Chapter 34

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The earth beneath her paws felt liberating, her powerful hind legs pushing her forward, the chill in the air cutting through her fur as her sharp eyes laid a path for her in front of her. She leapt over a dead fallen log and landed gracefully and continued her run, darting, leaping, ducking and swishing her tail to changing directions sharply.

She now understood why wolves were crazy about their run's and why there were elaborate rituals surrounding them, before getting her wolf she would have rolled her eyes and would have marked it as one of those things that werewolves overrated.

But in her fur, with her snout cutting through the air, it felt liberating like home.

A large dark brown wolf cut in to her path and she leaped above him in a quick motion and looked down to see him look at her body jump over him gracefully and landing beyond him and breaking in to a run without stopping.

He paused for a moment and gave a chase. A male loved a chase and a chase he gave, he quickly caught up with her giving her a mirth filled look. Together they ran as the trees suddenly disappeared giving way for well-manicured lawns.

The wolves didn't stop running, twisting and turning in the maize of a massive garden, the few people working leaped out of their way and soon they reached steps leading in to the palatial mountain retreat.

As they continued running without stopping in to the retreat, in the hallways the staff jumped out of the way as they climbed the stairs and rushed in to the bedroom. Evy jumped around yelping in joy as she was the one who entered first and considered herself to the winner of their alleged race.

He just looked at her antics wagging his tail placidly with amusement in his eyes. She topped jumping around and her nose high in air, she strutted in to the bathroom as if claiming her prize and slammed the door shut with her hind leg.

***

They came in to Roma from different ports, some by road and others by air, they came in different dates. Some came in groups pretending to be vacationing others flew in alone, one of them had an interview in a resort. Eventually they formed about four groups and these groups never crossed each other's path. Each group had a specific plan charted out, their own tasks to accomplish and none of those tasks overlapped, only maybe perhaps the final one for which they were all here.

One group had gone to the place where the Russians they hired had buried their equipment. They dug up and removed one box. There were at least a dozen guns, they did not retrieve the guns but instead they emptied the magazines of bullets in to a bag and buried their stash back. Once they returned to the house they rented there was activity inside. The other group members were in the kitchen.

As the group with the bullets entered one of them took a medium sized crucible and put it on a stove and put it on maximum, slowly each of them threw in necklaces, rings, ear rings and other jewelry items they got with them or bought in the local market. You could not get in a lot of silver in to a werewolf country without raising suspicion.

As the metal was piled in, one of the men got a portable blow torch and started melting it down, as the silver melted they took each of the bullets carefully and dipped the pointy tip in to the bowl so it was coated with silver and gently put them neatly on the counter. In an hour they had all the bullets coated with silver.

"Finally" one of them muttered admiring their handiwork "when are we putting them to use?" he asked the guy in charge.

"Soon" he reassured "The boss man is setting it up for us and till then we all lay low and do not attract any attention what so ever, is that clear?" he said the last part out loud and looked at his group, there had been too much work done here to fuck this up now.

"Yes" the men replied to him.

***

Evy sat at the fireplace soaking in the warmth of the gentle fire. Max had taken her place in the bathroom leaving her to reminiscence. This would be her last day of her week long honeymoon and she would miss this place. The royal winter retreat was an exclusive resort owned by the Roma family exclusive for the family's use and a few lucky guests who were invited by the family. Nestled in a beautiful mountain range surrounded by hundreds of miles of pinafores this resort was a secluded island of bliss where the staff catered to your every whim...treated you like royalty..which she was, now.

Her eyes involuntarily moved to her finger where two rings adorned one an engagement ring and one a wedding ring, the wedding ring was a simple but elegant antique which clearly depicted the Roma family crest. The ring she wore signified the position she held in the Roma hierarchy. The one she was wearing right now signified she was princess consort. Roma would wear ring of the monarch which would pass on to Max once he took the title and when that time came she would have to switch rings and wear one that said she was a Queen consort. She would hate to part with the ring she was married in and she could do nothing about it sucked lemons.

The very thought of marriage brought her back to her wedding day, it was a simple wedding attended by a select few only close family, they had gotten married in her favorite spot of the whole palace the Queen's garden. The weather had been perfect the decorations simple but extremely elegant. Jeff gave her away with tears in his eyes and stood proud as a peacock while doing so. He was the father she never had. Her mother was over the moon, which mother wouldn't be? She had shown her mother and Jeff around the palace a few days before her wedding and they had been awestruck and just to imagine her daughter living there made her mother glow and just like that with a simple ring on her finger she became Evelyn Roma, princess of Roma, the future queen...she was still unsettled by that idea and was not sure if she was up to that job but Roma was helping her.

Her job with Roma was demanding and she did not get any preferential treatment, Roma she soon found out was a slave driver but she knew she had to be. Roma's influence was far and wide and they controlled continents not just some parcel of land in a state. The affairs of her empire were ever demanding, people came to her all the time to ask for help, to form alliances to further their own gains and all this she has to handle with poise. Of course there were checks and balances, once she started to work with Roma she realized how hard it was for someone to meet the monarch. She had a team of fifteen assistants who just responded to e-mails and letters and another ten just to answer phone calls for her. She never received any call directly unless it was immediate family but the call had to go through one of her assistants who would determine if the call would be patched to her phone or to be re-routed to more appropriate resources basically for Alpha's who wanted to have her ear. Usually it was Sebastian who would be the one to handle those calls and would come back with recommendations of whose call she needed to take and whose call he had handled.

