I hate traveling with wolves.We'd been running for two days now, stopping each night to sleep and rest.Reason one I hated it.Why were we stopping so much? We had already wasted fourteen hours on sleeping and eating and fucking off. It was making me edgy. Knowing Cleo was in the clutches of that creepy fuck she called a brother made me feel like I could run for a week with no sleep, and yet here I was. With my thumb in my ass yet again, watching these lazy wolves eat a "snack" and "rest."Reason two: for some stupid fucking reason, the three fuck boys have deemed me their entertainer for the duration of the trip. They've been peppering me with questions nonstop. How old are you? Do you have any other mates? What does your pack look like? Have I mated with Cleo yet? That one made me growl in response. Wolves were so intrusive, and while these three weren't number one on my hit list, they were no different.Reason number three, and the worst of all: Ike. Just Ike as a person.He was a
Ope.That did it. Ike was now tackling me shoulder first, like he was trying to break a door down. The wind is sucked out of me, and I cough once before I can feel my insides already healing as we smack into a tree.This was something secret about me that not even Cleo knew, and unless she figured it out for herself, I never planned on telling her.It was why I was able to survive so long on my own, even as a literal child.If I was a normal person, hell, maybe even a regular panther, the force from Ike crashing into me would've broken multiple ribs. I could feel my spine cracking against the tree behind us that swayed with the force and felt panic when I couldn't feel my toes for a second.But like always, it glues itself back together, and I shove Ike off me, who is currently punching me in the gut while pushing me against the tree.He approaches again, his chest heaving and his eyes shining with anger. I could tell his wolf wanted to come out. He probably said something cheesy like
*Trigger warning: SA will be indicated by "***" at beginning and end of related text*...if that mockingbird won't sing,Then Daddies gonna buy you a diamond ring.And if that diamond ring turns to brass,Daddies gonna buy you a looking glass."Cleo. It's time to go home." I sat up quickly, my heart racing in my chest. I become suddenly aware that I had fallen asleep not only in front of Charlie, but I had also done it butt ass naked and with my head in his lap. I scoot away quickly, my eyes darting everywhere. The sun was setting now, it looked to be after six. The air was much cooler, too."It's okay. I was good." He looks away from me and towards the opposite tree line. I did have a jacket on top of me, and he was totally dressed. Probably had one of the many wolves following us fetched him an outfit.That's not to say I totally believed him. I shouldn't have fallen asleep, it just happened after I shifted back to a human. He had been talking with some of the other wolves and I had
"Matt! Please!" I scream as I grab him by the ear and pull him off Charlie, who is now laying still. His whole face is a bloody mess."You FUCKER!" He yells, kicking Charlie in the ribs. His face is red, and his chest is heaving up and down with rage."Matt!" I snap my fingers and he finally looks at me, his eyes red and watery with angry tears. I reach a hand up and place it on his cheek. "Matt, we need to run right now." I try to get him to understand how serious I am. "We will not get another chance if they catch us." He nods, and I nod back. "Okay?""Okay." I grab his hand without another moment of hesitation, and we start running. "Should we shift?" I ask as I clamber to pull the jacket on. The bottom half of my ass was still hanging out, but this was better than nothing. I guess."No. It will make it easier for them to track us on their lands. We have to wait until we cross." His eyes are darting around everywhere now. I can tell he's finally realizing the magnitude of the situa
Panther's and wolves are very different.That was the main conclusion I had drawn from my four hours with Nate's packmates so far.We arrived Monday night at eleven thirty. After running all day and pretty much for the past few days, everyone, including the ever-devoted trio of Cleo fans, collapsed from exhaustion into the softest corner of the apartment building lobby they could find. Literally. When Zane came sliding down the hallway with Nate a few minutes after we had arrived, the first thing he saw was more than a dozen wolves piled in his lobby, drooling and sleeping on each other.He took it in stride though, just kind of chuckled and hit a blunt he was carrying around. I was a little impressed at the amount he seemed to be smoking. I hadn't seen him go longer than ten minutes without taking a puff. I had smoked a little with a couple different girls, but ultimately it just made me paranoid about rogues and shifting in public. So, I don't partake very often.It was now.... A li
Thirty minutes after Nate appeared, the other panthers began filing in. I called Willow and Levi into the room with us but left everyone else out. They were too immature and hotheaded to be able to participate in this. I found myself wishing Matt was here. He always handled this kind of thing better than even I could. It made me that much more glad he was the one watching Cleo; I trusted him most.In the end, there were six panthers, and three wolves crammed into the other Alpha's apartment.Me, Nate, Zane, Levi, Willow, Zane's three mates, and some cranky looking mother fucker who hadn't stopped hitting his vape since he walked in."We all good?" Zane asks a few moments later when we've haphazardly assembled in a circle. Nate and I are sitting in the chairs at the island, Zane is standing on the other side in the kitchen with a mate on each side of him. The vape guy, who's name Nate told me was Leo, was sitting in the corner of the couch, typing on his phone. And Willow and Levi were
When I was young, like, really young, I dreamed of belonging somewhere.I had never met my parents. I didn't know their names, what they looked like, if I had any siblings.Was I truly alone in this world?I wanted to find them, for a while. Get to know them.I let go of that dream when I turned the ripe old age of six, around the same time I had been passed off to a group of rough rouge wolves, all men, all banished from their packs for one reason or another.They never liked me. They only took me in because the ones who had previously been caring for me had been a group of females, and I suspected they wanted to look kind in front of them.But as soon as they left me with them, they changed.They made me do all their bitch work: collecting firewood, checking the traps that were laid in a twenty mile radius of our campsite, getting water.And if I couldn't perform like they wanted me to, they beat me.Training, they called it. To become a real man like them. If they were "real men,"
I shoulder my way out of the front door, opening the pack again and pulling a cigarette and the lighter out. I look around the front of the building a little. There's no one around, it's still pretty early. The sun is barely even in the sky. The air is cold and still. It reminds me of when I was still living in the woods, and I would wake up around this time every day on purpose, just so I could enjoy the absolute stillness this time of day produces. I feel lonely.I step to the side a little and crash against the brick wall, shutting my eyes and lighting the cigarette. I take a deep breath in, and exhale. It taste like shit.I squat down, staring at the ground with my smoke dangling uselessly from my fingers. I didn't even really want the damn thing. I'm just so tired of listening to people talk about what we should do rather than actually doing it. I stub it out on the concrete in disgust and rub my face with my hands. I'm tired. My head aches, my eyes feel like they have sandpaper
"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