by Jordan Deen
“I still need a little time on that one…” I said. Matt shifted uncomfortably back and forth on his hind legs.
“I’ll give you as much time as you need,” he whispered and cupped my face in the palm of his warm hand. His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, then across my lips. “You know, my heart almost stopped when you kissed me.” Michael and Lucas both growled, annoyed with how long our interaction had gone on, but truly, I didn’t care. Brandon and this moment held every bit of my attention. The stream trickled in the distance, the wind rustled the leaves in the trees, and his lips held the perfect amount of pout and gloss and.... I love you. He whispered shortly before he loosened his hold on my back and pulled my face up to his. Every inch of Brandon overtook me. He flooded my thoughts with visions of picnicking by the stream, playing in the water, and then, both of us playfully running as wolves through the woods. I started to pull back, fearful of the outcome of that vision, but he held me close until my breathing steadied. My heart finally slowed to a speed I could handle, while he continued to kiss me passionately and inundated my thoughts with random images. It wasn’t Haventon, but given the situation, it was as close as we were going to get.
No one moved until Brandon finally let me go. It felt like he had enveloped me for hours, but it truly couldn’t have been more than a few moments. We were breathless and satisfied. We finally had some time alone, even if we did have a few canine witnesses. The connection we longed for rushed from him to me, leaving me dazed and feeling complete for the first time in months. My palm and hand throbbed with a prickling, tingling sensation. I held my breath and showed Brandon my hand first, almost terrified to look at it myself. Instantly, he started to cry. He wrapped his arms around my back, picked me up from the ground, and twirled me around. My feet suspended in air barely missed Lucas and Michael’s heads.
“You are meant for me, and I for you,” Brandon whispered in my ear, and pressed his lips to my neck sending more dreams of our future through me.
“This is great and all, but are you ready to head back? We need to get going,” Matt said, morphed back in to human form. Michael, Lucas, and Trevor both paced by the path to the cabin.
Brandon looked dejected by his father and friends. We started to feel a connection and they still insisted he abandon me. The tingling disappeared, and thoughts of Alex infected my mind again. The reason Brandon had to go: to find Alex and my parents, and stop them from trying to steal me back. I missed my family. I missed Aunt Jamie and working at her Veterinary clinic. I missed my best friend, Jillian, before she went all crazy-glamour werewolf on me. Hell, at this point, I even missed the McMillan’s psycho tabby cat that clawed the hell out of me before my date with Alex.
My life before may have been boring and mundane, but at least, I knew my future and had something to look forward to. But now, I couldn’t be alone with the alleged love of my life. I didn’t even finish high school, and becoming a Veterinarian would never be a reality. So much for the sun and sand in San Diego; instead, I got the tree-covered mountains of Oregon, complete with my own personal pack of werewolf protectors. What a difference a few months can make.
c h a p t e r
FOUR
Three weeks had gone by since Brandon left, marking my spiral into a canyon of despair. Getting out of bed everyday felt like trying to climb up steep cliff walls with no safety harness. Every morning, I woke just thankful to be alive, but time was running out. Fate would not be put off much longer. If Brandon didn’t come home soon, our shared marks would be completely erased from all existence, and I’d be lost in this valley forever.
Another day full of Lily’s prying eyes, cleaning, and cooking for the camp, stretched out ahead of me. Turning eighteen was supposed to be the best thing ever—graduating from high school, going to college, and leaving Brookefield… I guess I got the last wish, but this wasn’t what I had in mind. This was never my dream, never my wish, never my idea of a perfect life. And I grew tired of “making the most of it,” as Serena told me to do daily.
“Are you planning on getting out of bed today? The snow is wonderful.” Lily pulled on her heaviest jacket and snow boots. The clouds that hugged the mountains the night before blanketed the ground with more than two feet of snow. I never knew it snowed anywhere in April, but obviously, it did. Springtime is for showers, flowers, and renewal; not frosted streams, ice, and snow that sticks to your clothes and freezes you from the outside in.
