by Ellis Marie
The warm feeling in my stomach begins to change as the hairs on my arms stand up and a feeling of someone watching me creeps up my back. Subtly, I look over my shoulder and around the room, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary but there’s nothing jumping out at me.
No Matt, no father.
I shake the feeling off and take a breath, playing with the food in my bowl to try and distract my overactive imagination.
There’s nothing there.
Someone knocks my chair as they go past me and apologises, making me quickly turn and let them know it’s alright. My heart jumps at the shock. The old woman smiles at me and keeps walking. I watch her go, relaxed again, almost laughing at how silly I’m being.
As I turn to go back to my food, something catches my eye at the other end of the court. There’s a man with a dark coat and a bald head watching me, staring at me from across the room, and I can almost feel it.
He doesn’t look familiar at all yet my stomach squeezes at his stoic expression, standing as though he is a part of the architecture in the mall, unmoving and unwavering.
Who is he?
The world around me seems to slow as I stare, my breath held as I wait for him to do something, to show any signs of what is going on, but he remains still, eyes following my fear.
“Elle?”
I spin around in a panic, screams bubbling in my throat as someone touches my arm. I jump up, my chair skidding across the linoleum floor.
“Cam?” I ask in relief, my chest decompressing as I let out the air I’ve been holding. My hands shake as I reach out to him.
“Are you okay? Are you on your own?”
I look back to where the man was, expecting him to still be standing watching me but he’s gone, the crowd swallowing up the space as if he was never there.
“I-I . . . there was a man, I think?”
My voice shakes as I look around, trying to spot him again to settle my nerves.
“A man?” Cam replies, pulling me into his side as his eyes scan the room.
“Elle?” Scarlette and Kristie appear behind us, both with frowns on their faces as they take in our defensive stance. “Cam?”
Kristie begins to ask Cam what he’s doing here while Scarlette immediately makes her way to my side and grabs my shoulders, spinning me to look at her alarmed face.
“What happened?”
“There was this man, staring at me from over there.” Her eyes widen. I quickly try to defuse the situation. “I’m sure it was nothing, I’m just overreacting.”
Scarlette ignores me and focuses her attention on the place I had motioned to, her eyes glare as though she’s waiting for something. When I follow her gaze, I see two very familiar boys appear out of nowhere and head out of the mall, appearing to be following a trail.
“Was that Robbie and Dean?” I ask, confused, but Scarlette just grabs my arm and my bags and begins to pull me out of the area with Cam following closely behind with Kristie.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Kristie asks, laughing nervously behind me. “Is something wrong?”
“Cam, keep an eye out,” Scarlette orders. Without hesitation, he nods, the two of them on high alert.
It occurs to me that maybe the idea that the man is dangerous isn’t so stupid after all, if their reactions are anything to go by. There’s nothing more I want than to just be home and feel safe.
Scarlette’s phone rings. When she answers, her voice is clipped and almost professional.
“Yep. Robbie and Dean. I’ve got her. Twenty minutes, tops.” She hangs up and pushes us outside into the fresh air, the sunlight almost blinding as we head for the car. “Cam, get her home safe, yeah?”
“Hang on, what is actually going on right now? I—”
I spin around and grab Kristie, my face full of apology as I stop her rambling with a quick shake.
“K, you need to go right now. It’s to do with my father, and it’s just safer for you to be out of here, alright? Cam will explain everything to you.”
The lie slips out so easily that I’m slightly impressed with myself. Although it might not be a total lie. For all we know, it might be to do with my father, but by Scarlette’s reactions, it’s more likely to be werewolf related—not that Kristie can know that, of course.
My best friend quickly nods and gives me a quick hug goodbye, handing me a bag as she does. I don’t get to ask anything about it before the two of us are pulled apart and being pushed through the car park with heads low as we weave in and out of metal.
Scarlette guides me into the back seat of the car, slamming the door behind me before she jumps into the driver’s seat. The engine rumbles to life in a split second. Before we can move though, the two opposite doors swing open and two figures join us, filling the car.
Robbie and Dean.
“The other boys are on the trail. Let’s get our luna back before he kills someone.”
I try to calm myself down in the car, taking deep breaths and making small talk with the boys. They explain that they were sent to to trail myself and the girls in case anything happened, but it doesn’t really do anything for my nerves.
The moment that I step out of the car, the front door of the packhouse is thrown open and Trent comes barrelling out, wrapping his arms around me before I can so much as say hello.
I want to be annoyed at him for being so overprotective and cautious, but I know the minute that his skin touches mine, that goes out the window. It’s as if his fingers are gently unravelling the knot that has formed in my chest with a single touch.
Whether that man had planned to hurt me or not, Trent is already one step ahead, looking out for me when I don’t even realise I need it.
My name leaves his lips in a breath of relief.
“I’m alright,” I assure him, curling the material of his top in my hands while listening to his erratic heartbeat. “Honestly, nothing happened, I swear.”
“What was she doing alone?” he asks, ignoring me. “I said that someone had to be with her at all times. That was the deal.”
