I roll over and sit up, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders and leaning against the couch facing the still playing cartoon.I can see him from the corner of my eye watching me, but I don't say anything. He was half standing up, like he changed his mind mid action. I just watch the show."This doesn't mean I'm going to call off the guards, you know." I smile and turn to him. I pull my knees up to my chest and lay my blanketed arms across the tops of them. I lay facing him, maintaining eye contact the entire time."I'm just here for the ride." I look at him for a second longer before turning back to the TV.I feel my insides crumbling with relief when he sits down slowly on the floor. He's about three feet away, facing the TV screen as well."What are you watching?""Not sure. Mark put it on, said it had an evil baby with a talking dog sidekick. It caught my attention." I see him leaning against the couch, clenching and unclenching his fists. I could tell he felt uncomfortable. It
You are my sunshine,My only sunshine.You make me happy,When skies are grey.You'll never know dear,How much I love you.Please don't take.My sunshine.Away.Luna."Luna?"I jolted awake, my heart racing and all my hairs standing straight up.Whose voice was that?I've never heard it before... I don't think."Are you okay?" I snap back to where I currently am, which is sitting up in Charlie's bed with a new wolf staring at me intensely. "I'll get a doctor, don't move.""No, no." I shake my head and throw the covers off me. "I'm good. Sorry. I just had a weird dream."The guy in front of me was pretty average looking, a bit more muscular than your everyday human, but nothing appalling. His face is cute and boyish, clean of facial hair or scars. He has scruffy brown hair with pieces of blue poking out here and there. He seems to notice me looking, and blushes as he picks at a couple strands."My little sister begged me to let her." He smiles sheepishly. I cock my head to the side, t
It was pretty dark outside still, so I couldn't see how far the fence went. It disappeared into the shadows a good distance away though. I could feel other wolves along the fence, but I couldn't tell exactly where they were. I sniffed the air a little, trying to keep my eyes on the back of Tanner's head so my guards wouldn't catch onto me scoping out the area.There were too many smells in the air to try and pick anything specific out. Plus, I think my nose was awol or something because I swear, I smelled pears and warm cotton. I shook my head, focusing on where we were going instead. I just missed my mates desperately. That was why I was imagining their smell."We're just going to the training building, it's only a few minutes away." I nod at him and keep quiet.When we come to the big gate at the end of the driveway, he stops and nods at a man on the other side, who punches some numbers into a keypad before stepping aside for the gate to slowly swing open."Just so you know, those n
"Who am I fighting?" I ask, my eyes flicking back and landing on Tanner, who smiles and waves a little. I want to tear into him more than anything. Get him out of the way. I could tell he was going to cause problems, and his face was just kind of starting to annoy me."Me." I turn to my side, where someone is brushing past me. I purse my lips a little when I realize who it is. Mark. I swallow at the bruises already on his face. His lip was busted and had dried blood on it, his cheeks were black and blue, as well as one of his eyes. His right eyebrow had a giant gash on it. "What-""Begin!" Charlie yells, and Mark charges for me with zero hesitation.Here we go, I guess. Mark is giant, much bigger than me. His hands are massive and if they wrapped around my throat, would probably kill me in seconds. His stance is wide, his thighs are thick, and his feet are heavy and large. Getting kicked in the head would knock me out or break a leg if stomped on by him. I jump to the side as Mar
"I think that's enough for today." Charlie states once he stands back up and moves away from the teenagers. My eyes linger on the girl's clenched hands in front of her; they're trembling and she's yet to look up. Charlie walks around where Mark still lays and comes to me. "You did very good." He says as he lifts my chin to look him the eye. I glare a little, ticking my head away. He sighs but doesn't do anything else. "Take her back now. And someone get rid of him." He turns around again, returning to his traumatized line of young warriors."Come on then, Luna." I look at Mark one more time as two men are struggling to lift his dead body. I follow after Tanner finally whose waiting for me with impatient eyes. Two men follow behind us, and he move back towards the metal door leading to the outside. I can feel eyes on me as we walk, all of Charlie's pack members are watching me right now. Were they thinking their new "Luna" was as much of a monster as their Alpha?We break through the
This was the biggest pack I've ever seen.At least two hundred members, and that was just a guess from the number of buildings we'd seen in this patch of woods. Chances were there was more than one person per building, so that number could as much as triple.Me, Nate, Matt, Willow, and Levi were the only ones I had allowed to cross into the enemy pack land for recon. More bodies would be harder to control and keep quiet.Luckily, it looked like this pack followed the typical structure most wolf packs had: a huge plot of woods with a community built into it. Which meant it was easier to get in and out. Nate told me his pack was in a singular building, which would make spying on it very difficult. But like mine, unless you were a shifter in your animal form, there was a good chance they wouldn't even notice you. A conveniently placed loophole.Still, that wasn't to say getting in here was easy.We ran for nine hours straight, thirty members of my pack. Well, twenty-nine members, plus th
