Chapter Four:
Ambrosia POV:
"Ah, Pythia! So wonderful to see you!" Jenny squealed, wrapping Pythia up in a hug.
"It's nice to see you as well. I see you have some news to share with us?" Pythia arched her eyebrow while looking down at her belly.
"News? What news? Oh you mean this?" Jenny jokingly replied, "Food baby." We all stopped walking and Pythia looked like she had seen a ghost.
"I see Braxton is treating you well." I smiled, finally breaking the silence. It has been forever since I have seen Braxton, but I am happy that the two of them found each other.
"About four months now, only a couple more to go." Jenny said between fits of laughter. "Pythia you should have seen your face! Anywho, we are about to have a meeting with the alphas, I'm assuming you guys are coming."
"Of course we are! Do you have the paperwork ready to go?" Pythia asked.
"Yes ma'am, Rachel has the file there ready to go."
As we walked forward, I took notice of just how large of a coven/pack house that they have built. When we walked in, I noticed everything is made out of stained wood. I just love the smell of cedar wood, i thought as i took a deep breath. Every room we passed, along with the hallways, are all clean and very organized. It really is as large and etravagant as they mentioned earlier, and I am really impressed by all the little touches they added to accomodate everyone, and by the look on the others' faces, they are too.
"There they are, we have been waiting." Tye joked as we walked in the door.
"Yes, let's get started. Paperwork first." Jackson added, giving Tye his best side-eye.
Bailey handed me a binder. I opened it and noticed that like the entire coven/pack house, everything is neatly organized. They even thought to put tabs on the file edges to make it easy to go through. I sat down on the couch as read through all of it. She has everyones names, where they are living, how many people live in the house and even how much it all cost to build and fully stock all of it.
"Is this the amount that is left over?" I asked pointing at large number at the bottom of the page I scanned.
"No, if you look at the heading of that tab, that is just the budget for the year. We calculated everything we figured on needing with regards to the houses, including any consturction suprises, so we don't over-extend ourselves and run short." Bailey replied after glancing down at what i was looking at.
"That and we thought we would tuck some away for parties, weddings, coming-of-age ceremonies, things like that, it's on page five." Jenny said, flipping through pages of the file Pythia has.
"What about you guys?" Jackson spoke up, putting the Alphas on the spot.
"We are in charge of the budgets for hiring any help that we need, like construction workers, those projected figures are on the last page." Alpha Xavier replied confidently.
"Good, we heard there was no fighting and the humans yyou have hired so far have worked out well. Keep it up." Jackson replied.
"Where did Xander go, wasn't he with you guys?" Alpha Xavier asked.
"He is talking with his guardians." I replied, waving my hand nonchalantly, still reading over everything.
"The guardians here, they don't really talk all that much, is that normal?" He wondered aloud.
"Yes, you all have to work at their trust, start off small then work your way up." I urged, with a small smile. I knew they would act like this, they were in hiding for so long they are no longer used to being around people. Time is all they need to get situated.
"All of this looks really good. Are there any pressing matters that we need to know about?" Pythia asked, looking around. No one said anything and I smiled.
"Keep in contact as usual. If an infected one is spotted call us immediately. I would say if you need money call us but it seems you guys have figured it all out." I stood to my feet just in time for Xander to walk through the door. "News on your side?" I asked him.
"Everything seems to be normal. No tracks, no markings or anything like that have been found and none of the guardians have picked up any odd scents in the viciniyy, so I think it is safe to say they haven't come out this far. I told them to be vigilant, thorough, and to keep looking. I also asked them to start taking shifts, have dinners, and mingle with everyone." Xander reported.
"Appreciate the help on that one Xander. Braxton has been trying to get them in and every now and then, but he hasn not had much success." Jenny said, shrugging their shoulders.
"You all just have to remember that they have been isolated from everyone for a very long time. They'll come around. We will be back next month unless something happens but we will let all of you know the day and time." I said hugging the girls goodbye.
"Until next month." Bailey replied just before we all teleported to our next location. Luka and Senna were already waiting for us outside the large, previously dusty, old castle. "Thought you guys would have been here earlier." Luka joked.
"Took a little longer than I thought, is everyone ready?" I inquried, looking around.
"Yes, right this way." Senna said as she started walking up the front steps. The outside area looked better, they had done a lot of cleaning up, it made it look more spacious than it had previously.
"Where are all the guardians?" Xander asked looking around, we had expected at least one of them to be here waiting for us.
"Funny you should ask, we caught an infected." Luka casually stated, making us all stop.
"What, Where?" Xander demanded.
"About fifty or so miles out. It didn't seem to be heading here though." Senna replied. "Go, fill me in later." I said looking over my shoulder at Xander, he nodded once before he ran off.
"Jason and Bobbie inside?" Tye asked, changing the subject.
"Yes, it'll be just us. I'll explain in a moment." Luka replied. As we walked inside I could see workers trying to finish up their projects. "Let's not make this too long." Luka said pushing doors open revealing Alpha Jason and Bobbie, a spitfire of a woman, who is helping Dan oversee the dark witches. Bobbie has long red hair with bright blue eyes, she is very beautiful by anyones standards, in fact she could have a lucrative modeling career in the human world if she wanted, but lucky for us she was born a powerful witch instead. Although, I have heard that she is very vengeful to those who wrong her, she reminds me of myself in that aspect. She definetly keeps the Alphas on their toes, which Pythia loves.
"We have everything here ready to go. We didn't know how much time we would have. It's been a little tense since the infected was caught." Bobbie said, handing us three files.
"We can look at all of this when we get back home, just give us the rundown." Pythia stated.
"We coordinated with the other covens & packs to be able to come up with the same type of budget; however, everyone here preferred to live much closer together so that is what we have been doing." Bobbie began.
"We also are keeping the families with children right in the middle floors of the castle so they are surrounded by guardians and warriors at all times." Jason proudly stated.
"The witches are working around the clock to keep the grounds protected, we have even managed to find a way to add a little boost to the original protection spells, which we will ne sharing with the others as well, and of course we have kept up the stock on all of the pills." Bobbie proudly confirmed before I could ask. I looked over at Luka and Senna to see if they wanted to add anything else when the doors swung opened.
"The infected girl is dead." Xander said, shaking his head, "It's nasty looking too."
"What do you mean?" I said a little too harshly.
"It's like she melted? I do not know how else to explain it. The entire situation obviously was not the way we wanted the outcome to be, but nothing we can do about it now. I have informed the guardians will keep their patrols and rotations going but I also said for them to get with the witches so they can arm themselves with something just in case they come across the same situation in the future." Xander matter-of-factly stated while giving me the side eye thqt all annoyed brothers give their sisters.
"I'll let Dan know. It was lovely seeing you all." Bobbie quickly remarked, before walking out.
"Sorry we don't have that much time to give." Senna said shaking our hands.
"No, no, that is alright. We are just glad to see all of you are on top of things. We will leave you be but I will call and check in later." I replied, stepping back.
"Talk soon." Jason said before we teleported back home. This was the first time in a couple months that we had spotted an infected person. I just hope Alley and the others have some sort of plan...