Chapter 4 (Full Moon)

The girls immediately backed down and I ran away from them. Just when I was about to exit and run pass the man, his hard palm held my hand and pulled me towards him. It was at that closer look that I recognized him. The face of the man I had crush on for more than a year. The first ever person my heart fell for. Ethan.

Ethan calmed down seeing me, his pupils were turning back to its natural color, but then again his eyes fell upon my scarred face and my disheveled clothes. My brassieres were clearly visible and the claw marks on my chest looked deep as blood stains were still fresh. Those thirsty golden eyes appeared again and I knew what they wanted.

“Ethan. I am fine,” I touched his face with my palms and made those eyes focus my eyes and nothing else.

Ethan was someone who hated fights, who hated blood and who hated killings. He was someone who preferred being locked and chained than being involved in violence. I did not want him to be the monster he loathed so much. Being the son of an alpha, he knew he’d one day have to be the leader and lead the pack. He always told me that, when he becomes the leader, he’d always protect his people and would never let them be involved in any wars.

Besides his looks and the care he showed towards me, it was his thoughts like those that pulled me towards him and that made my heart beat faster.

He looked back at me and gently touched the scars on my face.

“It’s fine. It’s not painful.” I lied.

He immediately took off his shirt and wrapped them around me. He then lifted me and carried me in his arms. The touch with his bare body indeed made me forget the pain I was in. 

“I am not done with you all,” he said with a threatening voice and all the girls hid behind Nory.

If Nory was angry before, she was definitely losing her calm even more with every second passing by seeing Ethan stand up for me.

He turned and in not even a minute, I was brought back to my dorm room. It was the first time I hated the werewolves’ ability to walk fast.

Parting from the warmth that his body gave me was unbearably cold.

“I am sorry, the project-”

I could not finish speaking when his lips touched mine.

I was numbed. I did not know what was happening until after a long pause, I also moved my lips to match with his. His lips tasted beautiful. I don’t know what it was, but it was to my taste.

His kiss was sweet and soft. The kiss told me what he had never told me himself, it told me that he cared for me and that I was important in his life.

“Did they torture you a lot?” he asked breaking the kiss.

I denied moved my head sideways.

“I am sorry I arrived late.”

“No, you came just in time.”

“They don’t deserve to be happy anymore,” rage was back in his eyes.

“No, everything is fair in love and war, and the reason why Nory did that is because she loves you. You can’t punish a person for loving you right.”

“But punishment is the only option for the person who forgets their boundary and hurts others.”

“And we are not to decide that Ethan. God will.”

He laughed.

“If god really cared then he wouldn’t create half of the humans as normal ones and make the other half, monsters like us.”

Monsters. He used that word quite often to describe our kind.

He stood up saying that and made his walk to the door.

I wanted to go after him and hug him from behind, thank him for saving me today and love him for caring about me. But I couldn’t.

He left the room and I laid back on the bed. Sleep came soon.

I woke up feeling piercing pain on my face.

“Is it very painful?” I heard Ethan’s voice and opened my eyes.

“He was putting medicine on my wounds.

“It’s bearable.” I lied.

He blew on the wound and finished putting the medicine on my face. Then his hands and eyes both stopped.

I followed his gaze and immediately pulled the blanket to cover my chest.

“I am sure you can put this medicine on the rest of your body where there are wounds,” he kept the medicine bottle on the bedside table and stood and left the room again.

I was glad for his gentleness but also sad that he left me alone in that room.

After that day, both of us never brought up the topic of our first kiss. Of my first kiss.

I was thinking and expecting that maybe Nory finally gave up and that was the reason why she was so silent and didn’t pull any more tricks on me. But never could I ever imagine, she was not the only one I had to protect myself from, that it was the calm before the storm. It happened during our winter vacation and god knows how I’d do anything to erase that night from my life.

We all went to the nearby jungle for the night out and the whole day we divided works and set tents, brought woods for fire and cooked foods. Everything was fine and I was happy. Even by that time I’d not realized that happiness was not for me. Because that night out of all the other nights, was a full moon night.

Till midnight, everyone would shift to their wolf form, run around wild in the forest and enjoy their power. But I was afraid that even today, my wolf would not show up. She would abandon me, like always.

It was past 10 p.m. and by that time the whole tent area was empty. Just me and my loneliness. Everyone else had shifted to their wolf form and were enjoying their freedom. I told Hannah and Ethan to go ahead without me. One thing that I’d managed to share to them about me was the fact that my wolf seldom came out.

With a low heart I cursed my wolf and entered the tent. I knew sleep wouldn’t come easy but I still tried my luck with it. For sure I failed.

It was after around an hour I heard a lot of noises outside my tent. I thought they all came back but it was too soon for that. Curious I pulled down my tent’s chain and that is one thing I’d always regret doing.

They were a bunch of boys from different section, coming back to have the alcohol they’d managed to sneak in.

“Oh! Who do we have here,” the most muscular looking one approached my way seeing I’d witnessed their action.

I immediately chained the tent back up and crawled to the other end. I knew there was nowhere to run.

In only seconds the tent was ripped apart and my body shivered with fear.

“I swear I will tell no one that you guys brought alcohol,” I mustered up a little bit of courage to utter those words.

Ha-ha-ha

They all started laughing.

“Almost everyone here has sneaked in alcohol dear. We are least worried about it.”

I had nothing more to say. The muscular guy kept coming my way until he was only an inch away from me.

He inhaled really long against my neck, “you smell fantastic.”

His breathe that touched my bare neck paled my whole body. I was petrified.

“Boys, we have a meal for tonight. The menu? This girl.”