by Cree Walker
"It worries Robert." She said cleaning the crumbs of the counter.
"What about it worries him?"
"He's just worried that you don't go running and you've been through Hell; you know." She shrugged, "It worries me too to be honest."
"I know that I can't run from my past. I'll be more careful and talk to someone about it, but I'm not suicidal."
"Do you know the best way to feel better?" She asked suddenly.
"Going on a run; yes I know that."
"So why would you avoid the one thing that's guaranteed to make you feel better?" She cocked her head.
"Britney, I like you but you're one short sentence away from one long beating."
"You should talk to Robert about it." She skirted. "It probably has to do with what happened to you."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right, but I like to limit my psychotic breaks to only one a day, and the quota is up for today." I said in a happy singsong voice.
Her eyes grew wide. "Fine, there's no need to plead insanity to prove a point. Really it isn't that big a deal; it happens to a lot of wolves."
"Really?" I asked skeptically. Maybe I wouldn’t have been but the way she worded it sounded like a woman telling an impudent man it was okay he couldn’t get it up. "I keep thinking that I'm some sort of mutant, you know?"
"Sugar, you're one of us. You keep magnifying your differences; sure they're there but at the end of the day, we're biologically the same."
"Just keep it to yourself that I'm shift retarded."
She shrugged, "Not a problem. Did you know the pack Omega is basically like the go to person for stuff like this?"
"Really, why?"
"Talking to someone who's got nothing to gain from knowing your weaknesses is basically a get out of jail free card." She smiled.
Sounds of bare feet crossing the driveway had me looking over my shoulder. "I'm going to bed."
"You can't avoid them forever."
"No not forever, but at least until tomorrow." I trotted up both sets of stairs and closed the door to my bedroom as quietly as possible. I climbed into bed and threw the blankets over my head and waited for my heart to stop pounding.
I listened to footsteps climbing the stairs and through Gage's room, then my door opened a crack. "Sugar?" His voice whispered quietly before coming in and closing the door behind him. He peeled my blankets back as I faked sleep for the second time that day. He watched me briefly brushing a gentle hand across one of my cheekbones before leaving again. It was Robert, checking on me. Probably making sure I hadn't choked myself to death with my bra, he would definitely take that personally.
Lynn; I had never spoken to her directly but she was the type of girl who could just look at you and make you feel inferior. She didn't go out of her way to be snide or rude, actually quite the opposite. She was quiet, but you could tell by her watchful gaze that she saw everything and mulled it over in her sharp mind saving it for later. She was startlingly beautiful, easily more so than any of the other girls. She had delicate features and waist length golden blonde hair and Caribbean Sea blue eyes with a cute little Cupid’s bow mouth. Top that all off with cheekbones any model would kill for. She was a living goddess, and probably the most beautiful thing about her was that she didn't know it. She saw that face in the mirror every day, so to her it was just another face, but to anyone else, she was perfection personified; a Disney princess come to life.
She was sitting at the counter eating a muffin when I came downstairs. She smiled sweetly and offered me a stool by pushing it out from under the island with a pointed bare foot. "Good morning, Sugar."
"Hey, I’m Sugar," I repeated sounding exactly like the dork she made me feel I was. "So what are we doing today?"
She shrugged and made it look like a ballet move. "This far up the chain there really isn't that much to do. Alex makes a lot of unnecessary work for herself, but it makes her feel useful."
I nodded but looked around at the kitchen and kept telling myself not to say anything dumb. I felt a little like a teenage boy with a crush, but the truth was I didn't want her; I just wanted to be a little more like her.
"You have a beautiful name." She said, at last ending the awkward silence I had caused.
"Most people tell me it sounds like a stripper's name." I mentally head slapped myself.
She shook her head, "I still like it."
"Thanks." I said happy she didn't take that opportunity to crush me verbally.
"I know a great place to go swimming, do you feel like swimming? It’s really hot out today; it’s almost eighty-five already."
I thought about it; there was still snow on the ground in the deep shade of the woods, but though I hadn’t tested it much after my experience with the lake that winter I knew werewolves could tolerate the cold far better than humans. "Yeah, sure I'll just go grab one of Sarah's suits and we'll go."
"I've got a suit that would look awesome on you." She smiled warmly.
We went up to her room and she started pulling out bathing suits neatly hung on hangers. I wondered why she had so many, but the truth was if I looked like her I would probably walk around naked. She pulled a solid black bikini and held it out to me.
I turned and changed into the suit and she tied the back of the top for me before changing into her own bright pink string thong bikini, and I could see enough of her in that suit to see she wasn't hiding any flaws. I was hoping she had a strange rash or an extra toe, but she was flawless from head to all ten toes.
I pulled my jeans back on but left the rest for when we got back. She wore a pair of cut off shorts that looked a lot like the one's Sarah wanted me to wear to first meet Robert, only she didn't look cheap in them, she looked perfect, it was almost too much and I nearly said something.
We walked through the woods barefoot for almost half an hour until we came to a little outcropping that jutted out into the lake. "They call this place Cub Scout Point." She said stripping off her shorts.
