Pureblood (Pureblood series)

by Ellysia Fields

  “Alpha Beatrice, I don’t know what you're talking about, but please forgive my tone of voice I...I don’t know what came over me. I just want to find Nicholas. Please, I will give you their information first thing tomorrow just let me go find him.” Elizabeth’s eyes showed remorse. The Alpha only wanted to let her parents know what had happened to their daughter. She had snapped at the other woman with no provocation. She just hoped this would be the end of it and she’d be free to find Nicholas. Beatrice sighed, relaxing a bit.

  “I understand, the full moon has this effect on us, especially on new wolves not used to it. I will let it slide this time, just make sure to have their contact information brought to my den first thing in the morning. As for finding Nicholas, what did you need him for? Perhaps I can help, female to female.” The smile on her face wasn't exactly kind, but it was open. She was willing to help if she could, maybe Elizabeth could tell her.

  “Well, after I shifted and looked at Nick, I felt this strong.. force. It’s like something was trying to pull me towards him, it was weird and scary. The only reason I didn’t rush after him once he walked away was because Camila urged me to follow her. I think that’s part of why I snapped too, I still really want to find him before I go to sleep. Is this some kind of teacher-student bond? Or subordinate and Beta thing?” She questioned. She didn’t feel the same kind of pull towards Beatrice, but something more along the lines of a deep, ingrained respect for the dark-haired woman. As Elizabeth spoke, Beatrice shifted a little in place. She straightened again, before smiling humorlessly.

  “Elizabeth, I’m sure that’s what it was, nothing more. It is also nothing to worry about. You followed your friend instead of your mentor, which was the right response. Your devotion to your pack is admirable, and I am very proud of you. The full moon can do strange things to us, and it is very late. I advise you to go to bed now and rest, the feeling will go away tomorrow. Now, rest and goddess bless you.” Beatrice nodded to Elizabeth and walked away. Elizabeth thought the answer was a little strange and decided that she would not follow the Alpha’s “suggestion” and instead went to check Nicholas’s room. What Elizabeth did not know or see was Beatrice’s tightly clenched fist and the few drops of blood dripping onto the smoothed stone floor.

  Elizabeth made her way quickly up the stairs, her inner wolf still very upset and eager to see him. She had to clamp down on her hidden emotions before she knocked on his door. She heard him make a sound inside and took that as a sign to enter. When she walked inside, it was very much like the last time she had been in here if a bit messier. He wasn’t on the couch watching the movie he had playing. She had to look on the other side of the door in order to find him. He sat with his head in his hands in front of several bags of snacks covering the small surface. She quietly shut the door and watched him to see if he would look up at her, but he didn’t. She could hear him mumbling to himself, but couldn’t make out what he was saying even with her heightened senses. So she decided to take another course of action.

  “Hi Nick,” she said simply. He sprang out of the chair, panic on his face as he looked up at her for the first time since before her shift that evening. His breathing calmed a little once he saw it was her, but the panic didn’t leave his eyes. She chalked it up to her surprising him. After a few seconds, he leaned on the wall very similarly to how she had seen him that day in the medical ward, an uneasy smile on his face.

  “Elizabeth! Hi I-I didn’t expect to see you! Ho-how was your first Full moon Ceremony?” He tried to hide his nervous laughter and failed, putting a hand behind his head. She had never seen him this nervous before, not the Beta.

  “I told you to call me Liza and it went fine, but are you okay? I can leave if you’re busy..” She pointed her thumb back at the door and took a step towards it.

  “No! No, you’re fine. You wanted to see me about something right? I’m your mentor, so I always have time for you. I mean-I’ll make time. I mean...continue.” He went from holding his hands up to stop her from leaving to sitting back down and motioning for her to sit across from him. She cocked an eyebrow, but sat where directed despite her inner wolf wanting to be closer to him. She had the sudden thought of crawling in his lap and had to shake the thought away, causing him to cock his head sideways a little. She smiled, her cheeks warming slightly as she shook her head.

  “I was hoping you’d be there to welcome me back from the run, but I understand why you weren’t.” She started with a calmer topic.

  “You-you do?” He asked. Had she not been looking at her hands while she talked, she’d have seen a worried expression cross his features for a second before growing calm again.

  “Yes. How could you know how long we’d be gone? There’s no time limit on these things right, just a general idea of when we should come back. Running with the pack and winding through the trees, it was amazing! I felt like I was flying!” She spread her arms wide for emphasis. Nicholas gave her a warm smile at her expression. She met his eyes, still grinning and thought she saw his cheeks turn pink, causing hers to warm further. “I thought I’d see you at the story too, but you weren’t there either. I was a little worried after what happened before the ceremony. Do you know...what that was?” Now to get to the meat of what she was worried about.

  “The-the story? No, what did Allen and Ariel tell this time? Was Camila right?” His fingers twitched on the table in a nervous rhythm. He looked like a terrified animal, trapped in a cage. He knew something and he was avoiding it.