“Trent it’s fine,” I interrupt, pulling out of his arms so that I can look him in the eye and let him know I’m safe. “It was only a minute, and Cam came and—”
“Cam?”
Everyone around us seems to wince at my words, myself included, as Trent’s eyes narrow and his jaw grits, the idea not seeming to please him.
I know that he doesn’t trust Cam—that none of them do—but I’m not about to put him on a manhunt because he happened to be in the same place as me at the wrong time.
I can already see his mind whirling with suspicion, and I know they’re all talking to each other in their head. Before I know it, the situation will probably spiral out of control and someone will get angry or hurt.
“Can we not do this?”
All the attention turns to me as I cross my arms and roll my eyes, trying to wave off the growing worry that I can almost taste happening around me.
“I’m fine, your guys are tracking whoever it was, and I would really like to not ruin today with this because I’ve had the best day with my friends in a long time, and I would now like to go and get ready for our date?”
The word softens his brows but his mouth still opens as if to complain.
“Please.”
It closes, the argument dying inside as I widen my eyes into an innocent stare and hope that he will let it go. I would like to keep having the best day ever. There’s nothing we can do about the situation right now anyway.
“Alright,” he agrees, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. The strain in his muscles seems to weaken as I smile up at him. “I’ll see you later.”
I squeal in excitement and grab my bags from the car, pushing past the group who have gathered around us. As I make my way to the front door, I suddenly stop and spin around, remembering a certain person who looks frozen with fear on the driveway.
“Oh! And I’ll need Scarlette. Sorry!”
The relief that makes
its way onto her face is almost laughable as she half sprints towards me, grabbing the bags from my hand and racing up the stairs, away from the angry men following her movements with a glare, which only makes me laugh as I run after her.
“Have I told you that I love you, Elle?”
A little while later, Scarlette is curling my hair for me while I pop on the last bits of makeup to my face. We’re giggling at the stories she’s telling me of Cole and Trent when they were growing up and how she used to trail after them constantly. It has been extremely amusing to listen to. We started speaking about it because I asked her how she knew how to curl hair so well, considering she lived in a house full of boys.
“Honestly, it’s a good thing that they used to try and hide from me; otherwise, I wouldn’t have spent so much time with Auntie, and she wouldn’t have taught me all the girly things I know.”
“Did she only have sons and wanted a girl?” I guess, brushing on some mascara while trying to not poke myself in the eye.
“Pretty much. Although, there’s plenty of girls in the pack. It’s just a lot less common for them to be on the fighter side than the more homely side.”
“That sounds incredibly old-fashioned?”
Scarlette scoffs and lets go of the piece of hair that she’s curling, moving on to another piece as I sit and watch her.
“It is and it isn’t. It’s not so much to do with traditional gender roles than it is to do with the dynamic of our pack specifically. We have an extremely strong male gene throughout our lineage. That’s why the alphas seem to always have sons and pretty much any wolf of strength in our pack has boys before they have girls. It’s why most of the mates are human, or wolves with a dormant gene. Blood really dictates your mate for you as well as your strength. It all balances out, keeping the best genes, and the purity of the pack, at a high level. The pairing of two wolves is unnaturally strong, so female wolves are never going to be the mate of male wolves unless they’re low ranking. It would probably be a disaster; otherwise, that much animal in one person means a real lack of control.”
It makes sense in a way. Wolves seem to be headstrong and acting based on their instincts, in the same way that a luna would even out an alpha. A pack needs to be equal and balanced. Too much aggression or power and things would probably turn bad.
“So, for wolves, the men are always the strong ones?”
Scarlette catches the edge to my tone and smiles at me through the mirror, her eyes shining with laughter and her red hair like a lit fire.
“In this pack, pretty much. That’s why I was a little bit of an anomaly, but we put it down to me being such close family to the alpha linage. It happens occasionally in this pack. It’s not like that in all packs though. A couple of hundred years ago, the sister of the alpha of this pack decided to go off on her own. She figured that the power that she had would just have slowly dwindled if she stayed, so she went and started her own pack up north. She called them ‘The Phoenix’ pack because they rose from the ashes of the men that tried to contain her. She’s a force to be reckoned with, according to the stories. Now, they’re our sister pack and we keep in close contact with them, but there, the strong members are the females. Their fighters, their alphas, their leaders—all female. The men that are born are weaker, and a lot of them often have the dormant gene. Like I said, it balances it out.”
“Maybe we’re in the wrong pack,” I joke, brushing my fingers through my hair as Scarlette sprays it with hairspray. “They sound badass.”
“They are pretty cool,” she agrees. “I would love to go and visit once I’m fully trained. I only saw it a little when I was young once, but I’d never want to live anywhere other than here. We don’t pick our pack, they’re our family. We all belong here for a reason. Some people think that’s why the moon goddess made mates the way they are, so that we never have to pick between our pack and our mate. Finished!”
My questions for her are cut off as she stands back and claps her hands, motioning for me to get up and have a look at the cascade of curls that she’s created traveling down my back. The golden shine of my hair bounces in the light.
