FINAL PREPARATIONS

Our clothes arrived before lunch as promised. Mostly black tights, smart black short boots, black sweaters, a black midi skirt, and a black long sleeved high neck dress. Also a black woollen coat and scarves and leather gloves.

I guess we hadn't bought many black clothing since the fire. Savy had said black was passé. Oh well, it seemed like black was here to stay after all.

Everything was more or less similar for Savy and me. These, coupled with other dark colored and grey items made up our wardrobes for the weekend.

Ki also included the gold bracelet with the heart on it. Savy packed her own accessories and stuck a box of hair ties and a brush in my bag.

The wardrobe was the easiest to solve, the next thing to tackle, according to Ki, was the PR issue of re-introducing the new Sam to our family in Night Forest.

He had an idea. This involved preparing a few gifts for our cousins. Ki had also purchased travel sized toiletries for us. He bought four sets in different fruity and flowery fragrances. We could each choose one and give our cousins the other two.

He also threw in some fruit flavored gummy candies, "Gifts sweeten the relationships."

What a totally Lorent way of doing things. BUT I didn't mind. I kind of got the feeling that Estella and Esmeralda would like the scented body washes and candy.

So all we had to do was wear the outfits and give our cousins the gifts. Ki and the other betas would take care of the rest.

"What exactly do you mean, 'the rest'?" I had to know.

Ki smiled sanguinely, "Trust me."

Savy was quite satisfied with that, "Thanks Ki."

I wasn't entirely certain I would like what Ki would do, but what's the worse that could happen?

Anyway, I was the Alpha. I would just deal with it when it happened.

I put my diary and textbook into my bag, We had a test on Monday. I almost forgot some of my files, but I didn't. This weekend might be a good time to go through some of the meeting notes.

And then I decided to take a nice long bath, just because I wanted to be alone for a while. I needed to be alone. I really did need space to be quiet for a bit.

I made myself a nice bubbly warm bath and got into it.

I couldn't believe we were going to visit Grandpa Alpha and Grandma Luna again... Oh wait a minute...Grandpa Alpha wouldn't be there.

I wondered what it would be like to visit Night Forest without Grandpa Alpha. I couldn't imagine such a place. I couldn't believe he wouldn't be there.

But Mum said he passed away, so it must be true.

I took a moment not wanting to accept that.

Then I closed my eyes.

Grandpa Alpha was dead? How did it happen? Grrr... No! I won't allow it!

But it had happened, and I wasn't there to stop it, and now he was gone.

I've somehow always thought that I could see him again anytime as long as I went back to Night Forest.

Grandpa Alpha liked to hunt deer. He was a good cook too. Everytime we went, he would cook us venison. It was my favourite dish there. Grandma Luna used to say if I moved to Night Forest, I could eat venison everyday.

Who would hunt and cook the venison now?

Grandpa Alpha used to take us to the lake behind their packhouse. We usually visited in the summer. Grandpa Alpha didn't like boats, so we would walk and play by the shore. He and Dad would roll up thier pants and play with us pups in the shallow of the lake. I would tell Dad he was lucky to grow up with Grandpa Alpha by the lake, but Dad said Grandpa Alpha was usually too busy to play when he was a pup.

But because Grandpa Alpha had retired and found time to play, he taught me to catch crickets, and glue things together with tree sap, eat wild herbs raw, and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I was the only pup of all his grandchildren who liked to follow him about. He was interesting. The other girls prefered to sit and have tea with our mothers, or read in their extensive library, or... actually I had no idea what else they did. I would always ask, "Where's Grandpa Alpha?"

And then I would spend the morning or afternoon following him out to the vegetable garden he grew behind his house. We would dig up the potatoes. I would catch earthworms.

Grandpa Alpha once took my hands in his and told me, "Your hands are so soft. That is no good. Look at my hands, they are rough. This shows that they are useful hands."

I went home and asked my Mum what I should do to make my hands rough so they could be useful.

"But Sam, you're a girl!" Mum had exclaimed. Mum was not a fan of Grandpa Alpha's ideas.

