Chapter 179
Raven’s POV
I was sitting in the office with Brandon and Justin going over placing our delivery order when Brandon’s cell phone rang. Justin and I both got up to leave the room to give him some privacy, but Brandon held up his hand and motioned for us to wait a moment. I could tell that it was not a familiar number to him, and he didn’t think he would be on the phone for very long. He wanted to get this order complete, as we were stocking up to get our final preparations done for the pack. We were not going to give Graham any room to try to lay siege on us and cut us off from the outside world.
“Hello?” Brandon answered the phone briskly.
“Brandon?” came a slightly familiar voice through the phone.
“Yes,” Brandon replied, and I could tell he was thinking about who it could be, as he recognized the voice as well, but we hadn’t placed it yet.
“This is Blake, from Black Moon pack. I just wanted to give you a heads-up on this. Graham is testing my loyalty and had given me a date for an attack against you and your pack. I highly doubt he gave me the correct date. I am positive that he is just trying to see if he can trust me or not. I can’t stay long on the phone, but the date we were given was the 24th of next month. I know he has numerous plans against you. Aaron will be calling you soon to speak to you, but he rejected the offer Graham was giving him today. Aaron's answer probably made Graham angry at his refusal to cooperate with Graham. I am free of the cells here now, but I am not with Graham in this. He thinks I am as he came down to show me the pictures of Cheryl getting married, and telling me that she was pregnant. I have had a year to think about it all, hell, it was all I could do basically. I messed up so badly, and I want to try to repair some of the damage that I have done. Cheryl and Kevin have been through enough, and I cannot allow Graham to hurt either of them again. That said, I am sure that he intends to attack in the next few months. I overheard Garrett and Marc speaking about vampires that will be joining us in this fight. I just wanted to give you a quick warning that he will be attacking and soon. It will be either before, or after, the date he gave me, so please just try to be prepared” Blake told us.
“So he is testing you to see if you were going to tell us? That makes sense, Graham doesn’t trust anyone. Probably from his own guilty conscience” Brandon replied.
“Yes, so I am almost positive that he will be attacking after the date he gave. He needs to see if you seal the place up, that would let him know that I leaked the information to you, or that Aaron did. Both of our necks are on the line with that date. So my gut is telling me it will probably be after the date he gave me, but Graham is playing this very close to the vest. He needs to see if you get prepared for an attack on the date he gave me. He is also testing Forest, who was given another date, different from the one I was given. Forest thinks that Graham trusts him, that he is an insider to Graham, but he is wrong. Graham is controlling the three of them with money, that is how he got their loyalty, he bought it. I am positive that he will be giving you time to relax your guard and think that it was all a fluke. Like he changed his mind when we all know that he won't” Blake replied.
“I appreciate the heads up, Blake. We knew that he has been sending people to watch us. Are you OK? Do you need us to do anything for you” Brandon asked.
“No, I am fine. I had Brady get me a cell phone when he went into the city after we were freed. I will be staying here so I can participate in the attack. Only the surprise will be on Graham, as he will be the one getting attacked. I plan on taking Garrett, and Marc out too. If Forest causes harm to his brothers or Cheryl, I will take care of him as well” Blake told us quiet tone. The office was quiet for a moment as we agreed with him, I was fully aware that he felt bad about what happened. The problem is you can’t take it back once you do something so cruel to someone.
“Is Cheryl OK? Please make sure you protect her husband as well. Graham is specifically after him, and their baby. I believe the boys, might be in harm’s way too, so please protect them too. Graham has an agenda that he is following here, and he will not be stopping until he has taken her mate away from her too. Anyone with a connection to Cheryl could potentially be killed as he wants to hurt her for taking Cassandra from him. He is vicious, and I know for a fact that he wants all of you dead. Brandon that list includes you, Raven, Justin, as well as Reagan, and Clive. I will do what I can, on my end. I will try to make sure that I text you to let you know if I hear something. But Graham is definitely coming, and soon” Blake said to us in a low tone. I could hear the water running behind him now that he was completely quiet and I had stepped closer to the phone. I guess he had to hide in his bathroom to be able to use his phone.
“She and the baby are fine, Blake. I will let Anton and the boys know that they need to all be especially cautious. We will keep them as safe as we can during the battle. You just take care of yourself and don’t take too many risks. Graham is not to be trusted and this is probably just the first of many tests that he will have for you” Brandon told Blake.
