by Karen Ruth
I tilted my head towards the air and squinted my eyebrows trying to think.
“Well I know that it is illegal to do, and not everyone survives the change. Other than that, only what I experienced with Catherine.” I said to them.
Reed responded, “If you are bitten by a werewolf, you transform into one. The thing is you belong to the pack who bit you.”
I looked at him as dread plummeted into my stomach.
“No,” I whispered in horror. “I refuse to believe that. You’re saying that Cath belongs with them? With Seth?” I questioned him not wanting to believe anything that I was asking him.
Reed looked over towards Lucas for help.
Lucas answered, “You are correct Nina. Catherine will only be able to hear the thoughts from Seth’s pack, but we will not make her join them. She will still be able to remain safe with us back at the castle. Even though she won’t truly belong, we will still treat her as one of our own. She may need some training, but I will do my best to help her out. I won’t let anything bad happen to your sister.” I exhaled in relief and walked over to Lucas and rubbed my face against his showing him my appreciation.
“Thank you so much, Lucas.”
“Anything for you my dear sweet Nina.” He responded to me.
Catherine’s voice broke the silence. “Would you two quit being so lovey dovely I don’t want to see my younger sister like that.”
A burst of laughter came from me and said “You’re just jealous Cath.”
“Uh-huh sure, I am. Anyway, could you two do me a favor and quit talking in your minds. I think this information is important for me too. But forgetting about everything serious, how do I look?” She asked us as she twirled in a circle.
Reed being the werewolf he is, whistled at her and said, “Dang some wolfie be smoken.”
If only Cath was in her human form I bet her face would have been pitch red like wildfire. I smiled at her and said, “You look nice Cath.”
Lucas nodded in agreement.
She was a werewolf of a very small frame that looked quite fragile. Her size was a little bit bigger than mine but possessed much less muscle. I had no idea how she would be able to defend herself in a fight. She looked as though she would be very easy to take down, the thought frightening me. Lucas was right, we were going to have to teach her how to defend herself.
“You really think so?” She asked us.
“I will be honest, I am jealous of all of your coat colors.” She looked at us one by one as she was speaking.
“I mean Reed, you get to be a reddish. Nina, you get to be a gorgeous white. Finally, Lucas, you get to be the most mysterious color of all. Black as the midnight sky. Now that I think of it, it’s kind of funny.” She said as she laughed to herself.
“What’s so funny?” I asked her thinking she went paranoid.
“Lucas is black and you are white. You’re like the moon in his sky.” She said still laughing at herself.
“Okay then,” I said very slowly dragging the words out. “No offense Catherine I think you lost your mind.”
“In all seriousness though, there is nothing wrong with the color of your fur. You are gorgeous just the way you are.” I responded to her.
“Thank you, my little sister, it means so much to me.” I nodded accepting her gratitude.
Lucas padded deeper into the woods, Reed following him. When he noticed we weren’t coming, Lucas howled trying to get our attention.
We then started padding over to them and I said to him as we caught up, “A little impatient are we, Lucas?” I flashed him a smile as I spoke.
“Maybe.” He responded his eyes glimmering.
“We are safe here you know that,” I told him as I brushed my tail along his spine. “You can relax now.”
“We may be safe but we may not be as well. Besides the point, there is no way I can relax when you could be in danger.” His eyes searching the woods around us.
“Shh Lucas. I can handle myself.”
“Possibly,” He responded.
“How about this,” I said trying to reason with him. “I will give you permission to train Cath and me both. That way you know I will be able to defend myself.”
“Hey, I want to help!” Reed yelped next to us.
We all ignored him.
“Hmm okay, I think I can accept that,” Lucas said as he nodded his head.
I was positive I didn’t need Lucas’s training, I could defend myself well. I didn’t think he could truly be that better at fighting than I was, but I wanted to help him calm down. He seemed too stressed out after the whole Rafiq incident, to which I really didn’t blame him. I mean if I smelled Rafiq on him as well, I too would be worried.