"Girls can be useful too!" I argued back.

There was this other time, I showed Grandpa Alpha my new doll. She could really drink milk from a special bottle and her eyes would close when I lay her down to sleep. I was very pleased with her. I wanted to take her everywhere with me. Grandpa Alpha told me that dolls were evil and they would come alive when I was sleeping at night.

I was so scared I cried a major alpha meltdown that night and wouldn't sleep till Mum took the doll away. I was terrified of dolls for most of my childhood since. Unfortunately, I did receive quite a number of dolls as gifts while growing up and my mum had to check wrapped gifts and hide dolls away before I got to them.

I also got into a lot of trouble with Grandpa Alpha. He let me drive his car. Apparently, I had "alpha commanded" him to let me. I managed to release the emergency break and it started rolling down a small hill. My Uncle Louis, Dad, and Grandpa chased and caught the car mid way down.

Another time my new dress shoes were hurting. Grandpa Alpha told me if my shoes were uncomfortable, to just take them off. He even helped me out of them. We hiked in the forest and then I fell over some branches and got one of my toenails torn out. The whole thing.

Grandpa Alpha carried me home with a bloodied toe. He showed my nailess toe to my parents rather proudly, "She didn't even cry!"

My parents were speechless. No doubt by my bravery. Hahaha. Just kidding. I now knew better- my parents were horrified beyond belief.

My mum still blamed Grandpa Alpha for my penchant of walking about barefoot.

To all our relief, the nail grew back flawlessly and even now as I wriggled my toes and studied them through the bubbly suds in my tub, I couldn't tell which one it was.

Last story, because I just remembered it and it was too funny.

One night, I was watching the full moon with Grandpa Alpha when I decided to inform him that the full moon was actually the Moon Goddess.

Grandpa Alpha feigned surprise and asked me, "Oh? Which part of the moon goddess is it?"

I looked at the round moon long and hard, and after careful deliberation, said, "Her butt."

Grandpa Alpha laughed and laughed and laughed. And then he told me I was exactly right.

I guess Grandpa Alpha did kind of mess me up. I wondered why I never noticed till now.

Actually, I still can't believe that it was over. And with the thought that I would never see Grandpa Alpha again, I started to cry.

I let myself cry because I figured that was also part of preparing for the trip. I wasn't going to cry in front of anyone, so it's best to finish the crying before we got there.

After that, I got out and got dressed. Ki and Savy had decided on black slacks, dark grey long sleeved t-shirt, and a dark navy v-neck cardigan for me. Savy was dressed similarly, but with a dark grey cardigan.

Our car convoy met us in front of the pack house. There was my betrothal gift from the Lorents, a dark blue Merc, followed by our silver town car helmed by Flynn and Hank, followed by Beta Lucas' car, and ended with another dark blue Merc identical to the first one.

This would be joined by Harvey's Porsche and Killion's Merc by nightfall so Flynn was to inform the parking at Night Forest to hold two more spaces for the Princess' Convoy.

Talk about overkill.

Dad looked only pleasantly surprised by the arrangement. "I'm being escorted by my daughter's convoy." He boasted to Beta Lucas.

Ben was there too. He would be riding with his dad and would be the beta accompanying me until Harvey and Killion could get there. He was looking remarkably serious in his dark charcoal grey suit over a midnight blue shirt. There was a black tie folded in his pocket.

Beta Lucas looked similarly dressed for the occasion. Black suit and white shirt. His tie was already on.

Actually all the other men, including Flynn and Hank were in full suits and white shirts too. Besides Flynn and Hank, we had eight more warriors on security detail. Why would we need security? Maybe they could guard the fancy cars. Heh heh heh.

Overkill.

Dad was also in a black suit over a white shirt. Mum was wearing a black sweater over grey tailored trousers.

I would have worried about being dressed too casually except that Killion had help choose our outfits. Plus Mum had seen us and nodded her approval earlier, so we should be okay. Anyway we were already on the porch, wrapped in our coats, so it was too late to change.

I shrugged at Ben who shrugged back. We got into our respective cars. Well, here goes nothing!