ARRANGEMENTS TO DISAGREE ON

UNKNOWN PERSON’S POV

“You’re certain it was her you saw?”

“Yes, master. She was there with the younger one crossing werewolf borders.”

The person behind the sinister voice smiled widely, “I don’t need to tell you what to do, do I?”

The person cupped their arms to the voice and bowed, “No master”

“Good leave”

I watched in fear from the table I was strapped to; please be safe Gaia.

I turned my head to the ceiling and silently prayed to the gods.

*********

GAIA’S POV

The sound of metal clinking led me to the training ground in search of Thomas Evans my right-hand man. He’s been with me from the bad times to the worse when we had fallen to a place, we couldn’t fall further past. Both of us had bonded over the loss of something enough that made us wish for death. Yet it was because we had each other that we recovered from it and learned to move on. I followed the purple line in my view leading me to where he was. A soul bond between us, an invisible line to others, one that ties us to each other. Thomas was someone who knew me better than I knew myself.

When I entered the line led me to the third training room, I entered the large field and walked over to Thomas who was in the middle of training what looked like the second training group. Thomas was a male of average height standing at 5’10, he was lean with light dust brown straight hair to his mid-back that he now wore in a high ponytail. The first time I met him, it took me less than a week to realize what Thomas despised the most was his feminine appearance. He had the high cheekbones to accentuate the curve of his eyes and the small button nose he had, long curled eyelashes, sparkling gold eyes, and a beauty mark just under his left eye.

When they spotted me approaching, they stopped what they were doing and bowed in unison with their hands cuffed in front of them, “Master”

Waving my hand for them to continue, I signaled Thomas to follow me to one of the tigank-dame for a sparring match to calm my mind. A tigank-dame was just a small area in the training grounds used for individual matches; the only difference being the markings on the ground, once stepped in there was complete privacy for speech and hearing. I grabbed a sword from the rack on the wall and grabbed a piece of rope to tie my hair up.

“What?”, I asked when I noticed Thomas watching me silently with questioning eyes.

“I can feel your distress not to mention that roller coaster of emotions a few hours ago.”, he said walking up to me with his sword in his hands.

“You know what’s wrong without me telling you, so why are you still asking?”, I asked with a roll of my eyes as I walked up to him.

“You know I would much prefer we talk about it than you to take it out on me like this”, he gestured between us as we got into a fighting stance.

When I swung my sword at him starting our spar, he stopped questioning me. Usually, the tigank-dame would stop the spar after an hour if there wasn’t a defeat; because of the large amount of stamina we had, it took a lot for us to get worn out. Sparing matches like this helped me blow off steam the healthy way. After the countless exchange of blows with our swords, I decided to drop the news on him, “It’s a total of 3 things, do you want bad to worse or random?”

Dodging when I slashed the sword down his shoulder, he somersaulted to escape the swipe I took at his feet, “Bad to worse”

I stepped back and thrust my sword to his side when he swung his sword from behind his back at my neck, “Iris found her mate”

I blocked the sword from hitting my face and pushed back when he tried forcing it down. I looked up at him in the eyes and deadpanned, “It’s a wolf”

He blinked at me, “That’s……. interesting”

He jumped back as I threw my leg up in a high kick. Feeling myself getting tired, I decided to end the match by throwing the bomb at him, “My mate also happens to be the wolf’s alpha”

That was enough to shock him. When he faltered in his steps, I spun my sword in my hands and disarmed him. His sword slid into a corner as I rose mine to his neck, ending the spar. I snapped my fingers as the swords went back into their holders in the rack on the wall while the walls came down. The glow on the tigank-dame dimmed down and eventually powered down. When I noticed Thomas remained speechless, I turned to overwatch the field of warriors spread out training. Unlike other covens, due to our circumstances, I had to reevaluate our laws. Unless you were below the age of 10 or pregnant, training was mandatory. To give everyone a fair fighting chance, it was what was needed to be done to stay alive. I wrote the training modules and oversaw the training personally; but whenever I was needed elsewhere, that responsibility was handed to Thomas who was personally trained by me. A ding sounded in the air ending practice as people went their way. I had the grounds enchanted when it was built to ensure privacy and return of weapons when training ended. I watched as the materials returned to their place and the various tigank-dame that were in use shut down.

I turned back to Thomas whose emotions are felt on the edge of going haywire.

