TOUR OF MY NEW HOME

6 FEBRUARY, SATURDAY, PLAYDATE

Ki led us on a informative tour around our estate. If not for this tour, I would've lived all my life in complete ignorance of the finer points of my new home.

The Alpha's house was made of prefabricated rooms selected from a range of designer series with customized detailing. Made from renewable materials with special eco-friendly features throughout, from solar panels to the salt water pool and energy efficient heat pump.

The glass used for most part of the house also had an inbuilt filter screen that not just allows for privacy, but also helps insulate the house and keeps out harmful UV rays. It's also bullet proof.

The layout was planned for formal and casual entertaining, with the different first floor rooms configured such that simply by sliding open these glass doors, one might cater for a cosy dinner party or a large scale backyard BBQ in the summer.

Upstairs would be the Alphas family's secure and private quarters.

Killion led us through he conservatory, noting a few points of interest about the decorative fixtures, plants, and random ornaments we passed. I had never known that the old painting from the Alpha Apartment was a very original famous-artist-i-forgot-the-name-of painting. Ki told the story of how my Dad was visiting his home pack in Night Forest when a street side artist begged him to buy one of his paintings. Dad hadn't wanted a painting, but he felt sorry for the malnourished wolf and handed him a hundred dollars.

Later on, this artist became one of the top artists in the continent. When he died, the value of his paintings skyrocketed.

Henry looked unnecessarily impressed, "A hundred bucks? I should tell my dad. My mum recently bought a few of his works from a private collector for an obscene amount of money."

We entered the pool room and Ki continued in tour guide mode as my friends' gaze travelled the glass tiles across the walls.

The side wing (my tower) was an appendix to the main house. As with the rest of the house, the first floor pool was for daily exercise, as well as entertaining. By sliding open the glass doors on various sides of the pool room, it would connect the pool to the outdoors during warmer seasons too.

The beta quarters, laundry and living facilities, as well a small gym were located on the second floor of the side wing. My room was on the third, allowing the Alpha Princess privacy and space to conduct her business without affecting the rest of her home.

"What kind of business does an Alpha Princess conduct?" Henry wanted to know.

Yeah, what kind of business does an Alpha Princess conduct? I would like to know too.

Ki answered without even batting an eyelid:

Right now the Alpha's princess role was largely ambassadory in nature, bringing together our merging partners and honored alliances.

Ki paused here to honor Henry with one of his perfect smiles before continuing:

The Future Alpha Office also dealt with the planning and construction of the Princess Town, and worked closely with the Alpha's office to support pack projects and events, particularly those concerning the transition of pack leadership to the new generation.

Wow. The Future Alpha Office sounded really important. I should put Ki in charge of my PR. Oh wait, he probably already was....

"Can I see the office?" Henry wanted to know.

"Of course." Ki agreed, "Our office is located on the top floor of our Packhouse. Its just next door."

"I want to see the cars too." Henry said.

"I'll be happy to show them to you." Killion beamed.

I tried to squelch my inward groan. I'm quite sure everyone else was tired of all the fancy tour talk. We were this close to being one of "Tour of my super fancy apartment" YouTube videos. I mean it was fun at first... But after a while, too much showing off would make you sick."

Well no, Ki was rather factual and third-party about showing the house, so it was more like the home magazines featured house type of thing. Mum had been leaving a lot of home magazine around the alpha apartment so I've seen quite a lot of examples of how to bring light into your home and "it was the home we had always dreamed of" stories.

"Oohhh! Can we see your room, Sam?" Abigail asked, "I'm really curious what a princess' room would look like."

I flashed back to my old room with the old wooden bed and mismatched clean sheets... Or the bunk beds cramped with manga - but with matching sheets because unlike mum, it went against Ki's moral compass to use unmatching sheets!

That would be sacrilegious.

I missed my old sheets before the fire. I think part of me had sort of assumed I would get them back, with my torn jeans and kindergarten sweatsuit, and furry toys, when the house got fixed.

But the house was fixed... And it looked nothing like our old one. I was walking in the pages of one of those magazines showing a designer home that had done everything right... And the sheets were new... I guess this was partly because my bed was round. So it needed round sheets? Hmmm how did that work?

I know Ki had made valiant effort to use lemon essential oils to mask the new scent, but it was still there. Only Sir Sparkalot smelled like home.

And my clothes... I always just put on whatever that was hung out for me. Back in the alpha apartment, Ki would arrange my outfits on a hanger and leave it on the hat stand. Mum and Savy shopped. I barely knew what I had.

I missed knowing what I had. I missed doing my own shopping even if most of my fashion choices were sweats or jeans and funny cartoon t-shirts.

And now... To be honest, I had no idea what I had. Currently, my wardrobe would be whatever I saw hung on a golden open clothes rack that somewhat resembled an open birdcage at one end of my room. It had wheels so it could be wheeled in and our of the hidden wardrobe room, and a shelf under the hanging rack for matching bags and shoes, a basket for laundry, and even a smaller shelf by it for accessories. Very efficient.

This morning, I had found clothes there, so I had gotten into them without asking any questions. I had never seen what I was currently wearing. It was like a blind date with clothes every time.

Well, except for my school uniform.

And it wasn't a like nightmarish blind date type of thing, since Ki was the main matchmaker in consultation with my Mum and Savy. I would've probably, no definitely done worse on my own.

Suddenly, I really wished I could go back to my old life... The one with mismatched bedsheets and smelled like me. The one with a shared walk in closet with Savy that we could use for our secret rendezvous, to argue over outfits, or hide pet guinea pigs in...

When I meet the rogue king, I'm going to burn his old sheets and take away his favourite furry toys! And and... Wait, I don't think Rogue Kings had favourite furry toys... But they definitely had sheets! (And I'm burning those.)

