I sent Sarah a text and asked her to meet me at our spot. Our spot wasn’t really a spot, it was just a clearing in the forest furthest away from our house where the roots of an old tree were visible in the earth and it made a natural buttress.
“Hey, you,” she said, and smiled sweetly as I arrived, and found her waiting near the tree.
I had switched off my feelings for her before I even entered the woods, because I knew that this was going to be hell. She put her arms around my waist and I knew her next move would be to kiss me. We’d been dating for almost two years now, and our familiarity with each other was intimate.
Our relationship was more than just making out in odd places. We could talk for hours about our future, our dreams, and what we wanted out of life. Sarah wanted to be a teacher. She loved the idea of being there at the crucial time when young minds were shaped.
“What’s wrong?” she asked me when my arms didn’t encircle her like they always did.
“We can’t keep seeing each other,” I told her. She removed her arms from my waist and stood back in disbelief.
“What? Why?” I could see her confusion and I knew that if my feelings were switched on I wouldn’t be able to do this.
“It’s just not working anymore,” I said, unable to meet her eyes.
“It didn’t look like it wasn’t working for you yesterday afternoon!” she shouted. Anger had replaced the confusion in her aura.
“Look it’s not you…” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence as she interrupted me.
“Oh, don’t give me that crap! You said you loved me! What changed overnight?” She glared at me demandingly.
“It really is me, Sarah, you’re a great person. I just can’t be involved with you anymore. Please believe me when I say I never wanted to hurt you,” I tried to explain. She slapped me hard across my face and I was surprised at the aggression behind it. That wasn’t Sarah.
“So typical! You’re just like everybody else! You got what you wanted and now you’ll just move on to the next one! You got the good girl to take her pants off! I hate you! You’re such a bastard!” She was crying and ran off before I could say anything else. I despised myself at that moment.
Malachi found me standing there, on the verge of tears. At that point, I didn’t have the energy to face him either. He pulled me closer and hugged me. After a while, I hugged him back and we stood like that for a long time, father and son hugging. I swallowed back the tears that threatened to escape. I wouldn’t cry in front of him.
“I’m really sorry that you had to do that but it’s for the best,” Malachi said before he left me alone at last.
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “How much of all that did Malachi see?”
I knew James had followed me down into the woods. He would never leave me alone with something as big as this. We were bonded as wolf brothers for life. It was just how our bond worked, being Alpha and Beta to each other.
“Just from before she slapped you,” James said as he came out from behind a tree. I sighed. Well, Malachi would know now that we had been intimate.
James and I walked back to the house, his aura changing rapidly and it was giving me a headache. “Just spit it out, James.”
He laughed and his aura intensified. “I didn’t think it was the right time to tell you, I mean, you were just slapped.”
“Just tell me already, because lately it seems that there will never be a good time.”
We stopped walking and James grinned. “Shoran said yes.”
“That’s really great, James. I’m happy for both of you,” I said and meant every word.
I’d actually forgotten that James was proposing to Shoran the previous night, which was why he wasn’t there to witness the humiliation of me getting my ass handed to me by my father. We were a few weeks short of our seventeenth birthday and Shoran was a few months older than us.
It wasn’t odd that James had already proposed at the tender age of sixteen. He and Shoran had imprinted shortly after his first shift and they’d been inseparable ever since. Imprinting could only take place after a first shift and James had known it the moment he saw her for the first time.
Shoran could feel a pull toward him but she would only feel the full effects of imprinting after her own resurrection ceremony. It was the single most powerful thing to ever happen to a wolf and for us, the moment of imprinting was sacred.
James didn’t stop smiling all the way back to the house and right through dinner. By the time we went upstairs to our respective rooms, I had to smack him behind his head to get the dreamy look out of his eyes.
James didn’t exactly live with us, but he might as well have, since he spent so much time there that he had his own room. James’s father, Garrick, was the Chief Medical Examiner at the hospital and his mother, Stephanie, was an emergency department doctor.
They spent most of their time at the hospital, which was why James was always here. Not only was James my Beta, but he was also my best friend, so spending all our time together was natural. On the rare nights that his parents were home, he spent every second with them.
The nights that he went home, the house felt quieter, and it was on those nights that my guilt became worse. Emotions were my downfall, especially my own. The fact that I could feel other people’s emotions as well, made feeling my own emotions excruciating at times.
I hadn’t completely mastered shutting other people’s emotions out and the only way I could completely block it out was to switch mine off. Keeping them off was never a good thing, it stunted your own and made you cold and unfeeling.
I’d only switched my emotions off once in my life, and that was when I’d broken up with Sarah. It seemed fitting to me to suffer the guilt over breaking her heart because mine was broken as well and I had no idea if I would ever get over it.