  “No, it wasn’t but that’s not what I was talking about. I’m talking about that tug. Well, it felt like a tug or a pull. I know you felt it too, what was it? Why did you leave so quickly?” Elizabeth clarified as she struggled with the words and watched Nicholas’s fingers tap the table in a quicker rhythm.

  “Oh, that? That was nothing really, don’t worry about it. It was just something with the moon, it’s fine.” He effortlessly avoided responding the whole truth with a wave of his hand. She could smell the barely held together lie on his lips and it made her inner wolf angry.

  “What is it with everyone tonight? ‘Nothing to worry about’ is exactly what she said! Something is going on here and no one is telling me the truth! First that woman and now you, not to mention that she threatened me!” Elizabeth felt herself move without fully intending to. She slammed her hands down on the table and stood up, causing Nicholas to snap into action too. His hand stopped twitching and he watched her as she explained, eyes narrowing as she spoke. “I can’t believe she would go there, that’s low! Hasn’t she ever… nevermind that, when is someone gonna tell me the truth? I am worried about it, very worried about it in fact. I felt pulled toward you, nearly followed you back into the den but only Camila’s distraction stopped that. When I turned back to you, you were gone. You weren’t there after the run, not during or after the story, and now I find you here and you don’t seem to want to be around me.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be around you just… maybe not right now. The full moon messes with us pretty bad, and you seem-”

  “Unstable? Upset? Angry? Threatened? Well yea, that’s because I am! She threatened to…” Elizabeth couldn’t finish, couldn’t admit to him just how broken she was. She was standing a little away from the table, back facing Nicholas holding the front of her shirt. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting back the sadness and her inner wolf clawing at her mind to get out, to protect her. She didn’t need protecting but she knew what she did need. He wasn’t going to be honest with her, neither would Beatrice. She had to protect herself because clearly these people didn’t have their act together either. “You know what, nevermind. I’ll leave, it’s not important. You’re right, that was just nothing. Caused by the full moon, nothing more. You’re both right,” she snarked and took one step toward the door but a hand caught her, a warm hand that sent fire racing up her arm making her gasp.

  “Who threatened you?” he growled, voice pitched low. She looked over her shoulder, into his ey
es, those bright azure flames licking the edges of his sockets with barely contained anger. The heat crawled up her arm to her shoulder and spread over her cheeks and around her heart, causing her wolf to respond. It begged for him, for more of his warmth and touch.

  “Beatrice,” was all she could produce. Nicholas cooled a bit at hearing the name, letting go of her hand. Elizabeth held her hand to her chest, wanting to hold onto as much warmth as she could before it was gone. Something was wrong with her and she couldn’t figure out what. She looked away to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes, blinking furiously. Tears because of her swirling emotions or the loss of his touch, she couldn’t be sure but they were there all the same.

  Nicholas took a few breaths, calming himself before he spoke. “What did she say, exactly?”

  “She told me she saw my medical record and… she knows something about my past.” Don’t ask more. Don’t ask more, she silently begged.

  “Medical records? What could she-”

  “Don’t ask, please!” she shouted. She ran to the door but he was faster. She hid her face, her tears were almost gone, but they threatened to fall again any second.

  “Okay, I won’t, but I can’t understand if you don’t talk to me.” Nicholas started to reach out toward her, but saw the tears she was trying to hide and stopped. Whatever she wanted to hide, he had no right to pressure her considering he was hiding something too.

  “I’m sure you do understand,” she snapped back, getting defensive as a last resort. He was hiding a lot from her, she knew. The truth about what happened earlier, his past, her attacker… She knew he knew all of this and he wouldn’t tell her. “You don’t like to reveal much about yourself, but yet your Alpha wants everything from me! She knows things I haven’t told anyone here! How is that fair when you won’t even tell me who attacked me and turned me into this creature!” She was being irrational, but she didn’t care. “Let me leave Nick, now!” She put out the full force of her anger and emotion into the command.

  He flinched. For half a second, he felt like listening to her, but that wasn't possible. He was hundreds of years old and she was barely a week and a half into her change. It shouldn’t be possible that he felt even the slightest hint of that from her. ‘You’re gonna be very powerful one day’ he remembered telling her. He waited a moment before moving aside to let her leave, showing he didn’t move because he was told, but because he wanted to. The full moon was messing with both of them and he thought it was better to let her go calm down. Once he moved, she ran out.

  She would not do this, not in the open. She stormed down the stairs and to her den, slamming the door once inside. She went to her bedroom and threw herself on the bed. She was angry about Nicholas hiding things from her, confused about his nervousness and the feeling she had before the ceremony. Upset about Beatrice knowing one of her darkest secrets, something she promised to never tell anyone unless she was about to walk down the aisle. She was anything but safe here, that much was true. She decided, as she finally let the tears fall, that it was time to leave.

