Filed to story: Rylee the Orphan Luna Novel
“Thank you, tell Angelo I’ll be right down,” I grabbed everything that I needed and headed out. As much as I wanted to spend my time looking for Rylee, I knew I had other responsibilities as a CEO, and I also had faith that Felix and his trackers would eventually find some sort of clue of where she could be.
As I made my way down, all I could think about was if Rylee were safe and happy wherever she was and that our pup was growing healthily inside of her. Based on the timing, Rylee would be just about three months now. I prayed to the moon goddess we found her before she gave birth. I wanted nothing more than to be there when she did. But I knew that I didn’t deserve it, not after the way I treated her.
The elevator door opened, and I walked out of the lobby and found my team ready to go.
“Good morning,” I say to them.
“Good morning, Mr. Valencia,” a few of my team members were also pack members, but the majority of them were humans.
“I will see you all at the convention. All of you know where we are setting up?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. Make sure to valet your cars, and the company will reimburse the valet fee for the duration of the convention,”
“Thank you, Mr. Valencia,”
“Let’s head out, and all of you drive safe,” they all nodded their heads and went towards the parking garage while I went out front to meet Angelo. “Alpha,” he bowed his head.
“Angelo let’s get going,” he nodded his head as he opened the back door for me. The drive to the convention only took about twenty minutes which left my team and me at least two hours to get the booth ready. Angelo dropped me off at the front where I saw some of my team already handing off their keys to the valet.
“Mr. Valencia, do you want us to keep the stubs for the valet and give them to Miranda after the weekend?” one of my designers asked.
“Yes, keep your copy of the stubs along with any receipts,” I tell her. As I passed by the valet booth, one of the valet guys gave me a blank stare, and if I weren’t a werewolf, I would have missed it. I brushed it off because it wasn’t the first time people have stared at me and went inside with my team to get set up for the start of the convention.
***Rylee’s P.O.V.***
Olivia and I had got to the convention early, and some of the booths were still being set up. I was in awe of this hotel because of how large it was. I was even more surprised to see a bunch of machines that were making a lot of noise, and people were screaming at tables that had cards all over the place. I had fun just people watching. Humans were very excited about these machines, and I could see them throwing money everywhere.
“Celeste, what is this?”
“This is called a casino,”
“I thought this was a hotel?”
“It’s both, sweetie. You see, people bet their money and if they win at the game, they either win their money back or even more money in return,”
“Do people win all the time?”
“Oh goddess no, people lose at least 85% of the time,” I looked at her like she was crazy and back the people just throwing their money away. I shook my head not understanding the concept. “What are these machines?”
“Those are called slot machines. They’re kind of like games, but you play with your money, and again, you tend to lose more than you win,”
“Can I try?”
“No, you can’t sweetie. You have to be 21 to gamble,”
“Oh, okay,” I frowned. We walked around a little bit more and looked at all of the booths that were being set up. A lot of them had models set up of buildings, swimming pools, houses, and some even had designs of cars. “Megan, Wayne just texted me to meet him, are you going to be okay by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine Celeste,” Olivia smiled and went to go meet William. I walked around to all of the booths that were set up and talked to a few people. A lot of people asked me about my pregnancy, and someone even tried to touch me which I took a lesson from Olivia and kindly asked them not to.
After walking around for about forty-five minutes, my feet were starting to hurt, so I sat down at an empty table. I leaned back in the seat and rubbed small circles around my stomach and felt my pup kick. I smiled at the feeling and closed my eyes. I didn’t realize how long I had been sitting there until someone tapped me on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and found a woman staring at me,
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry ma’am, but you can’t sit here,”
“I can’t?”
“This is the table for our booth,”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said and quickly stood up. She took one look at me and her face immediately became apologetic.
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize you were pregnant, please excuse me for my rudeness,”
“It’s fine, please, no need to apologize,”
“No, no, please sit back down,” she said and took my arm guiding me back to the chair. “I was in your shoes once, believe me, I know what it’s like for your feet to hurt,” she said sympathetically.
“Thank you,” I smiled and got comfortable again.
“How far along are you?”
“About six months,” I replied.
“Do you know what you’re having?”
“No, I want it to be a surprise,” I replied and just stared at her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked me when she saw me staring.
“You haven’t tried to touch my stomach,”
