WHAT WAS IN THE GROUND

23 February, Tuesday, Continued

Ben's wolf sighed, it came out as a huffing sound, {Whatever you say Sam.}

Wait, was that Ben's way for saying "your wish is my command"? Awwww... Hahaha, I guess not, but it because it was funny the say he sounded so resigned. Poor beta, of all the alphas in the world, he was stuck with an eccentric racoon.

I backed off a little to give his large wolf the space to leap over the banisters on the second floor and pound down hard on the ground below. This time, the cave shook even worse than the first time. The cave made a low grunting sound, the chandelier shook so that a few candles blew out, and pieces of dried debris fell from the ceiling. It was kind of like at the Langston 2.0 but this time nothing was just plaster. It was real rock.

"What are you looking for goddess?" Ki enquired.

That was a good question. To be honest, I had no idea.

"Treasure?" I asked.

"We already have the lord's ring, Princess." Bell answered, as we took the flight of stone steps down to the living area, "What other treasure are there?"

Okay, I know Bell was my mate (and he was very cool and sigh-worthy and all ~ ❤️), but sometimes he could be very hard to figure out.

Truth to be told, this entire vampire lair was like... Henry's home - sorry, that was the closest comparison I had. The couch frames were gold plaited, the vases were probably collector antiques. Did he not notice the box where the two rings were kept? It was like someone filled a bedazzler gun with an endless supply of jewel fragments and decorated the box... and then decided to bedazzle random ornaments and place them on the flat surfaces of every furniture.

And of all the fine art and jeweled pieces, my mate chose the vamp ring. Not just any vamp ring. He had to pick the counterfeit one. *Internal face palm.

Actually, I wasn't much better. I had taken the other ring - but at least mine was the real deal! And the diary - but this was just out of curiosity. I had been keeping my own diary for a whole year now. It's been the longest diary I ever kept. I know its not yet March, but my earlier attempts lasted up to two weeks. Anyway, I just had to see for myself what was within the pages of a vampire's diary. Would it be terribly different from mine?

When the rumbling quieten, the rest of us went down to check out the widened hole.

"What's that Princess?" Bell just noticed the thick leather bound book in my hand.

"Oh this?" I acted like I was seeing it for the first time, "Just a book."

Bell stopped at middle of the stairs, "I'll put it back."

I shook my head and put the book behind me, "Mine."

In a different situation, this might have been the most romantic word in the world, but in this one, I was perfectly aware that I was being a brat.

"Why did you let her take that?" Bell turned his anger to my betas, "Don't you know vamps can mark and track down their personal belongings?"

No. I had no idea. I looked at Ben. Did Ben know?

{You took the ring.} Ben said, {Compared to an old book, I think she'd hunt you down first.}

Ooooh... actually, if I were her, I'd hunt down my diary first. So much for Ben's genius.

"No!" Bell was becoming increasingly irate, "Don't just let her do whatever she likes!"

And then Bell sighed, "Don't you think I had a use for this? Do as you're told and stop f***ing up my plans beta."

He held up the blasted ring. It had an intricate design but its black stone gleamed exactly like the one he wore.

"It would be easier to follow your plan if you would just tell us you had one." Ki smiled.

"Of course I had one! Who would be foolish enough to blindly enter a Vamp's hidden chamber... Did you think I just took that on impulse?" Now Bell was totally worked up, "What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

I rubbed his back, "There, there. You can't blame them."

My betas were trained to run without a plan. Especially since I was exactly that kind of idiot.

"It's okay. I'll just put this back." I offered in a bid to placate my Luna. He was really too stressed out lately.

Bell slammed his palm on the stone wall behind me, effectively blocking my path back up the stairs.

"I'm dream traveling so I won't leave any scent anyway." I tried to reason with him. I really was the best candidate for the job.

{There's a hidden compartment at the back of the bag.} Ben's wolf informed us, {You can replace the the laptop.}

Bell growled at the black wolf, "I told you to stop letting her do whatever she pleases!"

{I'm the only one who's allowed to spoil her.}

Eh, what?

{You know, she's our alpha, right?} Ben's wolf asked caustically.

I looked up at Bell's p***ed off face. He lifted his hand from the wall and moved away from me, "Whatever, I don't care."

Was this Bell's way to say, "Your wish is my command"? Hahaha. So funny. Only Ki ever actually says stuff like that though. But Ben was right. I was the Alpha. Naturally, they had to let me do whatever I pleased!

We stopped at the first side table by the stairs for Ki to open up what was left of Ben's backpack. He removed the laptop.

"You're seriously carrying a laptop?" I could not imagine what Ben had planned to do with it.

{Just a small one.} Ben's wolf bobbed his wolf head.

"Not that your wolf could type, Beta." Ki smiled.

"Shut up dog." Ben growled.