  Chapter Nine

  Sleep came after her tears finally dried up over an hour later. She woke up exhausted and ready to enact her plan she made over the last week. After a quiet breakfast in her room and before Camila came by for their usual hang out time, she left and snuck down to the training room. They hung the guard’s shift schedule up there for easy viewing and saw that, luckily, Benjamin was on night guard duty tonight. From what her friend had said, he was the most eager to please and would be the easiest to get out of the way so she could sneak out. She lifted weights and ran for an hour on a treadmill to make it look like she came there to work out. After feigning the workout, she left and swung by the large classroom for her tutoring.

  The older teacher taught her a lot of the rules about following and respecting the Alpha, but she was still trying to understand the finer points of pack life and werewolves in general. How good their night vision was, how the full moon messed with their minds (which was true, he explained) and other such nuances she couldn’t be bothered with anymore. Instead, she nodded along as intended, and kept her mind focused on her new goal, going home. All she had to do was distract Ben with some excuse and she could walk right out. She had mixed feelings about leaving, and she was trying to sort them out when the teacher dismissed her. As she was walking down the halls heading to grab something to snack on, she ran into Jeremiah. He was actually walking past her, but he stopped, turned and began walking along with her.

  “Morning, Miss Elizabeth, finished your tutoring for the day?” The male asked her casually. He had grown on her, despite Camila’s feelings towards him. For some reason, the male made her friend upset, but she couldn’t sense anything about him amiss. She mentally shrugged and prepared a careful response.

  “Yep.” Genius, Elizabeth. He eyed her carefully as if he could see right through her thoughts and see her very soul.

  “Well good, so what else you got planned for the day? You and Camila gonna watch something in your den today? I’d love to join if you wouldn’t mind,” he knew that was all she normally did. She hadn’t been assigned a job yet because she was still new, so she couldn’t just wander around but she couldn’t leave. So, her only outlet being her TV, Camila usually hung around until she was called for babysitting duty. Whenever the couples needed a break from their children, they would look to Camila since the kids all loved her. She was basically a big kid anyway, so it made sense.

  “Actually, I thought about swinging by the Twin’s den. They invited me there a while back and I don’t have much else planned.” As the words came out, she realized that was a perfect idea. It would hide her from everyone for a while as she didn't want to have to say goodbye to Nicholas or Camila. Admittedly, she didn’t want to see Nicholas at all, even if the pull towards him hadn’t gone away completely.

  “Ah, I see. Well you know that around this time they are usually in their ritual room and you’re heading the wrong way, right?” Jeremiah laughed as Elizabeth suddenly looked around and realized he was right. She waved his laughter away as she headed in the correct direction. Once the darkened room came into view, she was once again shocked by the size of it. It smelled of cloves and a quick look around the room showed why. Several small bowls were situated around the room with slowly smoldering dried cloves in each one. As she inhaled deeply, she felt calmed and more at peace than she had all day.

  “Ah, I see today is the day. Brother, do come out here. We have a job to do.” Ariel said as she smiled and greeted Elizabeth with a slight bow. Allen walked out from a back room behind the stage, and smiled as he saw who had entered their sanctum.

  “Welcome Elizabeth. See, Sister, I told you burning cloves would be good today. We will need the boost after yesterday,” he said, shrugging.

  “Of course I have learned to not doubt you, Brother. Please come with me, I shall seat you in the front, Elizabeth.” Ariel led her to the front rows. Elizabeth hadn’t even been able to get a word in, but now they seemed to be expecting her, so she sat down.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but Camila talked so much about the story, so I got curious and-”

  “Ah, you are referring to the Huntress and the Wolf, right?” Ariel said.

  “Of course she is, Sister dear, we both know that is Mila’s favorite story!” Allen responded as if this was common knowledge. “But I sense something else from you, Miss Elizabeth. Is something troubling you?”

  They were good, almost too good. “No, not really. I just wanted to hear the story and since I don’t have any other jobs right now, I thought…”

  “Of course we’d love to help you out, perhaps this story will even help you figure out whatever is troubling you.” Allen glided over the floor, selecting one of the tapestries closest to the door. He carried it to the stage while Ariel closed the door to the sanctum. “This is our oldest story and our oldest tapestry. Now, not many of these exist anymore, so we are very blessed to even have one. Sister, will
you start the telling?” Ariel nodded to her brother as she made her way to stand at the podium. Elizabeth looked at Allen and noticed he didn’t touch the fragile, hanging fabric this time. Instead, his fingertips glowed dimly to trigger the images to move on the fabric.

  “Thousands of years ago, when the world was still young and people still believed the Sun and Moon revolved around the Earth beneath their feet, there was a rumor of an ancient wolf roaming the lands of Europe. This wolf was clever enough to avoid traps, fast enough that any arrow or spear missed him by several paces, and hid well enough that few who went seeking him even found his tracks. A follower of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon, heard of this wolf and thought, surely she would capture this beast and gift it to her goddess. So for three months, the huntress sought the wolf. Though she set her best traps, he avoided them all. She was quick with her bow, but he avoided her arrows. Few were the times she even laid eyes on him.”