“You found WHO?!” “Gaia that’s impossible and you know it”

“Yes, I am aware of that Thomas, but I know what I felt and what I saw in those eyes. Find out as much as you can about the Carters of the werewolf pack ‘Todium’ and meet me in the back garden in an hour. They need to be updated on this as well”

*********

THIRD-PERSON POV

Iris and Thomas walked into the back garden where the entire Flanington family sat at the long table.

“It must be something pretty important for you to call all of us together like this”, Delany spoke from her seat next to Lucus.

“It must be if she allowed Iris out of her palace”, Nathaniel snickered from his seat in front of Daniel.

Gaia walked over to their parents first to acknowledge them before taking her seat at the front of the table with Thomas following suit before standing behind her chair with his arms folded across his chest, “Mother. Father”

The Flanington family had a total of 9 children; 10 if you included the adoptee, Thomas.

Dario, a white male with bright blue eyes and raven-colored hair standing at a height of 6’7”, Fiona, a dark-skinned black woman with eyes as dark as the night and hair the color of wet wood stood at 5’7”. Their children were the exact mixture of the two, all various shades of brown but a consistent head of thick curls and blue eyes the color of the sea. The only exception was little Kayden the youngest who took his mother’s dark eyes; the first-ever male born to the sun coven.

“This meeting is just to update you on the things that transpired recently involving iris breaking palace laws and her reasons.”, Gaia started.

Iris rolled her eyes in annoyance as everyone placed their attention on her momentarily before turning back to Gaia. Gaia glanced at her sister while she took the folder Thomas handed to her and then continued with what she was saying.

“I found her on werewolf territory snug with a wolf male who appears to be the younger brother of the alpha to the pack that has resided there for the last century. Keiho is the voice in the vision iris has been seeing and now that they’ve met, we can’t keep them separated anymore. However, with William still looking for us she can not leave here alone either. Meaning one of us needs to be with her when she leaves. There is no objection to him coming here but the portal is opened only by father and ONLY when I deem it safe. Any objections?”, Gaia said in one breath looking pointedly at her older siblings.

“If she gets in the way of my experiments, I’m not doing it. My research is one of the many things that’s kept us hidden for this long and I am not stopping my progress because iris needs a bloody babysitter.”, Delany inputted.

“You think I need you to look after me like I’m some child? I can take care of myself, and I certainly don’t need you being a bitch to me about it.”, Iris cut in.

Out of Nathaniel’s mouth came a sarcastic laugh, “Is that what you were doing? Protecting yourself? Is that why Lucus found you so easily with that pathetic excuse of a cloaking spell and protection charm you had on?”

“I should be focusing on keeping this place hidden and now I need to take time out to watch over you.”, Lucus suddenly spoke with a sign to words.

“Kitilya isn’t even well versed in protection charms and yet hers are much more effective than yours”, Daniel scoffed.

“Leave me out of this”, Kitilya groaned.

“Couldn’t you have waited a few more years little sister? The wolf wasn’t going anywhere. They’re immortal after all.”, Nathaniel cut in while glancing at Iris over his shoulder. He sat between Delany and Lucus further to the front of the table with a lazy smile on his face, blue eyes twinkling with mischief flipping a switchblade in the air and between his fingers.

“You- “

Dario got tired of their growing argument and slammed his palm on the surface of the table, “ENOUGH!”

“There is something else I need to inform you of. Before I knocked them out, I had a chance to look at the alpha of the pack. That wolf is also my mate.”, Gaia sighed as she rubbed her temple in frustration.

Silence covered the room as everyone looked at Iris and tried to comprehend the weight of the words she just said.

“That’s impossible.”, Nathaniel was the first to speak, all traces of humor gone.

“I’d like to believe that too but when I looked in his eyes, I felt it. The soul bond. It snapped together just like before, the same feeling."

Dario furrowed his brows together, “But that doesn’t make any sense. There has never been a case of something like this before.”

Fiona grabbed his hand and looked at her daughter, “I’ll seek wisdom from the ancestors and find out all that I can.”

Iris stood and asked her sister, “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll figure it out, for now, I will go with you when you’re going to see your mate and try to find out what the hell is going on. Lucus, reinforce the barrier on the west side near the training grounds and Daniel can inform the group in charge of cleaning today that the temple door needs to be changed?”

Gaia got up and prepared to leave before she remembered she forgot to do something and turned to Fiona, “Also I need a new batch of serum”

“No problem honey”

“Thank you, mother. Dismissed.”