Crying in pleasure

Chapter 26: Traveling to her

Alex's POV

" Is the arrival this far away?" Celia asks us for the twenty millionth time in half an hour. We've traveled for less then two hours but she already feels tired and bored. Wonder what she does when she travels to Europe, staying for more than 10 hours on an airplane. Guess she's less expectant when she leaves, though. 

The others, however, are definitely keeping a low profile: Captain Smith and his mate, a pack warrior called Cristiano, are having a reserved talk, probably about strategy lines as I notice they are keeping on pointing at a big map they had previously put on the little glass table in the middle of my private jet. Driana, after having openly disagreed with us on the choice we made to travel by plane, has been glancing worriedly out of the little windows, shivering violently and sighing every single time the pilot changed way, despite of all the reassuring words we, and especially Jake, had told her. She didn't relax even when he started kissing her in the attempt to calm her down. She, however, has now finally stop sighing every time she feels something bad could happen thank to Amber, who has finally chosen to intervene telling her to trust the pilot that she, the Queen, had chosen for them.

Amber, in fact, has been looking outside the windows the whole time, her back firmly pressed on my chest, but her mind far away from me, lost in her thoughts, in lands where I wish i could follow her bur where no one is allowed to go except from the one and only owner: she. Her fingers are absently drumming on the windowsill, following the rhythm of an unknown and long forgiven song she starts humming every now and then, her melodious voice filling the thick air inside the plane. I must know he thoughts. Not knowing what and especially who she's thinking of is more painful than being cut with the sharpest knife or being killed and then brought back to life.

" What are you thinking about?" I eventually ask her through mind link. She tilts her head enough to stare back in my eyes, hers finally noticing we are still in the airplane, sat on the comfy armchairs, and not in the forbidden lands where she has just been.

" The last time I flew on jet." She answers still through mind link, shrugging: she doesn't want to share her memory but, if she has to, she wants only me to know about that and not everyone.

" Was it a long time ago?" I ask her, not wanting to get immediately to the point. I myself don't think her last flight has been more than six months ago: I fly every now and then because my kingdom, being quite wide and especially cold, can't be traversed on foot (or paws) during the cold winters. Her territory, even if not as cold as mine, is even wider and considering she never shifts, I doubt she could get in the eastern lands without using a plane or a jet.

" Almost four years." Is all she says. My eyes widen as I look at her in disbelief: how could that be possible? I'm quite sure she came to the International Werewolf Convention in England last year, where I refused to go only because I knew she would have been there.

" I flew by public plane, didn't want to squander my people's money." She tells me guessing what my next question would have been.

" What!? They could have killed you! I could have killed you! That was the least safe thing you could do, Amber." I mentally scold her.

" Who would have ever thought a powerful werewolf Queen travelled by public planes? Answer: no one. You Royals tend to be more keen to show your richnesses than to be practical." She gives me a lesson making me feel a complete idiot: not only she has showed me the safer way is sometimes the one we think could be the less safe one, but also she has taught me that a real leader can turn down his benefits for his people's sake.And that's why I love her.

" You're right. That's why the Moon chose for me a mate as clever and generous as you: to remind me my people's sake is by far the most important thing of all." I tell her through the mind link meaning it. She smiles at me, staring into my eyes, trying to understand if she could trust me.