Primal

Chapter Thirteen - Party Planner

Unknown P.O.V.

His patent leather shoes stomped through the snow, his breath freezing in the air as he exhaled.

He pulled the doors open wide.

Immediately his eyes found her; her aging face, neck, and hands were coated in blood and her hair was stained with it.

Bodies littered the dirty floor around her. 

"You've been busy," he said, the decaying, coppery smell filling his nostrils.

Her eyes narrowed as she stood up. 

"And you're late."

- - -

Evelyn's P.O.V.

I hung out with Liu that morning after Adam showered and left for a meeting. 

She had come up to the room, asking if I wanted breakfast delivered to me. Instead, I suggested that she show me around. 

I had only been through a quarter of the castle at that point.

She showed me the kitchens—which there were three of—and informed me that they cooked over three hundred meals a day for the staff that worked in the castle. Nearly fifty people lived there, but over two hundred made the commute from the village each day to work in the castle. 

"Does your father live here?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "We commute every day. I'm just a lady-in-waiting for the Countess. He's an advisor to the Alpha Superior and he leads the defense council, so sometimes he stays the night; he stays in the barracks when he does though."

"There are barracks here?" I asked.

She nodded. "Of course. There's a full-time security detail on staff. That's where they stay."

Next, we went into the grand ballroom, which was the very first room I went into the night I arrived. I had only seen it in the dead of night, but it was much prettier during the day when the sunlight was streaming in and bouncing off the crystals on the chandeliers. 

"Is this room ever used?" I asked.

Liu nodded. "Mostly just during the Centennials, when they're hosted here."

"The what?" I asked.

"Centennials," she repeated. "There's one coming up in a few weeks. They happen twice a year, once in the summer and once in the winter."

"What are they for?" I asked.

Liu shrugged. "Meetings mostly. The Alpha Superiors gather together for a week where they have day-long meetings and then there are galas, balls, and shows at night."

"How many Alpha Superiors are there?"

"Four," she answered. "There is one from Africa, based in Nigeria; another from Europe, based in Germany; and one from Asia, based in China."

"What about the other four continents?"

"Well, they kind of split Antartica between them because there isn't any pack presence there. But the other three belong to our Alpha Superior, your mate."

"So, he's over North and South America, as well as Australia?" I asked. "That's a lot of people."

She nodded. "It used to be that Australia was its own republic as well, but they were invaded almost a hundred years ago and were brought under the Devereaux Dynasty."