  Carlos clears his throat and I can tell he is getting annoyed with the constant questions. But I don’t care. 

“What about her sisters?”  I ask as I pull papers around on my desk, messing with reports. “How was the energy between them? Did it look like history was about to repeat itself?”

“That had to be the most lovely sisterhood reunion I have ever witnessed.”  Carlos jokes, then instantly adjusts himself, his brows pulling together. “Although…”

I raise my head, ears trained. “Although what…?”

“The eldest…”. He trails off again, making we slightly worried. 

“Valka? What’s up with her?”

Her name seems to turn off whatever switch was previously on in his mind, and it has him adjusting immediately and shaking his head. “Nothing. Never mind about it.”

“Did she get back to the cabin safe?”

“Yes. Safe and sound”

“And my baby? How did she look?”  My eyes are still glued to the reports on my desk, but they find Carlos’s bewildered ones when my question is met with prolonged silence. “What?”

“How am I supposed to know how your baby looks? She is yet to be delivered.”  He spells it out blankly, as though he was forced to explain this to a five year old. 

I roll my eyes. “Ass hole, I meant how she looked inside of her. How did her belly look?”

His brows pull down even further and he looks much more irritated. “That is even worse, that you want me staring at your wife’s belly.”  He says. “Over all, she was fine and was clearly healthy enough to walk the distance. I have no recollection of her belly. And if you really want to know about much more… intricate parts of her then you should probably go see her yourself. I’m sure it would make her… ecstatic.”

My eyes drift to the side, deep in thought. I will go see Ruelle soon. Although I might need to prepare myself for whatever form of scolding might come with it, but for now, I have my reasons for staying away. One of them being that my next brawl would be the one with the big Alphas and I will soon have to face Garron. 
I would prefer to leave seeing Ruelle till after I am done with that. After I have had to face her father and done what I needed to do. 

“Our next brawl is with Rhyder.”  Carlos announces, even though I already knew this. 

This is the brawl that I have been waiting all my life for and the day that I would finally get to avenge my father’s death. Well… technically I am already avenging his death through this whole exercise but now, specifically, I am killing the man that I have always wanted to kill. 

“Tell me something I do not know.”  I mumble, scribbling my signature absently on the papers in front of me. I may have to get someone to read them once again before sending them out. “I am counting the fucking seconds”

“Definitely not going by fast enough”. Carlos remarks. At all. “Rhyder is going to try to pull something.”  

“I know that. It’s him after all. The Coast’s biggest coward in the history of wolf life.”  Carlos lets out a snort at my comment, lowering himself to the seat opposite mine. I frown at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the grounds?”

He pokes the inside of his cheek with his jaw, pointing between the both of us. “We are having a conversation. Aren’t we?”

“It ended ten seconds ago.”  I tell him, going back to staring at my letters. I feel his eyes on me but don’t look up immediately, but when I eventually do, there is a lost look in them that I haven’t seen in a while. A look that tells me he has something on his mind, but is struggling to understand, much less say it. 
 “Did something else happen?”  I ask again and when he finally looks at me, he shakes his head. 

“All good.”  I smell the lie but decide against forcing him to be honest with me. I know he would come around soon enough. If he thinks that I should know then he will tell me, it is that simple. “I’ll go join them on the grounds.”  He says, standing to his feet and walking out of the office. His presence is immediately replaced by Vander’s. 

“I’m not surprised to see you missing out on all the fun being cooped up in here.”  He says as he rests his hands at the back of the chair opposite mine. 

I scrunch my brows, staring up at him. “Fun? Aren’t they supposed to be training out there?”

“Oh well they aren’t. At least not now. They had been training but now, they are having a play fight and betting on it.”

I rub my brows with a resigned sigh. 

“Come on. Some of them lost their brothers out there in the field. You should be grateful seeing them this happy. You can’t blame them it has been a pretty tough week.”

I shake my head. “Never said I did.”

He nods, pressing his lips together. “So Rhyder huh? I heard he sent boys to check you guys out”. He laughs. “Where are they by the way?”  He looks outside the window. 

“On their way back to him with the information we sent them with.”  I can’t stop the mischievous smile that spreads on my lips and he mirrors it immediately. 

“You can finally get your revenge.” He tells me after a while, his smile unmoving. 

“Finally… and so can you.”  Vander hasn’t been participating because he wanted to wait for the brawls with the big Alphas like Rhyder and Garron and the likes, which means starting tomorrow, we fight side by side. 

“At the end of it all, I call dibs on slitting Mudrich’s throat.”  He lifts a finger as he talks about the head of the Council. 

“Oh no he’s all mine.”  I shake my head and he laughs. 

“Tomorrow should be fun."