Chosen by Fate, Rejected by the Alpha

1057 Chapter 42- Talia – Planning a Surprise (VOLUME 6)

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Talia

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I knew that with everything that was going on, Reagan and Rika didn’t feel much like celebrating their birthdays this year. There was a lot that we were all working on, especially the two of them. And they didn’t want to take the focus off of the hard work and put it on them.

Reagan and Rika were both great siblings and people. They cared about us all so much, and they weren’t usually all that selfish. Yes, they had their moments, but so does everyone in the world. Not even I was exempt from that aspect of life. Neither were my parents. We were all human, well humanish. And that meant that we were all ruled by our hearts and emotions at times.

Now, speaking of being ruled by our hearts and emotions, that was what made me want to surprise my brother and sister. We could have a special day with each of them, but that would take away from the surprise a little. Usually, we alternated which day we surprised the two of them on. They were twins, born just minutes apart from each other, but they had two different birthdays. I always loved that fact about them. And I think that they did too.

Now, what I was planning here was going to take some effort. First, I needed to tell my parents not to make any plans on the thirtieth this year. We would surprise the two of them on Reagan’s birthday. That way they wouldn’t think that we forgot about their special days.

That was probably the easiest part of the plans that I wanted to make. I knew that my parents would want to celebrate the two of them. They were very loving parents that would more often than not put us kids before their work. Yes, there were times when they needed to prioritize other things, but not all that often.

I talked to Abigail, the next coconspirator in my whole plan. She was the one that was going to gather the help of the other tower chefs and go all out for breakfast on that Friday morning. She and the others would be making all the food that I had in mind for the mini birthday party before school. And that was just the beginning of it all.

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There would be all the delicious favorites in the morning. Some presents. Music. All the good stuff that you would have at a birthday party. I knew that Reagan and Rika wouldn’t be able to tell us no if this was how we went about things. They would just need to grin and bear it. Not only that, but the happy looks on Zachary, Zander, Zayden and Zaley’s faces will make it all worthwhile to them. All good there.

After I spoke with Abigail about the food, and had mom and dad on board with all the presents already wrapped and hidden for Friday morning, it was time for me to plan the other parts of that day. Or rather, for that weekend. I mean, with them being twins, and them having different birthdays, the way that I saw it, they both had both days as their birthday. Weren’t they lucky? They got to have two different days to celebrate when other people only got one.

Well, I called all of their friends, at least the close ones that I knew the numbers of. I knew that neither of them would want to have a big celebration that would distract the whole family, the pack, or the locals from the kingdom. They would want something that would be more subdued. And that was exactly what I was going to give them.

Two different celebrations for two different people. Two very secret operations that were going to be running in tandem. It was all quite exciting, and I just couldn’t wait to see how happy they were about all of this. Yeah, they might be annoyed at first, but they would get over it and then they would be able to relax and have some fun.

Luka, Levi, Elias, Cypress, Beech, Rowan and CJ were all agreeing to be a part of the plan for Reagan. When I called each of them and told them what I had planned for my brother, they were more than excited about it. And the same thing happened when I told Alyssa, Alexandria, Ashle, Ilana, Kaede, Sophia and Isabella about the party for Rika. A lot of the kids that we all grew up with had scattered, but the ones that I had invited to the party were either still in town, or close enough to come back for a weekend to spend time with their friends and family. I was happy that there was a good amount of the people that they had been so close to for so long.

I knew that they had other friends, ones from high school and new ones in college, but I thought that leaving this party up to the central core group was probably the best idea. They would understand more about Reagan and Rika, and they would be able to help them to relax. They won’t need to pretend to be something else for the time being. They would just need to be themselves and nothing else.

Ideas were set, plans were made, and coconspirators were all onboard. We were set to go now. All we really needed to do now was wait until the big day.

Finally, when Friday rolled around, it was time for all of us to celebrate the oldest kids in the family. Well, aside from my dad. I knew that he could act like a child sometimes, but I had long ago learned that this was to be expected of a lot of men. It’s not saying that they are immature or anything like that. It’s just that they could devolve a little when they were faced with certain situations. I had seen it when Rika and I had both started to get interested in boys. And I have to say, it was pretty funny to watch Dad’s reactions.

Having planned out the whole day in advance, we were all up and ready before Reagan and Rika came down to the dining room. They were dressed and ready for the day as well, which was good. However, they didn’t see any of us. Mom, Dad, me, the quads, we were all hiding and acting like we weren’t there. And, on top of that, Abigail hadn’t brought the food out yet.

“Where is everyone?” Reagan asked as he looked around the room. They had been in the dining room for about five minutes already.

“I don’t know. I mean, there is school today, right? For us and the kids. I mean, where are they?”