“If you see Kevin and Robert, can you tell them that I said for them to take care? I love them both and I don’t want them to get hurt. I will do my best to protect them in the battle. Thanks for not immediately hanging up on me Brandon, I know I have not really shown my best side to you all at Black Adder. I just wanted to warn you” Blake said and the call suddenly ended.
Brandon was right, this was just the first of many tests most likely. Graham will keep it up until he is confident that he can trust Blake in this. We will not be tipping our hands preparing for something that we both know will not be coming just yet. Graham is vicious and conniving, he probably does have several things up his sleeve. He knows that he cannot beat us without being devious, and cheating. We need to up our game and I felt I needed to mention something.
“Brandon, I think that we need to get some motion camera’s installed on at least the wall nearest the highway and on the far side of the property. I think that as sneaky as Graham is, that he will try to come in the back way to get in. Can we see about getting some cameras put in that have motion sensors so they will alert when someone comes over the wall? I know we already have pressure sensors, but they have them at Black Moon too. There are ways to miss stepping on them. If they come prepared, they can just park their SUVs next to the wall to get to the top and see where the sensor is. They can then jump down to the other side of the wall, totally avoiding the sensors. I just don't want us to miss an opportunity to make sure that all the bases are covered. We can have an additional gate guard scheduled, at least until this is all over with. The guards can all take turns with whoever is watching the cameras. I just don’t think that Graham is going to be direct in this, he never is, and I want us to be as prepared as we can be. I think that having them might give us an added edge, on the attack. They will have to get in here to set up to start the attack. I think that they will get set up in the wooded area in our packland, and then start the attack” I told them. Now that it is getting nearer, I am just getting more and more worried about it. Have we done enough? Trained enough? Know enough to make sure that we survive it?
Blake had sounded like a broken man on the phone, and I am sure knowing that Cheryl had moved on had probably hurt him to his core. It has to hurt your heart when someone you love moves on and is happily living their best life without you. There was nothing he could do about it either, as he was locked up until recently, so he couldn’t keep trying to win her back. I am positive that Graham had thought that Blake would be more than willing to help him with the attack because of this. Graham must be absolutely desperate to have even thought of releasing Blake from the cells. I know what a sadistic asshole Graham is. I am positive that Blake has suffered a great deal at Graham’s hands, in the time that he was imprisoned.
“I think Blake is right, it will definitely be after the date that Graham gave him. He will want to see if we seal this place up like a tomb on that date. He will probably give him another test, or two because I know that he would be concerned about bringing him here, especially if he even suspected that Blake may not be on the same side. It would end very badly for him and he would know that. There is no way that Graham would ever allow Blake to come with them if he for one minute thought that it wouldn’t be in their best interest” Justin told us both. I am sure that Justin is right.
Graham is not going to be taking any chances with Blake. I am sure that he tried to sweeten the pot by telling him that he could get his mate and children back. It seems like Blake has finally faced facts and knew that he had lost her. I feel a little bad for him, as I know he had loved her, he just made some bad choices. I bet that is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. I know how hard that must have been for him to come to grips with losing Cheryl. Letting her go had to have been very tough for him. We all knew that he had been getting beaten severely by Graham for the last year. Graham is all about one-upping others. So he would have gone harder on Blake than Blake would have ever done to him. He would have done it just to pay Blake back, as it would have pissed him off that he even got beaten in the first place.
That would have been totally unacceptable to Graham, having consequences for his own actions. That had to have been a first for him to have to deal with a physical punishment like that. He would have been furious about it. I know the pain and humiliation of having to deal with being hurt myself. The shame and frustration that you feel knowing that you couldn’t stop them from hurting you, or being able to protect yourself. These were the same things that Graham put me through. I will be glad when this whole thing is over and done with. Having this hanging over my head, it is a huge weight on me. I still worry that in making sure that the children were prepared for this fight, they may not have had the childhood that they should have had. Did they get to play enough? Time to be kids? Did they have enough downtime? We didn’t really vacation as most extra funds got funneled right back into the pack.