“What makes you think I need training?” I heard Catherine call out from beside us.
Instead of answering, I noticed Reed stalk toward her without her noticing. Stealthily he pounced on her and knocked her off balance as she fell on her back with her stomach exposed. He put his jaws around her neck as I saw her swallow hard and laid there frozen on the green grass. Reed jumped off of her with a content look on his face.
“I think that explains it well.” He simply said to her as she stood back onto her feet and shot him a deadly glare.
He didn’t notice though, he was too busy trotting to catch back up to us.
“Okay, maybe he is right,” Catherine said when she saw the look I was giving her.
“You think?” I asked her as I started laughing. “No offense Cath I think you may need more training than I thought. Good luck with her Lucas.” She redirected her deadly glare to me instead.
Lucas took Catherine’s side in the argument and said, “don’t worry I’ll train you to be even better than Nina. She tends to be too big for her own britches.”
I looked over to him and laughed “dang Lucas, did you turn ninety on me?” I joked with him.
“You would like that wouldn’t you?” He joked right back with me wiggling his eyebrows.
“Eh, probably not,” I responded to him shrugging.
Reed said, “Get a room you two.” As he pushed Cath forward with his nose and they raced toward the gate.
“Be careful with my sister, she is fragile!” I called out after them.
My sister turned around and stuck her tongue out at me and said, “I’ll show you fragile,” as she raced forward. I just rolled my eyes at her and shook my head.
“They will be ok, plus we can see her from here,” Lucas said to me in a serious tone.
“You really think so?” I questioned him worried.
“I know so.” He simply responded and I gave out a large exhale in relief.
“Ok,” I muttered as Lucas put his tail over my back.
We then continued on our path to the castle, the place of which we call home.
Once we all arrived at the door to my “house,” I scratched on the oak. Being that we were still in our wolf forms, we couldn’t just open the handle. Not with the rounded style that it was. After a few minutes, just when I thought we were going to have to find another way in, my mother opened the door and looked down.
“Ooh, you brought more with you!” She exclaimed excitedly. “Now there is a red color and a grey color! Who knew that there could be so many different coat colors?!” She clapped her hands as she squealed and jumped in the air like a child.
When she was done clapping she cocked her head sideways her brow furrowed.
“Where is Catherine? I thought she would be with you guys.”
I felt foolish, how stupid could I have been. I didn’t even think about how I was going to break it to my mother that another one of her children wasn’t a normal human anymore. She would probably blame it on me right away, especially for the fact that Catherine is her baby. I dropped my head to the floor, my ears drooping as well as sadness overcame me. Lucas and Reed avoided my mother's eye contact as Catherine slowly made her way to my mother.
“Catherine? Where are you?” She said looking behind al
l of us into the hall. “She has to be around here somewhere, she never goes very far.” She said as she looked at us.
Catherine gently tugged at the bottom of my mother’s pants trying to get her attention. She looked down saying “Hello, not now new one. I’m trying to find my daughter. Have you seen her?” She asked Catherine not understanding that she was indeed her daughter. Catherine nodded her wolf head in response to my mom’s question. “Great! Where is she?” She asked Catherine bending down to give her a pat on the head.
I looked up and walked over to my confused mother to try to help her understand what was going on. I pointed my tail in the direction of Catherine as I was looking at my mom.
“I don’t understand. Where did she go?” I dropped my head and flicked my tail from my mother to Catherine’s wolf form.”
I watched the light bulb inside her head went off and her face lit up with horror.
“What happened?!” She yelled making me jump backwards away from her.
I saw Catherine tense up afraid for what was going to happen. She jumped down to give Catherine a bear hug as tears began to spill from her blue eyes. A minute passed by with nothing happening. All of a sudden she turned towards me, her eyes containing an icy stare.
“What did you do!?” She screamed at me. “How could you turn my daughter into a monster like you?!”