I pulled off my own jeans and stepped into the water, surprised at how warm it was. Though some days the weather was in the eighties it was still only in the thirties or forties most nights.
She surprised me and grabbed my hand smiling sweetly. "Ready?" She crouched and we ran for the water screaming and dove under its surface in one breathtaking leap. Though the water was warm by Maine standards, a spring fed lake didn't get much warmer than sixty degrees on a good day. I gasped and bounced my feet on the rocky bottom of the lake laughing with her through chattering teeth.
She spun onto her back and floated around lazily. If she was a season, she would be summer through and through. She was tanned and sweet, warm and beautiful, while I was defiantly an autumn. I was dark and threatening, always stormy and cold, and death seemed to surround me like a suffocating shroud that kept me separate from the rest.
We swam in silence for most of the morning, just enjoying the peace of solitude and warm sun.
She smiled with her eyes closed and seemed to soak up the brilliant early summer sunshine. "Sugar?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't you talk to me like the others?" She didn't sound hurt, just curious.
"You unnerve me." I floated beside her in the shallow clear water.
She looked over at me and smiled. "You've got nothing to worry about."
"You and Robert aren't compatible?" I asked.
"More than you know."
"It seems to me that he's looking for someone just like you."
"He's not my type, trust me." I thought about that for a moment. To me he seemed to be everyone's type, but then so did Lynn.
"Lynn." Robert called from the shore. "Your Daddy's on the phone for you."
I sat up shocked that he'd just appeared out of nowhere again. I started splashing noisily as I tried to gain my footing and ended up getting water up my nose in the process.
"Yes, Alpha." She called back sitting up and doing a perfect breast stroke towards shore.
I walked onto the shore more slowly whe
n I realized Robert wasn't leaving.
"You enjoy your swim?" He asked as I walked past him on the smooth rocky beach.
"Yeah."
He nodded then swiped at his hair nervously.
"What did Lynn mean by saying you weren't her type?" I asked, forging ahead. It was a rude question to ask but I needed to know everything that was happening in the house I lived in.
He grinned wide, "What do you think, Sugar?" He turned to walk back to the trail leading to the house. "Nice suit."
My brain slowly connected all the dots and I jogged up beside him. "She's gay?"
He just kept smiling. "Yup."
"But, I'm probably not her type anyway, right?"
He stopped and faced me, but his smile was gone. "Sugar, you know for a woman who's seen so much in such a short amount of time, you are truly the most naive person I've ever met."
"Maybe she just wanted a friend." I said defensively.
"Yeah, you're probably right. I mean when I hang out with a guy I put him in a string bikini and take him swimming somewhere really private." He snorted and rolled his eyes.
I stopped in the trail to put space between us. If he was only talking to me so he could patronize me and make me feel stupid I didn't feel much like talking.
Lynn was still on the phone with her father when I got back to the house so I plopped down in front of the new television and flicked through the channels, avoiding one reality show after another.
I didn't understand the draw of these kinds of shows. They were about teen pregnancy, drug addiction, sex addiction, and the battle for love in a world where people have almost completely lost the true definition of what reality is. People who worship minute-by-minute twitter updates and facebook friends they'll never meet. Seemingly normal people sit down and watch these different groups that in the past would have been exiled to the outer most fringes of human society, not worshiped for their inadequacies. These people sit at home, watching them on television, logging on to observe updates on-line and reading magazine articles about their lives after the special two-hour season finale. And these people care about whether they succeeded or not, while living vicariously through them and their obvious failures. So all the producers have to do is sit back and every once in a while poke and prod the cattle and pray for a stampede.
"Why are you watching the home shopping channel?" Sarah plopped down next to me.
"It’s the only thing that's on." I said, examining the gaudy but reasonably priced authentic, imitation gem broach on a black velvet stand, sparkling its little heart out under the glare of a billion studio lights.
"Do people still wear broaches?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know. They probably aren't my kind of people anyway." I shrugged and turned off the television.
Lynn walked in and waved a friendly hello. "I'm off to bed so I can rest up for our fight tonight. It was really nice meeting you, Sugar."
I waited ’til she was out of the room before turning to Sarah. "Is she any good?"
Sarah nodded. "If everyone has a good side and a bad side and those two sides are polar opposites, she's as mean as she is nice."
"So why are there girls above her?"
"She doesn't want the Alpha; she took a knee just below me in the line."
"Does everyone know this but me?"
Sarah shrugged, "Does it matter?"
"It must be so hard for her, you know? She's refusing to continue a species on the brink of extinction as one of its few remaining females, and on top of that she's so strong."
"I think that's the reason she's able to handle it. If she were weaker... things might have ended differently for her." Sarah said with certainty.
"That must be kind of a kick in the teeth for the Alpha though. He finds the perfect female, his perfect mate, and she'll have nothing to do with him."
Sarah didn't say anything right away but stood up slowly. "I'm sure it broke his heart, but I don't think Lynn was ever that girl."
I paused a moment to let that fun little fact sink in. "Then why did he fight for her? Why did he fight for any of them?" I said angrily, getting her obvious injective and feeling the insult bone deep.