Yeah, note to self. I'm going to burn the Rogue King's sheets and force him to be stuck with lemon scented new ones.

Alright, fine... When I put it that way, it just didn't sound quite so punishing.

Anyway, we were walking up the stairs to my room by now. I guess everyone took my silence as consent.

"Wow, you're literally living like a princess in an ivory tower." Abigail said.

"It's not ivory. It's mostly reinforced wood farmed from sustainable methods." I corrected.

"Yes, but that's basically the same thing." Abigail brushed it off with a wave of her hand.

(It was not.)

We reached the top of the tower. The pale pink plush carpeting soft under my feet.

The human girls were panting. That's a human for you, 3 flights of stairs and they need to catch their breath.

Killion led us to the sofas outside, "The guys will have to wait here. No males beside family members and her betas are allowed into her room."

Seriously?

"Who came up with that rule?" I asked.

It didn't sound like something Dad would say, not explicitly anyway.

"Your Luna." Ki answered, his smile never wavering.

That dumbbell! (I meant my Luna, not Ki. I'm not the type to fault a beta for simply carrying out an order.... An order from my very overprotective and dumb Mate.)

Yeah, it was exactly what my Luna would say.

Henry took a seat, flicking on his phone, "Yeah, just go on. Don't take too long though. I still want to see the cars."

Marcus sat down in Beta Praying Position... Okay fine, he was back to taptaptapping on his screen. Liam lounged back lazily on a side sofa. Fluffy, I mean Alaric continued smiling from next to Ki.

Alaric was still always smiling. He seldom sat down too. It was like he was always on his guard.

"Come on, Sam!" Abigail said.

"Urm... It's not..." I started as I reluctantly went over to the door.

"It's not what?" Abigail demanded.

It's not my room? But it was... at least it was all the room I had now. It's not really nice? My style? Me? I didn't really know. It just wasn't really my anything right now...

I opened the door and stepped in. The girls followed after me.

"Woah!"

Yeah okay, let's go... I tried to retreat out of the room quickly, let's not keep the guys waiting all day...

"Is that what you're going to wear later?" Krystal asked.

"Urm... Yes?" I answered before looking at what was hanging in the golden birdcage rack.

"Casual, yet chic." Abigail approved.

Now that I looked, I was going to be wearing a dark blue silk halter with a pair of jeans and a leather jacket later.

Yes! Leather jacket... But I'm not sure what's with the silk halter. It was the first time I've ever seen it.

"Urm... No... No. I'm not wearing that." I said.

"Why? I bet it'll look sexy." Pearl said.

Ki had entered the room.

"What the heck is that?" I pointed at the rack and flared.

"It's for the party later." Ki informed me, "Your sister is wearing a matching set in red. But I can pull out another outfit for you if you find it disatisfactory."

Savy was wearing a red silk halter later? There was NO WAY Mum was going to let her out of the house in that... Oh wait, Savy would be going to the party from Lizzy's. That sneaky white fox.

I felt torn about not matching my sister though. Mum usually put us in matching outfits whenever she dressed us up. And with Savy living so far away now... (Okay, in the main house like metres away from my isolated tower...T.T) I was reluctant to be further distanced from her.

"Fine, I'll wear it, but I'm NOT taking off the jacket." I told Ki.

"It might get very warm." Ki cautioned.

Grrr....

"Might I recommend a cropped cardigan under your jacket?" Killion flipped the switch that opened up the wardrobe.

The girls gasped... It was like heaven opened up in front of them. Hahahaha

They followed Ki into the wardrobe without invitation.

"This is like a dream..." Jasmine said.

"Somebody pinch me." Zara agreed.

"Wow, you really like the edgey labels huh?" Abigail was inspecting the jackets.

I was the only one still outside the wardrobe.

Someone knocked on the door, it was Marcus, "Sorry ladies, Alpha Henry would like to move on."

The girls popped back out, but only to protest at the still shut bedroom door.

"But Henry! Her wardrobe is huge!" Zara yelled at the door, "There's no way we can go through all those clothes so quickly."

"Who the hell goes through other people's clothes?" Henry shot back.

Ki came out with a thin black stretchy cardigan. It was kind of short, cropped so that it's mostly sleeves.

He hung it on the rack.

"OMG, I need to try this. You don't mind do you, Sam?" Abigail asked. She had it on before I could answer and came out to show off the white fur coat.

"It's so luxurious. Is it real?" She asked.

"Yes." I decided, "I killed my mate and used his pelt to make it."

Ki chuckled at that.

"Come on." I had enough of this, "Let's go before Henry's patience explodes."

Ki helped Abigail out of the white coat and carefully rehung it. I guess it must have been a special coat. Either that or it was really expensive.

"You've got so many nice clothes." Jasmine told me.

I shrugged, "My mum and sis like to shop."

"What about you?" Krystal ask, "Don't you shop?"

"Yeah, but not that much." I said. No one could shop as much as Mum and Savy. NO ONE. I felt quite sure of it. Except for Mrs. Beta and Lizzy. Yeah, maybe them, and Laura... Come to think of it, Jonah's mum was quite an avid shopper too. Too bad she didn't have a daughter to "help".

Hmmm... Perhaps what Night Forest needed wasn't a billion dollar IT infrastructure or industry rehaul... All it needed was a good shopping mall to recover their economy.

Tada! Financial Crisis adverted. I'm a genius... Not.

I sighed, feeling relieved that we were going back down the stairs again. We're going to get our coats, see the cars, and then head over to the packhouse where the guestrooms had been prepared for my friends.

My friends could rest a little before dinner, and Henry and whoever was interested could come up to the Future Alpha Office to take a look.

"Sounds good." Henry gave a nod to Ki's plan.

Ah the best laid plans of mice and men...