“No,” I huffed and pulled the blankets tighter over my head. She’d worn me down. Normally, I didn’t fight having her around, but I felt feisty. If she wanted to hang out with me, she could watch me lay in bed.
“Come on. It’ll be fun! Matt, Nicole, and Lucia are going to go play in the snow.” When that didn’t work, she started to whine, “It’s lame being the only one in human form.”
And then my really bitchy side came out, “Maybe you should hang out with people your own age then.” Lily was the only almost-teenager in camp mated with someone already transformed. All the other twelve and thirteen-year-olds were mated with kids their own age that hadn’t transformed yet. They got to experience the changes together, making Lily the odd man out. Everything for her had been accelerated, and she sometimes forgot she wasn’t a teenager, yet. She would turn thirteen in a week, and figured Brandon hadn’t come home so he could surprise her with a big gift for becoming a “teen.” If his motivation for being gone so long was to give her a huge birthday surprise, I would have been pissed. It would have been the most reckless decision ever, considering the mark on my palm dwindled to the size of a speck. Then again, every dream I’ve ever had subsided too. Brandon no longer occupied my days, and Alex stayed away at night. Loneliness replaced each of them and unpacked its bags for a long spring of tormenting me.
“You don’t have to be mean to me.” Lily slammed the door as she exited. The sound of the ice cracking on the bedroom window filled the room. She couldn’t understand what a disappointment my life turned out to be. Nicole tried to help me fit in, but I was the traitor. The one who couldn’t accept my mate and refused to change, or at least that was the rumor. I’m the one that dared to risk the future pack leader’s life, even though that was never my intention. No one really knew me, or wanted to get to know me, and assumptions ran rampant over why I hadn’t became this all powerful werewolf they expected would come to save them all. In fact, I think the second I came here, everyone felt disappointed that I wasn’t… more. I wanted to be who they expected, but had no idea exactly what they wanted from me.
After Lily’s abrupt departure from our room, I suspected one of two things: either Matt would come and tell me not to be mean to her or Serena would come get me for a session. When Serena blew through the door bringing the frosty cold air with her, I wished it had been Matt instead.
“So, you’re having a bad day?” Serena said before I pulled back the covers to see who had come into the room. “You’ve had a lot of those lately. I’ve given you a lot of slack since I know things are rough without your mate. But you can’t keep this up. Brandon will come back soon and the two of you can pick up where you left off.”
“We haven’t even heard from him in three weeks.” I looked at her briefly, then tugged the blankets over my head to block out the cruel world I’d come to live in. Emile and Ava had gone on this latest trip, leaving me without their understanding or their comfort. For all I knew, they could be hunting my parents, an idea I didn’t want to consider.
Without warning, Serena grabbed the blankets and tossed everything into the floor. “You need to stop wallowing in self pity. It’s not a good look for you.” She threw open the heavy drapes sending sparkling reds, blues, and yellows across the room from the suns reflection on the snow. “Why don’t you get dressed? We can go for a walk.”
“I don’t want to.” Chills rushed down my arms and exposed legs. I reached for the blankets to cover again, but she stepped in my way.
“Get dressed,” she said, and not in a very nice
way.
“Fine.” My teeth chattered as I pulled on my jeans and layer after layer of shirts. The ski jacket I got from Nicole was two sizes too big, but if Serena insisted on going outside, there’d be no way I’d go without it.
Nicole, Bailey, and Lucia sat on the picnic tables in the courtyard between the houses. Dillon and Christian, Lucia’s mate, were with the group searching for the Mares. Nicole made it a point to be overly friendly to me because the others hated me. Lucia reminded me of Courtney, the psycho cheerleader from hell, so I didn’t really mind that she didn’t talk to me. I barely knew Bailey, but every time I tried to talk to her in the dining hall, she’d turn and walk away without so much as a peep. Serena said it must have been my overactive imagination because Bailey liked everyone. Then again, everyone’s basic response to me had been the same, so her reaction really didn’t surprise me.