I crouched low to the ground. My head dropping as I slowly backed away from her upset that she was accusing me of such a terrible act and even worse calling me a monster. She waved her hand at me and yelled,
“Go, get! I don’t want to see you right now!”
I inched my way toward her as she turned back to face Catherine, resting her head on hers. As I approached her I nuzzled her arm to show her that I was sorry for what happened. Instead of my mom forgiving me, I just threw gasoline on the fire. She thrashed her elbow back at me, hitting me right in the nose with great force. Blood started dripping from my nose onto the floor as I shook my head to reduce the pain of the blunt hit.
“I mean it Nina, get away from me. Don’t make me hit you even harder.”
I noticed Lucas try to walk towards me with an angry expression on his face from the corner of my eye. Reed stepped in the way and shook his head in a no position. I was petrified by what was happening, she never acted this way. She was always sweet, just needed us to take care of her.
I heard Lucas speak in my head, “Please Nina, let’s go. I can’t stand to see you get hurt anymore.”
I turned around to look at him, a pained expression evident on his face. His body was tense and I noticed that he was hardly breathing.
“Please,” he begged me even further.
“What about Catherine?” I said as I nodded in the direction of where she was standing. “She is too dangerous to be left alone.” Adding to what I just said.
Reed responded, “I will stay here and watch her. You and Lucas get out of here. I will call you when your mother isn’t so dangerous for you to be around. I can’t stand you getting hurt, just like Lucas can’t. You know how we feel about females.” He said to me.
Lucas must have seen my hesitation as he begged me once more, “please Nina, I can’t stand here and watch this.”
I slowly nodded, reluctantly agreeing to what Reed said. I walked over to them my tail in between my legs, my ears back. If I was in human form I knew I would have been crying as I couldn’t contain my whimpering noises. “Thank you, Reed,” I said in such a hush manner of which was barely audible.
I continued walking past Lucas and Reed not looking back to see if Lucas was following me.
Catherine’s voice spoke out, but it was different than what it usually was. In a way, it was a little sinister as it said “You know what Nina? Now that I think about it, it really was your fault.”
My jaw dropped as I turned to look at her but she didn’t return the gaze. I heard Reed and Lucas both gasp at what they heard confirming to me that I wasn’t the only one who heard it.
I trotted my way straight out the door and into the wilderness once more. As soon as I felt the fresh air, I collapsed onto the grass. I curled up into a ball and wiped the remaining blood from my face with my paw. Once I was sure all the blood was gone, I covered up my face with my tail and closed my eyes trying desperately to remove the images of what just occurred. Agonizing pain stabbed my bleeding heart, wrenching it, trying to cause as much pain as it could without killing me. I felt a warm body curl up beside me as I clenched my eyes closed not removing my tail. Instead, I smelt the air. It was a scent that helped relax me enough to remove my tail from my eyes and press deeper into him. A scent that smelled of the wilderness that made me dream of home.
“Lucas,” I said softly in the darkness that surrounded my vision.
We sat like that for what seemed like hours but in reality was only minutes. Not a word was spoken as I accepted the embrace that he was giving me.
“I’m so sorry my dear sweet Nina,” he finally said. “Your sister and your mother should not have said those things to you. It was not your fault, you must believe me.”
I opened my eyes and slowly stood up looking down at him as he was still laying where I was only moments before.
“Thanks,” I said not really believing what he was saying.
How couldn’t it have been my fault? Without me, she wouldn’t have been exposed to any of this.
“I can’t believe she said that to me, it’s not like her. She has always been the perfect angel of the house, always the mediator in situations such as this. My mom and I don’t see eye to eye sometimes and that is when Cath steps in, always wanting the best for the family.” I said as I looked distantly into the woods, not focusing on anything in particular.
Lucas stood up and walked next to me, sitting down looking into the woods as well.