“I know that there is school.” Reagan said as he looked at his watch. “Did we somehow wake up too early?”

“How though? The time is set automatically, it’s not like we were able to change the time.”

“True.” Reagan looked confused. “Come on, let’s go and find the others.”

Just as they got to their feet, intent on finding all of us, we threw the door into the dining room open and jumped into the room.

“SURPRISE!” We all yelled excitedly. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

“Gahh!” Reagan jumped away in shock when I got really close to him.

“What the?” Rika looked around. “I thought that we agreed not to celebrate this year?”

“We agreed not to throw you a party. We didn’t say that we wouldn’t celebrate.” I clarified for them. And today is part one of your celebrations.” Despite Rika’s words, I saw that she was smiling. She was definitely happy that I had planned this.

“Thank you, all of you.” She moved forward and hugged mom quickly.

“It was all Talia’s idea.” Mom said as she hugged my sister.

“Talia?” Reagan grinned. “Thank you. I am sorry if we made it sound like we didn’t want to be with the family for our birthday.”

“I knew that you would love this.” I threw my arms around his waist and hugged him. “I love you guys.”

“I love you too.” He said as he pressed his face against my hair.

Following the good mornings and the I love yous, it was time to start breakfast. That was when Abigail and her team of chefs came into the dining room with all the special food.

“Look at you two.” She pinched their cheeks as she set down the first large tray of food. “I remember making homemade baby food for you, and now you are nineteen. Where did the time go?” She looked as if she was about to start crying. She was smiling, yeah sure, but she was also on the verge of tears. She had been with us all for so long that she had been there all our lives. We all loved her, and she loved us.

“Abigail.” Reagan squirmed uncomfortably as he smiled next to her. “This food looks great.” He was trying to take the focus off of him and Rika, and mentioning the food was a surefire way to do that.

“Of course it looks great. I put extra effort into it today. I made all of your favorites. And I even made you each special pancakes. Rika, you have the cinnamon deluxe pancakes that I know you love so much.” She set the plate in front of her as she spoke. “And, Reagan, you have the blueberry explosion pancakes.” She moved his pancakes that had so many blueberries in them that they were literally purple. “I hope you both enjoy them, and ask me for anything else that you might want.”

“This is more than enough, Abigail. Thank you.” Reagan hugged her quickly.

“Yeah Abigail, this will be perfect. Thank you so much.” Rika hugged her as well.

After the chefs left the dining room, it was just the nine members of our family left in there. Well, ten if you wanted to count baby Reeselynn in Mom’s belly. She was here with us as well, just not in person yet.

“Come on, let’s eat.” Dad said as he eyed the mountainous plate of bacon.

“Agreed.” Reagan said as he picked up his fork.

We all enjoyed our breakfast over the next several minutes. We talked about a lot of things, but none of it had to do with the stressful political issue that we were in at the moment. Instead, we talked about family topics. Places that we wanted to go on vacation if we were going to have one this year. Things that we all wanted to do in the near future. And of course, all about Reagan and Rika. They were the stars of the day because it was their birthdays.

Once the food was gone, or rather when we were done eating because there was so much food that even nine people with werewolf appetites couldn’t eat it all, it was time to open presents. Reagan and Rika had insisted that we shouldn’t have gotten them anything at all, bu I waved away their protests. They all got things from us that we knew they either needed or wanted.

Reagan got a new watch from Dad, something that made him look like he was just Dad version 2.0. I wanted to laugh but I knew that Reagan had loved the watch, so I didn’t. I had gotten Reagan some books that I knew that he was interested in lately. A lot of them were business and political in nature, but he loved them as well. For Rika, I had given her a designer purse and a journal. She had told me recently that she wanted to become a better person. She wanted to be held accountable for things that she might have done wrong. So, I told her that this journal was to write what she wanted to reflect on and to work on herself more as she wanted to. She had smiled and hugged me with tears in her eyes.

Mom and Dad mainly focused on the material possessions that they knew Reagan and Rika would want. They gave them clothes, shoes, bags, and other things like that. Zachary, Zander, Zayden and Zaley had not been able to get to the store, so they had worked together to make things for them. Zaley, who was starting to become more proficient in magic now that our parents were actually training us all officially, had taken the images that the four of them had made for Reagan and Rika and infused them into a glass cube. The cube itself was made of Zaley’s magic and made it even more special, but it was holding something so personally made from all four of them, so that had made it even more wonderful. I personally loved it and knew that Reagan and Rika did as well.

After the breakfast party, it was time for us to leave for school. I knew that Reagan and Rika thought that this was the end of their celebration, but they didn’t know what else I had in mind for them. This was going to be really, really fun. I just wished that I would be able to be there in person to see it all happening. Oh well, I would just have to deal with hearing the details from someone else.