When Channing and I exited the lift on the ground floor, my mobile pinged with a flood of messages and missed calls that I had received when I was on the top floor. Channing chuckled, "who is missing you so much?"

I rolled my eyes, "It is from the last entire hour that we had spent in getting my registrations done."

Channing raised his hands in defence as teasing, "I was just saying."

I shook my head as I removed my phone from my pocket to see who it was from. Somewhere, even I was shocked to have received so many pings. All of a sudden, I feared some of them must be from the castle and there might be some trouble. The problem was that the topmost floor had network jammers, so for the past one hour, we had not been able to use our phones at all. But my mobile had never been this active even in one single day and somewhere it made me worry that something was wrong.

When I checked it and saw that most of the messages were from Suzan while some of them were from Sam and Arina. Luckily, I had not received any message from the castle.

Right when I was about to open one of the messages from Suzan, my mobile rang and it was Suzan. I picked it up, "Hel-"

"SELENE!" Suzan almost screamed that side when her voice was cut short and Sam's voice replaced on the mobile, "Hello Selene, the preparations here are done. Please come fast with Channing. The ice-cream cake is starting to melt." Ice cream cake! Why would they bring ice-cream cake if they know we might be late? But I had never had it before and now I was excited about the birthday party and to see how they had decorated the gym.

"Okay, we will be there in few minutes," I said and heard Suzan shout from behind on the phone,

"Don't let him know ye-"

"Shut up Suzan, Channing might be right there, he would hear your screams," Sam shouted at Suzan before he got back to me, "Selene, you just hurry okay I am keeping the call."

"Yes, we will hurry," I giggled, imagining the exchange that must have taken place between Sam and Suzan in the gym.

I kept the phone back in my pocket as I and Channing passed through the rotating door of the main entrance of the building. It was a pretty unexpected meeting with how things had gone with the elders here. I thought they would be a little reasonable, but turned out only Channing's father was someone I would be able to rely on in the beginning. The eldest elder, Madilyn, was sure to be a trouble with her unknown personality. I just hoped she was as neutral as she showed herself.

"Where are we headed?" Channing asked as I was lost in my thoughts and did not notice that we had exited the elders' quarters. When I looked at Channing, still in my daze, he said, "You said on the call we will hurry there, I am sure it is something urgent."

"Ahh, yes, actually Suzan- no Sam called, saying we need to hurry to the gym," I said, not revealing much or it won't be a surprise anymore.

Channing's brows creased, "Oh, did he say what it was about?"

I shook my head, "No, he just asked me to hurry there with you."

Channing waved his hand as if dismissing the thoughts that had popped in his head, "Let's hurry there if that is what was asked, something might have gone wrong." He genuinely looked concerned, and it almost made me smile, knowing it was rather just a birthday party for Channing. As decided, everyone had not reminded him of his birthday since the morning and now it was sure to take Channing by surprise.

"Yes, let's hurry," I said as we made our way to the gym. It was way past the main residential area and I hoped the ice-cream cake held on till then.

On reaching there, I fell behind Channing so he would walk ahead and enter first. Like a concerned Alpha that he was, Channing hurried to open the door when 2 party poppers flew from both sides of the door and the gym resounded in one chorus, "Happy Birthday Alpha Channing!"

A big grin spread across Channing's face as he entered. He turned behind to look at me, "This was the hurry?"

I shrugged as I passed him a smile, "The cake was melting, it is a problem worth hurrying for." I couldn't help but be happy at this little celebration that I was a part of. It had been a long time since I celebrated my birthday, which had not been done for many years and I won't be able to this year as well as it went by in the dungeons. I might as well enjoy this party.

"In that case, we should hurry with the cake cutting," remarked Channing as he made his way to the small table where the cake was kept. Everyone clapped and sang for Channing, and I was the only one here celebrating it for the second time.

This looked better and lively while last night it was Fang with me and he held a passive expression as he sang the birthday song like some machine.

The cake was cut and distributed to everyone and Suzan was the first who came jumping with two plates in her hand, "Selene, here" She handed me one plate and took a seat beside me on the treadmill. Her eyes moved around the gym as she asked, "Is the decoration beautiful. Sam and Arina have the best taste when it comes to selecting such things."

I smiled as my eyes took in the red blue and green strips that went around the room with some balloons and a big Happy Birthday behind the cake cutting table. "It is beautiful indeed. I am sure you must have helped a lot," I remarked, knowing her enthusiasm

Suzan waved her hand, "I barely did anything, rather I had to sit on the side as I started screaming with excitement after some time."

I laughed along with Suzan. Both of us took one bite from our pieces of cake and hummed in approval at the same time, "This is good. I have never had Ice-cream cake before. I should buy some for dessert."

"How can you not have had Ice-cream cake, Selene!" Suzan exclaimed, and I instantly regretted having said that. "You haven't had pizza, not even ice-cream cake. Do you come from parts outside of Adalolpha? I am not judging or something, but it kind of gives the answers to a lot of questions you know, how you mentioned about the witch last time."

I stared at Suzan, not knowing what to say. Just outside of Adalolpha were the lowest slums and though it was rumoured that there were witches there, I wasn't sure about them.

"Something like that," I replied as I took another bite of my cake. Sometimes I felt those slums would have been better than being the princess.