Serena pulled me into the woods down a slightly worn path I’d never noticed before. Exploring on my own hadn’t been an option. “Where are we going?” I asked, stumbling over a misplaced log.
“What are we doing?”
“You’ll see.” Serena locked her arm around mine, pulling me further into the woods. When we finally got out of the dense trees, a tiny log cabin sat across the small field next to a bend in the stream. “This is my place.” She grinned. I never realized she didn’t live amongst the rest of us, but it made sense that she’d have a reclusive, perfect cabin like this.
“How come you live out here? By yourself?” The bushes surrounding the cabin bent in the breeze.
“I prefer the privacy. It’s hard to focus on developing my powers amongst all the noise of camp.” Lucky her. But how much developing could she really do at her age? If Brandon and I had our own place, we probably could have developed our bond. But since we were never allowed to be alone, that was out of the question.
“What kind of stuff do you work on out here?” I asked as she pushed the earthy splintered door wide. The cabin looked tiny from the outside, but looks were definitely deceiving. The entire back of the cabin faced the stream and was covered in windows and an open-air patio. Eclectic furnishings littered the middle section of her house. Oversized, midnight blue chairs surrounded a large table filled with vials, potions, plants, and stacks upon stacks of leather bound books. Large swords, knives, iron symbols, crystal artwork, and various old photos hung from every available space on the wall. Time definitely forgot this place. With all the antique artifacts, it had an air of another time full of wizards and fantasy, but so far, the only mythical creature I knew existed were werewolves. Then again, if the world allowed werewolves to exist, then how could it not allow all the others to be real, too?
“So…” Some of the books had more than an inch of dust while others looked like they were well worn and more than well read. “What is all this?” Several books had symbols instead of names on the covers. Some symbols were obvious like fish, suns, and stars. Others weren’t so obvious, like long squiggled lines, and rounded, pudgy looking animals.
“Oh, those old things, some are just relics. Others…,” she picked up a huge worn brown leather book with dog-eared pages, “…are the history of our pack.”
“Really?” The book was massive and weighed even more than it looked. It slipped from my hands, slammed awkwardly onto the table, then tumbled onto the floor. Several pages fell free of the book and scattered onto the ground. Some were written in French, some in Italian, and others were nothing but symbols.
“I’m so sorry!” I flew to the ground to clean up the mess I had made of our family history.
“It’s okay, dear.” She stilled my shaky hand with her wrinkled touch. “I know this particular book better than the back of my hand. It won’t take me a minute to put this all back to new.” Before two minutes could pass, she shuffled the pages like clockwork into a pile, divided them, and stuffed them back into the old text. “See? Just like nothing ever happened. Now, do you speak any other languages?”
“No, I don’t.” I ran my fingers across the symbols on the front of a large black book with red buckle straps. “What is this? What are the symbols?”
She stared at the book beneath my fingers. “That is how our ancestors used to communicate and keep records. We call it Lamanic.” She smiled, claimed one of the large blue chairs, and pulled a stack of books to her. “This is why we are here. Michael made a good point before he left. You’ve learned nothing of us, of our culture, or our history. We haven’t even allowed you to learn of your parents.” My real parents. “Your mother was such a beautiful woman.” She flipped to a page near the middle of a burgundy book to a black and white squared photo, highlighted with scalloped edges. The woman stood next to a stream in a long white gown. Her raven hair, twisted into long curls, swayed to her sides in the wind. Her eyes glowed as she reached for the person taking the photo. She was in love—the kind deep as an ocean, just waiting for the lovers to dive in. “She’s lovely, isn’t she?”
The woman and I had similarities, but it was hard to believe such a beautiful creature was my mother. “Is she… is that my mom?”