I decided to leave them be and go check the expanded hole in the ground. Hmmm... It looked like the most humongous pothole I had ever seen. But otherwise, there was no treasure. Weird. Could I have been wrong about this spot? Was there some kind of trick to it? Did Ben really smash it while breaking through the rock? But as far as I could tell, we were standing on solid rock - and that pothole used to be part of this solid rock too.

{Sam. You took the ring too, right?} Ben said, {Put it in the bag too.}

"You what?" Bell got worked up all over again. He roughly pull back his hair, "One of these days, princess..."

"You're going to chikaboom?" I asked tongue in cheek. Bell really needed to chill out more. I blamed it on his work. He was taking on too much at the time.

"You'll be the death of me, princess." Bell told me.

Pffftttt....He was being melodramatic again.

I was at that moment kneeling in front of the broken spot in the ground. I had meant to dig up the rocks to see what was underneath, but I had to straighten to reach into my pocket for the vamp ring. I pulled it out, its black stone gleaming like solid evil. And then I held it out over the broken ground to pass it to Ki.

Ben growled and was by my side in an instant. I think he was the one who sensed it first. I nearly dropped the ring, but my hair cleverly hooked it with one of its blades and returned it to my hand. A black sooty gas began to seep out of the gaps in the rocks. I backed off. Ki began glowing immediately. Bell pulled me to my feet and put me behind him.

"What the hell is that?" He demanded.

{Gas leak?} Ben suggested. He looked at me.

I don't know! I couldn't even smell it. Shouldn't they be the ones to tell me?

Ki smiled, "Let's not breathe this in."

Bell immediately turned my head into his shoulder. I had to struggle a bit to hand the ring to Ki so he could finish up packing. Ki didn't waste a second. He put it into Ben's packet of sugarless mints. We had come a long way from empty soap boxes.

{Oi.} Ben's wolf was not pleased, {Now you've contaminated my mints, dog.}

I found myself grinning, {So fun!}

Which was not really the appropriate reaction, I suppose. The next thing I knew, Bell had pretty much picked me up and we were out through the big hole Ben had made to come in. Looks like it was the end my fun. Boo sulked a little, but I was immediately distracted by the sight before me.

Now with Ki's light on, I could see the corridor I came in by. We gingerly stepped over a pile of arrows. It had been shot out from the opposite wall, but because it had hit the rock wall (and not my wolves), they were now on the ground like a game of pickup sticks. You could tell how fast and forceful each shot was because most of the arrows had broken on impact - even though they were made of metal. I looked back at my mate and betas. It was quite marvelous that they escaped that unscathed.

The next trap had deactivated. I think whatever was used to blast out the fire had run out of fuel. I couldn't smell anything, but I could still feel the heat on my skin. As we approached it, I was reminded of the dungeons after Fluffy had heated the floor.

Bell wrapped his jacket around me and plopped me on top of Ben, "Run!"

I understood why Ben had said they were nearly air-fried. Even though the two machines had stopped, it felt like sunburn. I ducked inside Bells jacket and flattened myself on Ben's wolf as he made a sprint through. First I worried about Bell - but he was a healer. So was Ki. I could siphon Bell's power- and I was double wrapped. It was Ben's wolf who was most likely to be roasted. Luckily it only lasted a few seconds.

Ben's wolf was growling, and the air cooled as we reached the first trap. This one was just a hole in the ceiling now. We found the boulder outside, stacked with the two other boulders I had used to scramble up to my gargoyle perch. Hm... did that mean these other two boulders had rolled out from this same tunnel? Had the first trap been activated before?

Bell pulled me off Ben, who immediately left the cave. We followed him out into the cold night air. Ben's wolf was rolling the heat off in the snow. Ki went over to him glowing. The sharp change of temperature made me shiver. It was quiet outside the cave. The snow was falling. I quickly shrugged off Bell's jacket and offered it back it him, "You should put this on."

"Keep it." Bell stepped forward. And then as typical of my bossy Luna, he had to give the orders, {Get ready guys, its showtime.}

Eh, what? But before I could ask, dark figures stepped out and Trevor and eight other Black Forest warriors appeared from the shadows of the trees around us.

Ki took Bell's jacket from my hand and dropped it over my shoulders. Ben's wolf returned to my side.

Trevor smiled his greeting, "Ah! You made it! A moment later and we'd be sending reinforcements.

Really? Because from the way he had stepped out from the treeline, and how the majority of his warriors were still hidden in the forest, but surrounding us, it felt a little more like an ambush.

"Cut the crap Trev." Bell growled, "Nothing happened."

"The entire mountain shook!" Trevor exclaimed at him, "Twice!"

Bell gave his signature smirk, "Would you believe, a sinkhole?"

He squeezed my hand, {Princess, leave the talking to me. Betas follow my lead.}

Oh...were we back to following Bell's plan? He still hadn't explained anything of it. What was my luna up to now? Because if I didn't know better, I would've thought that Bell was about to mess with the Black Forest Pack.