Then there was the family business. They had employed a full time CEO's to govern each line of business and Roma took updates from them at regular intervals, the details were simply mind boggling. For the first time she realized running an empire this size was extremely complex business and now she was part of it.

She remembered the next day of her wedding Roma summoned her only to meet with a team of lawyers who made her sign a zillion documents and the results of her signatures was she now owned stakes in the Roma business empire, how much she did not know and she was scared to find out, she was also made a successor of all their holdings as a contingency. Max assured her that it was routine, they had to protect their business interests without ambiguity and she could sign and forget. It was just lawyers covering all their bases.

Immediately after their marriage a short and crisp official announcement was made about the wedding to the press. The Roma family was prominent in both the human and werewolf world and a wedding would raise everyone's interest. They had made an announcement earlier about their engagement and how Maxwell on a business trip to US fell in love with Evelyn which led to their eventual engagement and now wedding. The human's viewed it as a fairy-tale a prince falling in love with a waitress, it couldn't get more cliché then that but the werewolf's knew different...Maxwell had found his mate and everyone's attention would be focused on her to see if they could use her to further their own agenda.

But before anyone could get their hands on her, Max had whisked her away on their honeymoon, the last five days had been absolute bliss, cocooned in their own world they further strengthened their bond focusing on anything but each other and she was sad that it would be ending tomorrow.

"Penny for your thoughts" a voice broke her out of her thoughts.

He was leaning against the bathrooms entrance all fresh.

She gave him a small smile "Thinking about tomorrow" She said.

He knew what she was talking about "I know what you mean" He said and added "Let's promise ourselves this every year for a week we come here no matter how busy we are...a week for ourselves nothing but us" he added.

She smiled "I would like that." She sure would.

He walked over and dropped a quick kiss on her lips and added "By the way, I forgot to give you your wedding present."

"My wedding present?" she parroted.

"Yep" He grinned and walked to the closet and opened the door "It was somewhere here" he mumbled searching through stuff

She was curious now.

"Ah ha! Found it" He declared in triumph and pulled out a large envelop and walked over to her.

He extended the envelope to her and she took it from his hands curious, she opened the envelope and pulled out a few reams of papers, they looked like some forms.

She looked at him confused. "Read it" he insisted.

Her eyes landed back on the forms and as she read the words and registered in her brain her eyes widened and she looked at Max in wonder...could this be? She looked back again to quickly scan the papers to confirm her thought.

On the top of the form it read in bold letters "University of Roma" and below that in smaller letters it said clearly "Intake application form for School of Medicine"

"Max" She whispered moved by his gesture.

He kneeled in front of her and gently pulled the papers from her shaking hands.

"Your dreams are my dreams Evelyn, don't you ever forget that. If you want to go to medical school then together we will ensure it is done. So here is the first step, fill in that application form and we get it to the university for their next academic intake which is six months away but we can get your spot confirmed. I asked Nick to send over your school records and he should do it soon. So...I guess you are on your way to be a doctor...I guess." He smiled at her.

Her eyes watered, he had put in a lot of thought on this "Max, I don't know what to say" she said overwhelmed her voice filled with emotions.

"There is nothing to say, once we are back fill it and we get to take care of the rest and you can start collage in six months" He smiled at her reassuringly.

She leapt in to his arms and hugged him tight "thank you!" she whispered, her voice filled with emotions she couldn't convey.

He hugged her back fiercely "My pleasure Evy"

"I love you Max" She confessed.

"I know you do. You need to tell me more often...you know...helps the ego and all" He joked.

She pulled back and smiled "I don't think your ego need any further boost, it's in the size of Roma already"

"ouch...is this how you pay me back for your gift, you wench!" He demanded.

"So you were expecting something in return, huh?" She asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, your eternal gratitude, your servitude for life...or show your appreciation in a physical manner...you know" he winked at her.

"Physical, huh? Is that all you think about?" she asked grinning.

"To my defense, I am on my honeymoon, one is expected to think in those lines you know..." He defended.

She rolled her eyes at him and stood up and removed her top slowly as his eyes feasted on the skin she exposed.

"Is this helping you think?" She asked.

"My brain is certainly thinking" he said his eyes devouring her.

She sensually removed her pants and said huskily "Now?"

"What?" he asked lost

"What are you thinking now?" She asked him.

"I am not sure I still have the capability" He confessed.

She simply smiled and removed her bra "Does this help?"

'Help?" he parroted mindlessly.

"Yes, help you think?"

"I think" he said slowly, his eyes darkening in lust seeing her in a flimsy pantie. "The time for thinking is over...the time for action has come" and with that he threw her over his shoulder with her giggling and yelping in surprise and strode to the bed.

***

The men waited anxiously in the dining room, their leader had stepped out to take a call. He finally stepped in and looked at the men in the room sensing their anticipation he addressed them "Tomorrow, we got a go ahead for tomorrow. Take rest folks for tomorrow is showtime" and with that he walked away

@T)