The Wannabe Warrior
Chapter 117

Madison POV

The morning came quickly, or should I say afternoon, it was just after midday, when I woke and left the room.

I did not bother with a shower. I looked over at the sleeping Zane, and made that decision, to get out of here fast.

I quickly got dressed and headed to the dining hall, and hoped to replace out what Ezekiel had organised.

Glad to see, when I entered the dining hall, to see my dad sitting with his new mate, talking softly with a gentle smile on his face, I walked around behind him and kissed his cheek and gave him a side-hug.

‘Afternoon dad, Cecilia.’ I nodded at Cecilia, not yet comfortable to do much more than that.

Maybe later when all this is calmed down, I can have some time with her and have a lady’s day or some kind of bonding day.

Yeah, that sounds good. I will ask dad later.

‘Afternoon Ezekiel, Mitch, Lucy and Ryan and everyone else, sorry for my behaviour yesterday at dinner.’ I greeted them, then sat by dad, grabbed some food, everyone stared at me for a moment, and then greeted me softly back, not mentioning my apology, which I was grateful for.

The table was chatting about the ball still, something I had long forgotten, and it was nice to hear some good come out of the ball. Graham was not at the table yet and I hoped that meant he was curled up in bed with his mate still.

I understood part of why Zane was not happy. We had not really had time to get to know each other. Maybe when all is done, we can look at resolving some of our issues.

‘Dad, I want a day off, Alpha, when are the Elders coming?’ I asked softly.

‘Tomorrow, go have today off and have some fun.’ Ezekiel answered kindly.

‘How about I take Lucy and Cecilia home to visit their family and take Addison along to meet the Deep Earth people, a lady’s day of sorts.’ I suggested with eagerness. Just as I suggested this, Graham and Addison arrived at the table and greeted us.

‘Perfect timing, son.’ Dad said, which made Graham look up at him with expectation.

‘Madison had just suggested that the girls go visit the Deep Earth family’s and have a girl’s day out.’ Dad informs Graham and Addison.

Addison squealed and Graham beamed in delight.

‘Excellent idea.’ Graham beams at me and then turns to his mate with a look so pure it made my heart melt, my brother is all grown up.

He gave Addison a sweet k**s. And asked Addison.

‘Would you like to go?’

‘Please.’ She squealed and hugged Graham.

‘Take some warriors with you, and use the cart. You can take some more food over to them. I know we have a lot of cakes and bread left over from the wedding we can share with them.’ Ezekiel said thoughtfully and Lucy leaned over and gave him a soft k**s, for his thoughtfulness.

With that sorted, we finished eating and headed off together. I sat in the front and drove the cart full of goodies for our underground friends, Addison beside me and Cecilia and Liza sat at the back on top of some boxes.

We arrived quickly, having chatted about the ball and meeting new people. The three of them had grown closer, while I had been busy with pack stuff, and I had to force the feeling of jealousy away.

Alex met us at the main cave entrance, with a number of excited people waiting to take the food from the cart, lots of thank you and bows were made as we were escorted into the underground home.

Cecilia seemed to be the one to take charge and walked us to her parents’ home, introducing us and then Lucy took us to hers. We ended up settling in a large communal lounge with other ladies joining us and talking about, well, everything from the clothes worn at the ball to the food and decorations. The ladies were enthralled by everything above ground.

The conversation eventually made it to the rogues and I talked a little about the Dark River pack and my worry about Addison and Graham going there.

Lucy asked me to go with her and we met up with Alex, who took us to a room not unlike the outer office with a huge diorama, but not like ours, much bigger and better, and it had lines for the underground system, and it was huge.

‘Alex, you are saying that this here.’ And I pointed to a red mass on the other side of the green one that was the palace. ‘Is the Dark River pack and it is marked red, like here, here and here.’

‘Yes, Red means danger. Be careful if you venture outside in those areas.’ He said, pointing to an orange one.

‘Here they are nasty, but so far we have had no deaths.’

‘We have sent Alpha’s to those three packs. This one was Frederick’s, that one was Samuel’s and that one was Henricks, that we found dead amongst the rogue decaying bodies. This is the Dark River pack. My brother Graham was going to take over with Peter. You have caves up there?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Sweetheart, see these lines in yellow all over the place.’ I nodded, urging him to go on.

‘They are tunnels, and these here in purple are the pack bases.’

‘But that is like eight packs. You have eight packs living underground?’ I asked incredulously.

‘What, you think after over one thousand years of living underground we were just a little area? No, we have packs all over the world, and we can help you with the Dark River Pack. It is only one hour underground and the pack that lives up there would love to wipe them out with your permission, all of them, men, women and children.’ Alex suggested with enthusiasm.

‘The woman and children?’ I gasped in shock.

‘Yes, if you leave them alive, they will eventually want revenge, and you will be back where you are now. If we do it in the night, quietly. No one will know who did it. Only those who need to know. Will Ezekiel be okay with that?’

‘Do you have enough men for that?’ I asked, still working out if I could sleep with all the dead, and then thought of waking up to replace all the men dead and us woman and children left to pick up the pieces as a child of six and realise he is correct, the revenge I had for my mother and Luna, would be tenfold if a whole community woke to replace all their mates dead.

‘Of course, we have over thirty thousand people living underground around the world, though we here, are the smallest with about four thousand in our pack, our problem was not that we could not fight, but who to fight. Those who attacked us caught us unawares. We had been discussing fighting back. When Anton suggested sending him out to replace the king, we did not know how large any of his packs were and if we fought back, we were inviting a bigger problem. Then we ended up blocking the tunnels that go elsewhere to protect the other packs, we could not risk being taken over and giving those smelly men access to our whole community. That would be devastating. So, we isolated ourselves to protect the rest of the community and we ended up stuck with no way of getting many out to get food. It was my son who suggested using the vents. He managed to get out and get rabbits a few times, and what he could get was not enough to keep us going, so he suggested going to replace you. And I am so ever humbled by my son’s ability to replace the right people to help us, I had thought of him only as a youngster, but he has proved to be more than I thought he was.’ He said with a puffed-up chest and a glow in his face as he talked about his son.

‘Let me get Ezekiel here, he will want to see this room and understand what you can offer us. We do need a better understanding of what you can offer and still keep you in hiding, as it were, are you okay with that?’. Looking at the diorama with war eyes and seeing so many solutions to our problems above ground.

‘Certainly, I am sure we have a lot in common. I will call our alpha from the pack nearest the Dark River pack and the king and he can discuss how we can improve our living space.’ He says with a chuckle at a joke he only understood.

I mind link Ezekiel.

‘Alpha?’

‘Madison? What is wrong?’

‘Come to the Deep Earth pack, please.’

‘Can it wait till tomorrow after the Elders have had our meeting? I have a lot to prepare.’

‘No, come now, please.’ I urged.

‘Is it that urgent?’

‘Yes, you must come before you see the Elders. Please.’ I keep urging him to try to show it is important without stressing him out.

‘Okay, I will be there in an hour.’

‘Ezekiel will be here in an hour.’ I said to Alex.

‘Good, I have called Zakary, he will be here in an hour too.’

We spent the time waiting, talking about the other packs and I could see much that would be benefited by our alliance, and I understood the need to keep their locations a secret.