"You were gone, no one knew where you were or if you were even alive. We may be stronger than the humans; we may be faster, and age more slowly. I can jump out of a moving car going sixty-five miles per hour on a busy highway and get up and walk away, but if Kyle and I were separated for longer than a few months we would die. When it comes down to it we are very fragile as a species. Mother Nature gives a little and takes a lot." Sarah shrugged. "Maybe we're just done, you know?"
She left me sitting on the couch feeling as if I held the balance of their entire species in the palm of my hand – as delicate as the wings of a butterfly. If I was a mother, I couldn't imagine knowing my child was probably going to be the last generation before the flame just flickered and died and then werewolves would be nothing but a myth... for real this time. Just imaging the very possibility of Brian never finding love and just withering and dying – that should have been enough; it had to be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Supper came and went and I didn't taste a bite of it. Lynn continued to be friendly but I didn't forget the warning Sarah had given me about her capabilities in the Circle.
She met me on the porch before the others had gathered. "Sugar, I know you might think I'm being selfish by not agreeing to take a mate, but I'm not. And if the only way to prove that to myself is to prevent an unworthy opponent from rising to the top, then I will fight."
"Do you think I'm unworthy?"
"That's not up to me to decide, but it is up to you to prove to everyone that you are." She hugged me quickly then hopped off the porch.
We met in the Circle and everything went silent. It was almost as quiet as it got just before Jack paid me a visit. Donna smiled smugly from its perimeter as if to say that my rise to the top was about to come to an abrupt end.
The fight started quickly with both of us desperate to prove something to ourselves. It was more than pride; it was more than reputation; it was survival of a great race of people.
Just like in life, our fighting styles were on opposite ends of the spectrum. She moved almost like Jack did, as if every move was choreographed perfection, while I was unpracticed but vicious. But when you practice certain moves, a pattern of repetition develops in your style; this makes you predictable and if I've endured the brunt of your repertoire I've also learned your go to moves... of course I have to stay conscious the whole time you're beating the living shit out of me.
She countered one of my punches and grabbed my fist before I could pull it out of her reach, twisting it behind my back at a painful angle, and I shifted knowing my shoulder was going to tear out of its socket but her openings were too few for me to await another opportunity. I threw back my entire weight slamming into her with my whole body and we both smashed into the ground on our backs. When we hit I pressed my feet to the ground to force the majority of my weight into her upper body and I repeatedly beat the back of my head into her exposed face as incentive for her to release her iron grip. Finally she let go and I rolled onto my good side, my injured arm dangling like a pendulum. She tried sitting up, her perfect face, now a mask of blood and open gashes, She gave one last resigned sigh before flopping back onto the ground and succumbing to painless unconsciousness. I sat up fully and shrieked, as if I were finally getting the total effect of my injured arm. Then I started throwing up because crying wasn't enough. It was probably a good thing I hadn't known how much it would truly hurt, because I might not have done it.
Sarah helped me up as I cradled my throbbing arm, getting the pain under control, I locked eyes with Donna and smirked, revealing bloody teeth. "See you on Thursday."
She wasn't smiling anymore.
The next morning Sarah ordered total bed rest for the whole day. She brought me a stack of books and magazines. She stood at the foot of my bed and pointed her finger, telling m
e that I was not move for anything other than the bathroom. Holding still wasn't something I was exactly good at but she explained the healing process nearly doubles while we sleep and the thought of my pain stopping sounded really good. The sounds of the house slowed and stopped by mid morning. Some of the pack worked for the “family business,” – a general contracting business Jack and Kyle had started while others were busy keeping the pack taken care of. The new Alpha didn't work away from home. Sarah explained that if he left every day for work, other Alpha’s saw that as an opening, and kidnapping was becoming something of a real problem with so few women. So he stayed home and occupied his time with working out and managing his stock portfolio.
I did fall asleep for a short while but by noon I was crawling in my skin to get out of bed. My arm was still sore, but it felt more like a pulled muscle than a dislocated shoulder. I wandered downstairs looking for something to eat when I heard Sarah’s voice coming through the Alpha’s bedroom door. My hearing was acute enough that I didn’t have to press my ear against the wood to hear their conversation but I did have to stand a little closer.
“I hear what you’re saying Sarah, but Sugar has to fight every single pack member in order to get to the top. If either you or your husband takes a knee, the rest of the pack will see it as her weakness.”
“She can’t beat Kyle, Robert. You know this, and you keep saying this is for her own good, but she belongs at the top and she won’t get there if she has to fight a fair fight with a male werewolf.”
“As long as you’re in this pack, Sugar has to fight you both.” He sighed heavily.
“Then we’re gone. Today we’re leaving the house. We’ve got nothing to fight for here, we have each other.”
“She’ll blame me.”
“She’ll forgive you, but I won’t be the one to stop her from getting to the top.”
It was obvious that their conversation had run its course so I tip toed to the fridge and stuck my head in pretending to look for food.
Sarah and Robert both walked out of his room and when I faced them, they both took on a look of guilt. I just smiled. “Anyone hungry? I was just about to make myself a sandwich.”