“It looks beautiful!”
She grins triumphantly and peers at my makeup, complimenting my technique and the soft warm colours I’ve used to decorate my eyelid.
“We should be doing this professionally,” she teases, heading over to my bed. I laugh, pinning a few slips into my hair to hold it back from my face on one side.
“I think people would be pretty impressed that a werewolf warrior knows how to curl hair this good. Abolish those ideas of only being good at one thing.”
“I can be girly and gruesome. It’s the best of both worlds, so screw the patriarchies’ one-dimensional view of women.”
I glance at my phone and see the time lighting up the screen, a gasp leaving my lips as I quickly head for my shopping bag to get my new top.
“I better hurry, it’s only ten minutes until I’m meant to be downstairs. I can’t exactly be late for the date when I don’t even need to travel anywhere.”
Just as I’m reaching for the bag, Scarlette pulls it out of my hand and throws it to the other side of the room, stunning me.
“That was my new top?” I state, looking at her as if she’s gone crazy. When I see the way she’s grinning, I think she may have. “Do you not like it?”
The forgotten bag on my floor that Kristie had given to me before we got separated is suddenly in my hands. When I look inside of it, the words of confusion die on my lips, and instead, I can only gasp softly as I pull out the gorgeous dress that I couldn’t afford.
“Kristie and I figured that you deserved something beautiful for tonight, so we got it for you as a gift.”
I look at Scarlette in shock, my eyes welling up from tears, which she quickly screams at and begins fanning my face to stop them. The two of us laugh as I try to control my emotions.
“We didn’t want you to cry! Maybe I should have given it to you before you did your make up!”
“Scar, I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing! Just put it on!”
Giddiness fills me as I do as she says and strip off my clothes, standing in my underwear as I pull the soft material up my legs and onto my body. They know I love it. Without me saying anything, they saw how much I wanted it and saw past my lie.
They are real angels.
“I’ll need your help with the zipper,” I remind her. She quickly squeals and does it up for me, pulling my hair out of the way. It fits like a glove. When I finally turn around to look at myself in the mirror, the smile on Scarlette’s face is contagious.
“It’s so beautiful,” I whisper, running my hands along with it. “It’s perfect, thank you so much.”
“You don’t have to thank us,” Scarlette assures me, squeezing my shoulders. “You deserved something new and fresh and not bought by your assh*le of an ex. Kristie explained how you never got given money or anything really, so we figured it was up to us to buy it for you. You deserve it.”
I hug her fiercely, wrapping my arms around her so tightly that, for a moment, I think I might be suffocating her, but she returns it tenfold, latching onto me.
“I love it,” I mumble. “And I love you.”
Scarlette pulls back, popping her mouth open at my words as her eyes begin to glisten, both of us getting emotional over the moment that we’re having.
“Goddamn it, you really are the best person ever, aren’t you?” she mumbles, wiping her eyes as I laugh and sniffle, trying not to rub my makeup off as I dab my nose. “Let’s quickly videocall Kristie so she can get in on this mess of emotions.”
Ten minutes later, after screaming on the phone with my best friend and gushing to each other about how much we love one another, I finally leave my bedroom—ready for my date.
I would be lying if I said I’m not the most nervous I have ever been in my life. My stomach is full of butterflies and my legs are wobbling as I make my way down the st
airs, my sandals making my feet slide a little, but I manage to stay steady.
“He’s going to be shook when he sees you,” Scarlette whispers. I can’t help but giggle at her words, shoving her as she prods my side. “They’re just around the corner, I can hear him stressing.”
The thought of him being as nervous for this date as I am makes my heart clench in a way that it’s never done before. My mouth goes dry, my shoes fumbling across the ground as Scarlette pulls me towards the kitchen.
It’s just Trent, it’s just a date. I can do this.
My heartbeat feels like it’s in my ears by the time he finally comes into view. As everything around us goes quiet, his back straightens up and he slowly turns around, his eyes widening as they see me.
It’s the most cliché moment in my life, much like the first time I saw him and almost fell up those stairs. I don’t hear whatever some of the boys are saying as they all grin and turn to face me. I don’t even know who is in the room with us. All I see is Trent.
And it seems like all he sees is me too.
I guess Scarlette is right.
His eyes slowly trail from my feet up to my eyes, his hands clenching and unclenching as he stares, nostrils flared like he’s trying to control something.
Or someone.
The feeling of him watching me like that makes the heat in my core flare and my breathing shallows, my body reacting as if it’s his hands touching me and not his eyes.
From behind him, Cole shoves him slightly. He stumbles forward, seeming to be snapped out of his trance-like state as he steps up to me, a blush marring his tanned skin.
“You, um—” He clears his throat and takes a breath. “You look like a dream, mi reina.”
From behind him, he produces a white rose nervously, the long stem of it with a red ribbon tied around it. The boys all begin to howl and tease, which makes him growl at them in response, but I can only take the gift silently, the words lost in my mouth.
