The Alpha Bond

Chapter-8

Celina

What do we tell the others?

What just happened? It’s like my life just had a massive Earthquake out of nowhere. All our dreams of spending our lives together, exploring the world, just gone.

What about Cyra? How will she handle losing a parent at the age of fourteen?

While I was still thinking about all of that, Cyrus just stormed out of the house. I immediately followed him. I knew how he got whenever he got angry. Once, he tore down an entire hut.

I followed him to the garden where he just punched a tree.

“Cyrus stop!” I shouted.

I quickly went up to him and made him sit down.

“How could they do that to someone? Forty years of my life in return of forty years of slavery for the devil! I know for fact that when he agreed to this deal, slavery did not mean cooking and cleaning for him. Now, either one of us would have to go through that! How’s that fair?” he shouted.

I turned his face towards me and he looked me in the eye. I could see the anger burning in his eyes.

“Cyrus, I know it’s not fair. But look from your parents’ shoes. Would you not have done the same thing if Cyra was on the verge of dying? Wouldn’t you have done anything to save her at the moment? They did the same thing. Plus, I would’ve never met you if they didn’t do it. I would’ve been alone; god knows how surviving with a wolf I didn’t know how to control. I wouldn’t have you in my life. You gave me a family, a home; and I’ll always be thankful to your parents for that, even if it means serving the devil for the next forty years. I know this is not what we had planned but it’s okay. We’ll figure it out. And at least, we have ten more years to be together, right?”

“They could’ve at least told me about it before.” He said a bit calmer than before.

“I know, but telling your child that he or a random person would be the slave of the devil when he turns forty isn’t easy.”

He nodded. I put my head on his shoulder and rubbed his arm.

I could feel him getting calmer every second.

We stayed like that for some time before we went back inside. His parents were sitting there worried. They noticed us coming in.

“We’re sorry Cyrus and Celina. But it was all we could think of doing at the moment. Anything was better than losing you.” His mother said.

“It’s okay Mom, we understand. Any parent would’ve done that to save their child. Plus I wouldn’t even be here if you didn’t do that.” He said and hugged them.

After that, we sat in the car to go back home. It was already very late and Cyra must be waiting for us.

“What do we tell the others?” I asked him in the car.

“The truth. They deserve to know if they’ll lose one of us in ten years. What about Cyra though? We’ll have to tell her about it eventually.” He said.

“We’ll figure that out later. Right now, we need to eat something and rest; we need all the energy we can get. I’ll call a meeting in the morning after the girls go to school. We’ll tell them then.”

He nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The next day~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up early and got dressed. To be honest, I didn’t sleep at all last night. Neither of us did. I don’t know how to tell them.

I already told Elliot to clear my schedule for today and prepare for a meeting with our family in the morning. Thankfully we didn’t have any meetings this week, since we had discussed the urgent issues with our allies at the ball itself, so it was an almost free week.

I could tell that Elliot was surprised and curious about my urgency for this meeting with them, but he didn’t question it.

After seeing the girls off to school, we all met in the conference hall. It was a soundproof, confidential room where all the important decisions were made.

After Cyrus, V, Elliot, Amara, and Aaron (Aaron was basically like a part of the family now, so we invited him too) were in the room, I began.

“Good morning to all of you. Now I know that you all must be curious about why I called you here today and well, we have to tell you something.” I began.

Everyone nodded, silently waiting for me to continue. I looked into Cyrus’ eyes and took a deep breath.

“Remember the day of our anniversary? Before Cyrus came in with the gift, we were talking about the matching marks. Well, we asked our parents about it and….”

“What did they tell you?” V asked softly while I gathered the courage and tried to find the words to tell them. It’s one thing to hear something, but telling someone else about it just makes it a hundred times more real.

Cyrus noticed my expression and took over for me,

“They told us about a deal they made thirty years ago….”

We took turns explaining the situation. No one said anything until we were finished. After a few minutes of silence, Amara finally spoke.

“Are you guys okay?”

“We… we don’t know.” I answered.

“Why can’t we get a happy ending? When everything seems to go smoothly, the moon goddess explodes a bomb near our boat.” V said.

I noticed the tear in her eyes threatening to fall.

“I… um… can you tell me more about your marks? I think I’ve heard about them somewhere but I don’t want to give you false hope without knowing fully about them.” Aaron spoke.

“Do you mean, there might be a way to escape this?” Cyrus asked hopefully.

“I’m not giving you false hope till I’m certain there is a way; the only thing worse than what you are going through right now is if you get hope and it breaks. So, tell me about your mark.”