We had a few other wolf children that went to the same school as us and I made a point of it to look out for them. There were two other families that lived in Seward that weren’t part of our pack, they were lone wolves and preferred the lifestyle.In an attempt to appear as if I was doing fine, I had started dating one of the girls from our pack but it was just for show. We didn’t hang out after school or even hold hands. James disapproved and he made it known almost every day.“Dating Michelle won’t change anything.” We were driving to school and I looked out of the passenger side window and thought about what I was going to say.“I know, but have you seen the way Sarah still looks at me?”It took all my strength to ignore Sarah at school. We had the same friends and the same classes, and it took all my resolve not to break my promise to Malachi. I should have known better because Malachi expected me to be better.“Do you want her to hate you?” James’ question was valid and I thought
I was startled awake, drenched in sweat. Death had been visiting me again. He was stalking through my house, walking from room to room. I didn’t know if it had only been a dream or if it was a sign. I had no inkling that my life would soon change forever.I sat down at the breakfast table and looked at my mother. Her aura was clear, by that I mean it didn’t have death lurking about. I exhaled not realizing that I had been holding it in.“How are things at school?” Karani asked. I hadn’t been home all that much, and it wasn’t due to training or Alpha lessons.“It’s okay, you know, same stuff every day.” I smiled at her.“I’m sorry you miss Sarah so much.” She had a way of just knowing everything. I nodded my head but said nothing. She knew I wasn’t seeing her anymore; I didn’t have to tell her.“Where’s Dad?” I asked and looked toward his study.“He already left for work, but he said he’d see you at the den later.”The den was where I met my father every afternoon to fight. No gloves a
“What’s up with you?” James asked me. He was connected to me in a way that only wolves could understand. We would probably die together one day, that’s how close we were.“Sarah’s pregnant,” I said flatly, and told him the whole story. He was probably the only person that would understand everything. He nodded at all the right places and eventually agreed with me, getting rid of that baby was the only thing to do. I knew it wasn’t right but nothing about that situation was right.“Come on, I know what’ll take your mind off everything. Sam’s having a party tomorrow night,” he said with that wicked smile of his.Another shiver ran down my spine, ‘I should stay home,’ said that little wolf voice inside my head. On the other hand, getting out and having a drink or two might not be the worst thing. Tomorrow was the last day of school and we had some vacation time to look forward to.I arrived home an hour before the party started and I took a quick shower and dressed. I was picking James
We were all in the living room, standing to one side. Marilyn was in the crowd dancing as she kept looking at me and James had just rolled his eyes. Her moves were suggestive but for some reason I wasn’t keen on hooking up with her again.Jasmine walked towards us and I could see that she had been drinking too much. I didn’t want a confrontation over Sarah but she stumbled into my arms and giggled non-stop as I steadied her. She chose that moment to kiss me in front of everybody, she was also Sarah’s best friend and I pushed her away. I could feel Sarah’s eyes on me and when I looked up at her she had tears in her eyes.Sarah walked up the stairs and I just stood there, watching her go. Her aura slowly turned black, and I froze. Death. Confusion took a hold of me because Sarah had never been to my house, yet Death had been lurking there.I chalked it up to being emotional and angry and I convinced myself that my imagination was playing tricks on me. I walked back to where James and Sa
Malachi tried to keep my routine as normal as he could. That meant, training at the den, every day. I wallowed in self-pity, and the prospect of training didn’t lighten my mood.“You have to focus,” he said as his bare fist landed on my nose, and a trickle of blood appeared.“I’m trying to,” I replied, and brought my hands up to protect my face. His punch caught me in the ribs, and I grunted, and felt it break. Malachi had no mercy on me. Another punch came for me and I managed to block it, but missed the punch that caught me on the side of my head.Malachi stopped and looked at me. “It’s no use trying to train you when you fight like a three-year-old girl.” He grinned at me and I returned his grin. He loved his insults especially if they added to my humiliation.We got into Malachi’s Navigator and drove home to shower. Karani just gave us a look as she saw the blood from my nose and told Malachi to take it easy on me. Tomorrow would be a rough day for me.It was the day of Sarah’s fu
Her name was Adara, and she was broken. That’s the thought she woke up with every morning. She didn’t need to tell herself that, it had been beaten into her ever since she could remember. Her mother, Juniper, was a weak woman. Nobody knew what had happened in her life to make her that way, she didn’t talk about the past at all.The only family Adara had in this cold world was her mother and her stepfather, Ramos. She didn’t remember hugs or kisses or even birthday parties. Soon she would be seventeen, and then it was just one more year until she could leave – if they let her leave.She didn’t have many memories from her childhood, almost like something or someone had made her forget, and sometimes she felt that someone inside her was missing. It was something that always felt just outside her reach and at times she wondered if she was going crazy.At first, it was just Adara and Juniper, alone in a small apartment. If she didn’t do the laundry or clean the apartment, it simply wouldn’
“Adara!” She jerked her head up at the foreign voice calling her name.“Yes, Miss Jackson?” Everyone in class was laughing at her. She had fallen asleep at her desk. Again. The bell rang, and Miss Jackson told her to remain seated as everyone else left the class.“Adara, is something wrong at home?” she asked so gently that Adara burst into tears. She always sat at the back of each class. She never talked to anyone. She did just enough to avoid being noticed. How was it that she noticed her? Where had she gone wrong?“No, Miss Jackson. I just went to bed very late last night.” She tried to give her a convincing smile and shrug of the shoulders like a regular teenager would.“I want you to go see the school counselor. You sleep in class every day. You don’t involve yourself with anything at school, and I can see that you’re losing weight. Your eyes have dark circles under them.” She studied Adara carefully and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Some people could be so compassionat
Juniper came into her room later and sat down next to her. She sighed loudly and looked at Adara. “Oh, Adara. What have you done?”Adara felt tears well up in her eyes. How could she be that way? Didn’t she care about her at all?“Ramos told them that we suspect you’re doing drugs and that you’re constantly in trouble with the police for shoplifting. I think they believed him.” She had said it in such a way that made it sound like a good thing.Tears rolled down Adara’s face, she shouldn’t even care about all that. They always did that. It hurt to know that everything people knew of her was a lie. What possible future did she have in this world? She felt so lost and lonely, wondering if her own mother ever loved her.“Ramos will take care of that nosy teacher tonight,” Juniper said.“What do you mean?” Adara asked but Juniper put a finger to her lips instead.“The school will have more pressing matters to deal with than a teacher worried about a student.” Juniper smiled at her.“Mom,