Chapter 196: Rhys
“Alright... Now that whatever that was is over. Are we ready to finally begin?” I asked, rubbing my temple tiredly. My head was protesting my lack of sleep, and my body was hating me for sparring with Sawyer the way I did.
“Actually no, the pizza is here.” Heather answered, looking up from her phone. “I’ll be right back.”
“You ordered pizza?” Grace asked in surprise, her eyes lighting up a little. I couldn’t help but be surprised by her reaction. I couldn’t remember ever even eating pizza with her. I couldn’t imagine that the Red Blood pack had allowed her pizza, especially if Luna Kinsley and Alpha Adrian had anything to do with it.
“Yep, I thought we could use a little pick me up, be right back.”
“I haven’t had pizza in ages,” Maizie exclaimed happily, forgetting her quarrel with Sawyer for a moment.
“I don’t get the excitement.” Michael mumbled.
“Well, that’s because pizza was banned ages ago in Red Blood, though I never figured out why.” Maizie answered, rolling over so she could go back to looking at the magazine with Michael.
“Oh, I can answer that,” Grace piped in. “It’s because when I was little, it was my favorite, and on my birthday one year, my dad gave me a slice, and Kinsley got pissed that he would actually give me something I liked, even if it was only one single slice of pizza, and she convinced him to “outlaw” it within the pack. The worst part was, it wasn’t even the good pizza, it was one of those oven ones. Which was still good, but not the same as getting it delivered.”
Everyone stared at my mate with their jaws on the floor. I knew my mate had had it rough. Hell, I had counted the scars on her body more times than I could count. But to hear her story of loving something as simple as a food, and having it banned throughout the whole pack, was something that I couldn’t even comprehend. The cruelty she had faced as a child was unmatched by anything I had ever heard before.
“That’s so sad.” Maizie said finally.
“I mean... Of all the things that happened, that wasn’t one that really stuck with me. I honestly kind of forgot about it till you said something...” Pink rose to Grace’s cheeks, and I could feel how much she hated everyone staring at her, but it wasn’t for me to step in... She didn’t need that. She could handle herself. She was going to have to.
“Alright, eat up, it’s going to be a long night, so get your dinner, settle in, and let’s get started.” Heather called out as she reentered the room, saving Grace from the moment. Her arms carrying 4 large pizzas, a smaller box of who knows what, and another four boxes of what appeared to be wings and maybe breadsticks, and on top of all of that were paper plates, and paper towels.
“Yes! You got dessert!” Michael exclaimed as Heather set up and opened each of the boxes. I couldn’t help but find it comical that I was a rich Alpha King, and yet we were setting all of our food up on the floor due to lack of space. And to be fair, this office wasn’t really made for this amount of people, or food really, but it was where we felt the most comfortable, and safest. Even if safest was only relative.
“Mmmm, I understand the hype now!” Michael said to no one in particular with his mouth full.
“Do you?” Grace laughed, raising her own piece to her mouth. Goddess, she was perfect. Even as she took a big bite of her pizza, and her hair was messy, and she had dark circles under her eyes, she was still absolutely perfect. “It’s just as good as I remembered it.”
“Can we please get started?” Arlo asked, glaring at the pizza in disgust.
The room fell into a bit of an akward silence, and I felt my jaw clench. I wasn’t sure if he hated pizza or if he was just grumpy, but we unfortunately, needed him. And knowing Arlo, he probably felt that we were waiting his skills and time.
Instead of dignifying him with a response, I just gestured to him to start if that’s what he wanted. He didn’t understand that the rest of us had been at this for weeks, and every time we thought we were getting close to answers, something else would come up. He didn’t understand how exhausted everyone in this room was. He didn’t get it, and I honestly hoped he never would. But if he wanted to push it, I wasn’t going to stop him. They were his bridges.
Arlo’s gave me the side-eye, but started anyways.
“Why do you want to know what I know about the gods anyway?” He asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I answered as Grace opened her mouth. I wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but I didn’t want Arlo to have more information than he needed right now. I used to trust him completely, but his reaction to the kids being just simply in the pack was changing my opinion.
“Well, you asked me to look into the land of the gods, yes?”
I nodded, and he grabbed one of the books he had laid out.
“Everything we know about the Land of the Gods is broken up. We obviously worship the Moon Goddess. She is who we go to if we need anything, and she seems pretty all knowing, at least that is how we’ve always used her. She has never let her ‘children’ go without.”
“Right... That’s not new information...” Heather said slowly.
Arlo shot her a glare this time, and I rolled my eyes and rubbed my temples. This was going to be a long night if this was going to be how it went.
“Well, it is a little bit,” Maizie spoke up, looking up from the magazine she was still flipping through. “The Red Blood pack didn’t worship her. We didn’t worship anybody.”