To be clear, it's not like this would be me or my guards first fight on a large scale, but we'd never dealt with numbers this large. The biggest pack we'd have to fight before was one hundred and fifty strong, slightly bigger than our own, but not to this extent. And they didn't have weapons. They'd just been a Wandering Pack, a newly coined term due to the growing number of packs affected by the greedy fingers of humans. They had fallen victim to a wildfire destroying their home in the west coast and were forced to roam in search of a new place to settle. They wandered onto our land, and decided we were a small enough pack compared to them that they could just take what we had, so they wouldn't have to start over quite from scratch. Still, despite their size advantage, they waited for it to be the dead of night before they attacked. We lost fourteen because of their surprise, but once we were aware of their presence, we quickly assembled and didn't lose another member after. Twent
Nothing about what I just saw was good.I was currently sitting on a large rock in the middle of a field, about thirty miles away from Cleo now, the morning after the most heart crushing scout mission I have ever been on.I was one hundred and ten percent sulking right now.When I had returned to my guards and told them what we saw, there were a couple of different reactions.Obviously, the trio that loved their Luna so much, were frothing at the mouth and ready to go save her right then and there. Pretty much all of the other guards were with them. It made my heart ache with guilt that they had grown so close to their new Luna, only to have her taken.However, the people that really mattered, me, Matt, and (gag) Nate, were all on the same side, so it didn't really matter what they wanted.We wouldn't win if we attacked right now.The others were a couple miles back, probably still sleeping. We had argued for hours. So long my throat was hoarse afterwards. I finally told them nothing
"You little shit, get your ass back here." I laugh from my spot on the kitchen counter, watching Nate chase our naked child, Liam around the living room with a yellow bath towel clutched in his hand. Liam stops then, turning around to grin at his dad. He was only three, but was already extremely mobile, and had a smile just like his dad's. "Are you going to help me?" Nate sighs, glaring up at me as Liam yells and resumes running around like a mad man with his arms up in the air. I shake my head a little, pointing to where Liam is now standing on the couch. He grins at his dad, who finally swoops in and grabs him in his arms, wrapping the towel around him tightly as he does so. "Ha! Got you!" Nate declares as he wrestles Liam so he's upside down in his arms. He squeals with delight as Nate carries him like that back towards his room to put clothes on, calling him a weakling the entire time. But Liam loves it. He loves his dad, and he loves playing and "fighting" with him.I smile a
Why is it so often when I'm waking up in the morning, I'm in pain? I groan, stretching my arms above my head and blinking away sleep. I wince as harsh daylight assaults my eyes. My head pounds, and I bring a hand up to rub at my temple."Fuck." I groan, sitting up and leaning against the bed's headboard. I look down at where Ike is facing away from me, towards the wall, hugging himself and with no blanket. Nate is on the other side, also facing away, burrioted up in the entire blanket. I fall forward and start to crawl between them to get out of the bed. I stop when I feel a hand grabbing my ankle. Nate's green eyes are already staring at me. He's rolled over and untucked himself from his blanket tomb. "You're not going to make me chase you again, are you?" I furrow my brow, sitting in a crawling position, trying to think why I would run away. "Oh." I say when I finally realize what Ike had done to Nate last night. I didn't actually see anything, but I remember one of Ike's hands
I leave Ike at the bottom of the stairs, taking Cleo into my bedroom first and laying her down gently. She starts wiggling around, smiling and rubbing all over the sheets. Weirdo. I go back for Ike, who is pulling himself up the stairs, or trying to. He's got one hand on the second step, his other on the first. "Can I help you?" I ask, bending down to wrap one of his arms around my shoulder and putting my arm around his middle. "Here we go." He mumbles as I half drag him to my bed.I let him fall onto it, barely avoiding Cleo, who has taken her leggings off finally and is laying like a starfish on the bed. I sigh. I turn and flip the light off, kicking my shoes off as I do. Off come my pants and shirt. "Move." I huff, closing Cleo's legs and scooting her to one side of the bed. "You too." Ike listens for once, but only because he wants to be Cleo's big spoon. I roll my eyes and fall into the empty space beside them.I lay on one arm, staring at the ceiling for a moment before clo