“Yes, child, this is your mother, Emma.” The next page revealed the same stream and overhanging trees, but this photo had a man, no older than Brandon. His angular jaw line displayed his authority, but his inset eyes showed the same love for her that she held for him. “This is your father, Gregory.” On the next page, the two of them were locked in a deep embrace next to the stream. Large rocks jutting above the water blurred in the background of the photo. Flowers peppered her long hair, while a bouquet hung from her hands behind his neck.
“Is this their wedding day?”
“Yes, it is. That was the happiest day of your father’s life. Gregory was infatuated with your mother. They made others crave what they had.” The picture made me long for that too. If these people were my parents, then I could be destined to create a love as deep as theirs.
“What is on your mind?” Serena pushed back a section of my hair. Relenting tears started to form as images of my parents laughing and happy next to the stream morphed into dreams of Brandon and me. Would the war lead us to their fate? Would Brandon and I be killed for control over children we’d never held, let alone met? If the war with the Mares continued, there would be no rest for us. No salvation for our children or grandchildren, the battle would torment all of the generations to come.
“Why would they want to kill two people that loved each other so deeply?” I swiped away a tear and tried to steady my hands on the book. What type of monsters could the Mares really be? How could they have believed a child born out of such love and compassion would destroy them? I had no desire to hurt anyone, but now that I had seen their love and put faces to them, I could. I could hurt the Mares. I could ravage them and rip them apart and hold no remorse. Just like they did the night they kidnapped me, and tried to kill Brandon. My Brandon.
“Lacey?” Tears of sadness were quickly replaced by angry, hateful ones.
“Sorry.” I pushed several out of my eyes and off my face, not allowing them to flow freely. The Mares were not worth my sorrow. Brandon and I could have the bond my parents shared, the one that Michael and Emile shared. “Can you teach me about this?” I pointed to the Lamanic writing on the cover of one of the other books. “I think if I knew more about our past, maybe I could understand the future.”
The smile that overtook Serena’s face could have been used as a lighthouse to guide ships to shore. “That is a great idea. It’s not hard to learn, it’s just that there are a lot of symbols.” Three additional books joined the stack in front of me; then a notebook, pencils, pens, an eraser, and a dictionary all covered the book that contained the pictures of my parents.
Pointing to the book at the bottom, I asked, “Is that book only about my parents?” “No, that book is about all the matches and mates. Each family maintains its’ own history within their family.” She pulled a heavy dark green book from one of the high shelves. “This is the book of my
family. It’s written entirely in Lamanic.”
“What happened to my parent’s book?” That wasn’t a question she was prepared to answer. She hesitated and looked around at all the books that surrounded us.
“I’m not sure. I could ask Emile.”
“Did they have one?” I pushed.
“Yes, each family has one. Part of your transformation is to begin a book for Brandon and yourself. Usually, your histology begins on the wedding day and continues onto the next generation.”
“Why wouldn’t we continue Michael and Emile’s then?” Serena flipped through several pages of her own book.
“That will be something you’ll discuss with Brandon’s mother when it comes time for you to maintain the book.” She smiled graciously and pushed her book back into the shelf it came from. “Shall we get started?” On a sheet of paper, she wrote out several Lamanic symbols and their translations. “This symbol is the sun. You will see it and the representations of the seasons throughout most of the books.”
“What are these symbols?” I pointed to moons that looked like my mark, on the front of another book, just out of my reach.
“Those are representations of the lunar phases.” She pointed to the first “This symbol is the crescent. This represents the half moon, and then, the full moon. Each holds significant importance to your transformation and your place within the pack.”
“What do you mean? How does the moon affect my transformation?”
“That is for another session. Let’s get the symbols down first then we’ll delve into that.” She placed several large books over the moon book, and put a much smaller, leather bound notebook in front of me. “This is what I used to learn Lamanic. It has my notes, and some of our legends. The further you progress through the book, the more knowledge you will gain of our pack, our history and Lamanic itself.”