They had birthdays and other parties here, but I worry that they are not as relaxed as other teenagers were. We tried to make sure that they had fun activities to do. The olympic sized pool was installed for the whole pack to use, and it was put to good use. We have to find balance for the pack to be able to prosper., and grow We put money back into supporting and sustaining our pack, and our businesses. I also felt guilty as Graham was doing this all to pay me back. He blames this whole situation on me, and as ridiculous as that was, he seriously believes it is indeed my fault. It never entered his mind that he was wrong. That if he had just done what my father asked him to, this whole thing would have been avoided. I hate to feel the guilt that would come as I will feel that all the loss of life here would be my fault, and he is just after me. I heard my name being called and I looked up to see both Brandon and Justin standing in front of me, looking down at me with concern all over their faces.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you. I was thinking about this whole mess” I told them. They both nodded as they probably already knew what I was doing. They could feel my emotions and they both knew I was upset. They know the guilt that I feel over worrying if one of my children, or my mates, will get hurt in this attack. They also tell me that there was no need for it, as it isn't my fault, it is all Graham's fault. There really is no reason for me to even suspect that things could be different at this point. My worrying will not change what is going to happen, nor will it affect the outcome. We cannot change anything about what is about to happen, but we are going to do our best to end it, once and for all.
I gazed past them to look out the window. I could see the children’s course and the adult course in the distance. I see our children out there running on both of the courses and having fun out there. Justin and Brandon did an excellent job in making both of the courses, demanding and fun to do. I already know that they are calling out to each other and issuing challenges to see who could run it the fastest. They do this all the time and I see that Stella is out there with them supervising the younger ones as they run the children’s course. Kevin and Robert were right there with my older boys and they are smoking through it like it was nothing.
The strength and agility that they have are amazing to me. They make it look effortless on a course that I happen to know is really tough, as I run it myself. I have to smile at their antics. I guess we have made the best out of a bad situation. We made their training a fun thing to do for them all. I see Reagan and her family heading there too, and her older children running ahead to be able to start running the course with the rest of the boys. I can almost hear the cheers and comments that they are calling out to each other in the air as they go to start the course over together. They seemed to be having a lot of fun out there running on the course together.
I felt both my mates standing behind me, watching our children out there running, playing, and having fun on a challenging course. We have prepared them well for this upcoming fight, as they are all excellent fighters. I know that when it gets here I will not have any control over what happens. I can’t protect them like I want to, I will have to fight against them the same as my mates, and the rest of the pack will. I know for a fact that Graham is not going to give us an inch of room as he wants to hurt both me and Reagan. The fact that we are both here, with Cheryl, makes us a big target. He hates Justin for leaving Reagan, and the Silver Blade pack. He has to make this work, so I know that he is going to throw everything that he can at us.
The fact that Blake called today to warn us made it suddenly much more real to me. The time is almost here, and I cannot contain the worry I feel over the thought of losing a loved one. I wish it were not coming down to this, but the prophecy is now here on our doorstep. I feel overwhelmed at the thought that I could lose the people I care about the most. I wish that there was a way for us to avoid it altogether. That I could do something to stop this whole thing. In my heart, I know it is set in stone, and that there is truly nothing that can stop it, at this point. I appreciate the warning we got from the Goddess for us to prepare for it, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about this whole thing. That is all we have going for us right now is the fact that we are not completely unprepared to battle with them.
I know Graham is planning on coming in here and killing anyone that doesn’t surrender to him. I know that he has plans for Blood Walker too. Graham is nothing if not vengeful. He has shown it over and over again. I know that to end this, we will have to end him, and everyone that supports him. He is a snake and we are going to have to cut his head off. The countdown had begun, we will have to warn the pack now, no more trips into the city. We need to stay safe inside the pack and prepare for the battle. We don’t know how much time we have left. So, for right now, we need to be focused on keeping our training up and making sure that there is no way for them to enter our pack without us knowing about it. I want us to be as prepared as we possibly can be for them.
I turned towards them and gave each of my mates a tight hug. I appreciate how much they care about me, and my feelings. But we need to get this done now. “We need to get our ammunition stockpile increased. Arrows, and bullets, whatever we need to replenish, we need to be prepared for them by the month mark. I am sure he will be coming the month after that. He just needed to give himself enough time to verify that Blake is with him on this. Once he is done with that he is coming here. I doubt he will give them a lot of notice about it when the time does come. Graham is very dangerous and I won’t let him come here and hurt any of us if I can prevent it. I also want to up the order that we were about to place today. I need to make sure that we have a lot of shelf-stable items for us to be able to make it for at least a week or two if needed. Graham has no idea that we are ready for him to attack. He has no idea that we are as trained as we are. We need to be prepared to show Graham just how big of a mistake he made when he decided to come here and attack Black Adder” I told them and went back to my chair to make the order larger. I am determined to make sure that before Graham is killed, he knows just how badly he screwed up.