“Nina, changing affects their personality. She isn’t herself right now, but she will be soon. We just have to give her time and be there for her when she needs us. It will all be ok, she is probably just scared and confused right now.”
“You’re right,” I responded and tucked my head under Lucas letting him comfort me and feel protected. “What would I do without your support?” I asked him. He simply replied, “You would survive. You are a brave strong fighter Nina, never forget.” “Maybe,” I replied, “but I wouldn’t want to be without you.” “I feel the same way and don’t worry, I don’t have any plans on being without you.” Exhausted, I went from my sitting position to a laying one. Lucas followed my movements never leaving my side. We closed our eyes as the world disappeared around us, Lucas’s last spoken words echoing in my ears comforting me. Eventually, sleep drifted over our bodies, knocking us out.
Chapter 14
Something nudged my body, waking me up from the deep slumber that I was in. The sunset beamed over my body, warming it to a temperature that felt amazing. I stretched before coming to the realization that I was outside. Lucas was stretching alongside me and I saw Caleb standing next to us. He must have nudged me with his shoe by the looks of it.
“Hello, sleepyheads.” His voice spoke inside of our heads as he was looking down at us.
“Do I want to know what you two were doing out here all by yourself?” He questioned arching one of his eyebrows.
I coughed loudly, embarrassed. Lucas just shook it off like nothing and answered Caleb.
“It’s complicated, I will explain it all later.”
“Uh-huh sure,” Caleb responded back to us.
I just shook my body getting rid of all the grass that covered my white fur. Looking down I realized that my paw still had some bloodstains that I had yet to remove. I laid back down and began to lick it to get rid of all of it. After I was done I looked up and noticed that they were both staring at me.
“What?” I asked them confused on why they were watching me.
“Nothing,” they both quickly responded turning their heads rapidly to look away from me.
“Okay then,” I said slowly furrow
ing my brow. “Do you think it’s safe to go back inside?” I asked Lucas. Instead of his voice, I heard Reed respond.
“Finally you two say something, I’ve been in here all night!”
“Oops sorry Reed, we kind of fell asleep on you,” I said to him apologizing.
“I kind of figured that out,” He said in an agitated tone. “Anyway, I still wouldn’t come home yet. Your sister is back in her normal body but your mother is pretty distressed. She needs time to cool yet.”
“Thank you,” I said to him.
It felt like that was all I was saying lately, thank you, having everyone else do things for me. I felt useless in a way.
“You’re welcome.” He responded back. “Anyway, I’ve got to go back to babysitting. Talk to you two later.” He then severed the connection and left.
“Now what?” I asked as I stood up and stretched my legs.
“Do you want to go back into your human form?” Lucas asked me as he stood up as well.
“I don’t even have clothes to wear, as you heard I’m not allowed to go back to my room yet.”
“Come in my room with me. We can find you something to wear in there. I’ll call Cassie and have her bring you some more clothes.”
Caleb moved over to lean against a tree as he listened to our conversation.
“You sure?” I asked him.
“Of course, I know you don’t want to remain in your wolf form all day.”
“Alright,” I responded to him.
“You coming or staying?” Lucas asked as he looked over towards Caleb.
“Dude I’m staying here. I don’t want to see what princess and you do in your spare time.” Lucas and I rolled our eyes at him.
I retorted, “I’m not a princess Caleb.”
“Not yet,” he simply replied and I just turned away from him and shook my head walking with Lucas into the castle.
As I entered Lucas’s room, my mouth fell wide open. It was the most expensive-looking room I have ever come across. Almost the entire room was made out of gold, even the bed frame, ceiling, and tiles were made out of gold. A large golden chandelier hung from his ceiling began to glimmer, lighting up the room. Lucas’s bed was the biggest canopy bed that I had ever laid my eyes on. There was a gigantic fireplace against the wall across from the bed that was similar to my own but much larger. Ashes from burnt wood covered the bottom giving off the impression that it was used not too long ago.