"You know what her parents told me earlier?" Ike tilts his head to stare at me. I shake my head. "They told me, that this is the last time they'll be seeing Cleo." I freeze at his words. My eyes dart around to try and find the two in question. "Don't bother looking for them. They went back to their place and are leaving first thing in the morning. They aren't even planning on saying goodbye." He shakes his head at me. "I mean, why come in the first place?" He scoffs, finishing off his drink. "Just to rub it in her face that you exist?" He's staring at Cleo, muttering to himself now really more than talking to me. "Did they say why?" I nudge him to try and get his drunk ass to focus. He kind of blinks and shakes his head before looking back to me again. "They said they couldn't stay or come visit her because of the rules of being part of The Circle," He scoffs at their title. "And that she couldn't visit them because if anyone knew they had a daughter out there they'd try and make he
My peace with Cleo is ripped away by that fuck head Thomas, who snatches Cleo away over his shoulder and yells something about loving tequila. Had he just been waiting for the perfect chance to steal her away again? "Oh my god." I rub the bridge of my nose and make eye contact with Cleo as she sits up on Thomas to grin at me like a child. I lean back and cross my arms as I watch him take her to a group of guards. "I got her!" He yells in victory. The guards cheer and whoop in excitement. "Your mates have had enough of your time!" Zach proclaims as Thomas sets Cleo down. "And besides, it's your turn to chug something!" I groan, and I'm about to rush over and stop her, but I halt when Ike and Parker walk up to me from their spot in the crowd. "I wanted to introduce you two." Ike says, stopping in front of me. I'm half sitting, half standing, midway to snatching Cleo away from the frat boys. I glance at her for a second and see her snapping the neck off a bottle of tequila. I sigh,
"Why do you people insist on doing this to me?" She complains as I carry her away from her group of fans. "It's just easier than arguing with you." I reply. She makes an offended noise, struggles to sit up for a moment, and then flicks me on the back of the head. I roll my eyes, hiking my shoulder up a little into her gut and smiling at the noise she makes. I approach a table that's empty on one end and set Cleo down in a chair. "Wait here." I look her in the eye to make sure she's paying attention, and then turn to track down some water.I spot coolers near one of the tables closest to the fire and make my way through chatting and drinking people. I didn't realize how many people were a part of Ike's pack now a days until they were all converged together like this.I finally make it to the line of eight coolers and start opening them to find one not filled to the brim with liquor. Finally, I get my hands on a cold bottle of water. There was only a single cooler with them in it; ty
Fuck that guy. Fuck him. I fucking hated him. He was fucking dick. I wanted to shove his face into the ground and rub it in. I ran through the trees, pine needles whipping at my panther's face as we escaped, past the pack's borders, further and further into the forest. My rage drives me to run for almost three hours before my panther finally stops, gasping for air and muscles aching. He finds a stream nearby and hunches over to take a long drink before we head back. What did I think was going to happen? I mean, I knew who this guy was, or at least what other's told me about him. And no one had anything good to say, not so far. They all said he was mean, and petty, and demanding as hell. He abandoned me in the woods to fend for myself when I so small, I couldn't even remember it happening. But the way he looked at me, pissed me off. Like I was scum. Like I was the one who should be begging for forgiveness. He was the asshole.But as we start running back to our pack, I can't st
I look away from the lively party scene after a moment, back to the table behind me. "Ooo." I snatch an unopened bottle of tiny blue vodka someone had left behind. Hoped they hadn't planned on coming back for it. "Excuse you." I make a whining noise when Nate is snatching the bottle from my lips before I can chug it. "Drink this instead." I sigh at the cold bottle of water he's put in my hand. "If I must." I crack the top. "You must." He plops in a chair beside me, sighing heavily and watching me drink. "Where have you been?" I ask once I've twisted the top back on the now half empty bottle. "You've been gone a really long time." I raise by brows at him, and the corner of his lip lifts up a little."And that drove you to drink?" I laugh loudly. "No, I just felt like it was time to get drunk." "Right." He nods, eyeing me. I blink innocently at him. "Can I say something?" I blurt out as he watches me. He ticks his eyebrow. "I think your dad is a fucking chode." He shakes his hea
"You better chug that shit!" "Come on bitch!" I jump in the air, yelling with Noah and Thomas at Zach, who was halfway through chugging an entire bottle of peach flavored vodka. "Don't be a pussy!" I punch him in the arm, a grin spread across my face. He pushes me off a little, flipping me off and continuing to guzzle the artificially flavored rubbing alcohol. "Let's go!" Thomas yells, throwing his half full beer on the ground in overly excited celebration at his friend finally reaching the neck of the bottle. Zach holds his hand up, and we all stare at him silently in eager anticipation for a moment, until he finally pulls the empty bottle away and makes a loud "ah" noise like it was a refreshing drink on a hot day. "Suck it, sluts." He slurs, grinning at us and throwing the bottle on the ground. I laugh, clapping my hands and stumbling back a little. "You thought I couldn't do it." He points his finger towards me, wiggling it a little in my face. I grin and clap him on the shou