He had to send the one person I didn't want to see again as an escort. 

"Salutations, Alphas and Half-blood Hybrid. So good you all arrived safely." The perky tone and amusing gleam in his eyes had me wanting to knock him out. He was one of the causes of us being here in the first place. 

"Well, Edward, there's your watchman and my stalker." 

I saw Edward looking at me from the corner of my eye as we approached the waving nuisance. He clicked his tongue, which was a habit that usually annoyed me, and with a hint of  laughter, said, "Him? That's him?" 

We landed near the forest. Thetford Forest was always a tourist spot. We used the cover of night to hide us, and had landed the plane on a landing clearing owned by the emperor. It had been built to lower the plane beneath an underground area, so that helped keep prying people oblivious. Our pilot was given orders to burst through if things went south. 

The entrance had been created to look like a small hill that opened and closed manually. Thanks to advanced technology and money harvested over decades, werewolves as a whole were more preilvage than most. If I live long enough, my family's generations will benefit from whatever income I manage to bring in after adding it to the Knights family inheritance. As we stopped within reach of the king's pet, he closed one eye while keeping a smile on his face. 

"Welcome to Thetford Forest. Or as those among my kind like to call it 'Wyrd Jungle'. Please allow me to formally introduce myself." The Wolfhound fixed his gaze on me. "I am Julius Aeolus Wissler, the 8388th night beast under Emperor Conrí. I shall be your escort to the presence of His Majesty."

Great. So it looks like I'll be dealing with him after all. 

"He won't be seeing us tonight I'm guessing." Romulus was to my right, but he took a step forward. 

As the oldest, he was closer in rank to the king. He's dealt with him more so than Edward, despite Edward holding the Knight Alpha title. 

"Unfortunately, no." Julius shifted his gaze to Romulus and locked his hands behind his back. "But rooming and meals will be provided."

"Sounds about right. He never liked to talk business during night hours." Romulus sounded a little annoyed by this. 

"Last meal before we die, huh," Amelia said, causing us all to look at her. "Oh sorry just thinking out loud. Ignore me."

I had told her to remain a few steps behind us. I didn't want risking her being snatch away easily. Besides I wanted to keep as much focus from her as I could. Sure I thought about her being attacked from behind, but I had confidence that her natural instincts would pick up on sneak attacks. Besides, had I known he would send this guy to greet us, I wouldn't have been so guarded.

I was the first to look back, only to find that annoying smirk on the Wolfhound's face bigger than before. A low growl rose from my chest, which he promptly ignored.

Julius clapped his hands once and spinned on his feet. "Let's get going now." 

We followed Julius into the forest. I did move back to walk beside Amelia. He haven't made an attempt to take her, so it was pretty much safe to say that the emperor didn't want us dead on the spot. Holding a trial was the fair way to go. The emperor was supposed to be viewed as someone of fairness. The trial allows him to say we were judged equally while maintaining his image. It was politics at it's lowest level. 

"Sooo we're walking into some hidden city or village right?" Amelia asked me after we have been walking for a while now.

I glanced at her and grabbed her hand to hold. "You can say that. The emperor lives in this forest and it is hidden, but not in the way you think." 

She arched an eyebrow. "So no magical spells or magic portal?" 

"My daughter thinks we need magic to function," Romulus snorted from in front of us. "Young people these days are so very young and too dependent on 'magic'. If you look ahead, you'll find your answer, my dear." 

I was curious about what he meant about dependence on magic, but my guess was he was referring to technology. Yet I couldn't throw away the fact that he could have meant other beings who could use magic. I never met one. Other than the girl Jace was seeing. And her magic looked basic from what I saw. I caught the small interest in Amelia's voice at her 'Oh wow'. 

Paying attention, I focused in ahead of us on the small cape cod style mansion that could be seen. Smaller houses done in a similar style could be seen as well. The emperor stayed in the mansion, and the houses were where his vassals usually lived. 

"Not what you expect from an emperor?" I asked my mate.

Amelia shook her head. "No, I was sure he would be in a castle. He is an emperor, right?"

"We're werewolves, Amelia." Romulus looked back at her. "It's nice to have nice things, but after a while that gets old. The animals in us desire nature while the humans desire shelter." 

"Or," Edward held the word. "He just wants his privacy."

"Emperor Conri works hard to keep all werewolves safe." Julius's sing-song voice had us all looking at him. "By keeping the existence of not only werewolves, but us night beasts as well, he has made a lot possible." 

That only confirmed that he could have taken part in nefarious activities. I wasn't going to voice that in front of his pet though. 

As we reached the emperor’s small kingdom, I could sense the eyes of others watching us. There weren't many werewolves here. About ten others, I'll say. The emperor kept his subjects limited to keep nearby villagers from getting suspicious of who exactly roamed the forest. That's what he tells everyone at least. 

Julius leads us up to the third house on the left. The few houses had been spread out with the emperor’s house at the back. If anyone was to attack, his subjects would be attacked first, which didn't make much sense because anyone could simply attack the other end. The emperor wasn't a fighter, so he wouldn't know much about combat strategy. He did have someone for that. 

"How hasn't anyone found you all here?" Amelia asked out loud, but the question was aimed at Julius.

"It's quite simple. We keep wandering souls away." Julius grinned over his shoulders at her. He knocked on the front door of the house, before opening it and gesturing for us to follow. 

When we entered the house, I found that the inside looked bigger than what I first thought it was. It looked like it had around six bedrooms. The theme of the house was a modern style and set up like one of those B&B's back in the States. Julius called out to someone, who walked out from another room. 

The man was clearly a werewolf judging by his scent. He was a man on the tall side. His face was friendly enough, so I wasn't sure if he was genuinely good or pretending like the Wolfhound standing there wearing a smile still. He had short, dark brown hair that was styled to one side. He didn't seem threatening at least. 

Julius gestured between us. “This is Denzel, Denzel you will be looking after Alphas Knight and Trevino and their guests during their stay here.” 

Denzel bowed his head briefly and smiled. "Good timing. Dinner just got done cooking. I can show you to your rooms after or before. Your choice."

"I'll be taking my leave. Feel free to walk around in the morning. I'll find you when it's time to meet with Emperor Conri." Julius gave a nod before exiting. 

"We'll have dinner first. I'm actually starving." Romulus rubbed his stomach. "Alpha Knight here didn't have what I wanted on board."

Edward frowned at Romulus. "What you wanted wasn't an airplane food, Trevino."

Denzel chuckled and turned. "Well I hope you all will enjoy what we have here at Thetford. The kitchen's this way." 

He led the way. I followed after Amelia. Searching for anything suspicious was something I knew we all were doing, except Amelia. Denzel served us a hot meal, which was pretty tasty. Soon after, he showed us upstairs.

"I gave you Alphas each a room," Denzel said as he opened two different doors along a hallway. "You and your mate can stay over in this room." He opened a door across from one of the two.

"Not if Lucian wants to live to see another day." Romulus was smirking. "My mate will have him chopped up before coming after my manhood." 

"Dad," Amelia complained, shooting a glare up at him. 

"Amelia will room with her father, since I really don't want to face her mother." I moved to the room across from the other two. 
 
Denzel whistled a merry tone and bid us goodnight as he moved to go back down to clean up. Edward took the room closest to the staircase as a precaution. As Romulus headed into the remaining room, Amelia said goodnight to me with an apologetic smile on her face. I bid her a good night and watched her go into the room before entering mine. Tomorrow would be long and we needed as much sleep as we could get.