After we got fresh and clean again, we got into bed. I’d promised Lio that I would sleep naked with him so, here I was being spooned by a werewolf. My life was definitely not normal. Lio was kissing the back of my neck gently and it sent shivers through me each time his lips touched my skin. How was he doing this to me? “Astraia, I’ve never known anyone who reacts to me as strongly as you do.” He said nuzzling his nose in my hair. “It scares me.” I said almost whispering. I felt him sit up a little and I could see him looking down at me out of the corner of my eye. “Why does it scare you? Is it because of what I am?” He asked in a somewhat melancholy tone of voice. I shook my head no but there was a small part of me that felt that way. “Then why? Tell me.” He said rubbing my arm. “It’s because I feel vulnerable. I’m so drawn to you I don’t seem to have control over myself sometimes. This whole soulmate thing is in the back of my mind all of the time…” I said tur
When I came home from work it was around six o’ clock P.M. The sun was still shining brightly, the gift of summer hours. As I pulled up in front of my house I saw Lio on the porch talking to a police officer. I was hoping he had control of the situation before I got to them because I didn’t have the energy for anything else right now. I turned the engine off and got out of the car. When I got up to the porch Lio gave me his best smile but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The officer had a dark brown skin tone and was about an inch or two shorter than Lio; but his physique wasn’t as muscular as his. He looked to be in his fifties from the look of the deep set wrinkles in his forehead and around his eyes. The forest green uniform he wore brought the shine out of his aged, hazel eyes. He had a full head of hair without a gray hair in sight. If it wasn’t a wig he must have good genetics. I looked at the nameplate on his chest when I was close enough and it read, ‘Rollards’. Officer Ro
Lio’s house was quiet as usual. Baltasar and Kyra were snuggled up on the couch watching TV when we came in. I was wondering what was up with those two because last I checked, Baltasar and Celeste had a thing going. I was going to do some snooping. Not now, but later. Oh yes, much later. Kyra and Baltasar looked over at us with surprised eyes. “Hey guys.” I said, smiling faintly. They both got up from the couch and I knew they were coming to greet Lio. I stepped aside and let them do just that. When the formal “hellos” were done, Lio held his hand out to me and I came back to him. He held me by the hip against him and I placed my hands against his chest. Kyra smirked and crossed her arms. “Well, aren’t you two cozy? Maybe you should’ve had some time alone a lot sooner.” I blushed, completely embarrassed. “Baltasar, I need everyone to meet out front in ten minutes.” Lio said before looking down at me. Baltasar grinned before he left to pass on the message to the
Lio took me back home so that I could get what I needed for the beach. He was already wearing his swim trunks, no shirt, and black sandals. His swim trunks were red and black with a fox logo on the bottom of the left side. I put on one of my favorite bikinis which was turquoise & white. The top was made with a built in bra and tied around my neck, with strings crisscrossing down my back. The bottom looked like a frilly mini skirt; it was both elegant and cute. I got a jaw-dropping reaction from Lio so I knew he approved. Whether I was single or not I always kept a few little sexy things in my drawers just in case. The Briss county beach was a nice long drive from Delwyn, but it was definitely worth it on those unbearably hot days. Everyone followed Lio and I in their own cars. We claimed ten parking spaces when we arrived. We got out of our cars with our beach towels, coolers and whatever else we needed before heading down towards the shore. The sands were pretty white and the oc
June came with a raging heat, sticky and humid. The weather forecast was looking consistently hot for the whole week, thank goodness for Frederick Jones; having been the genius who created the air conditioner. Officer Rollards had paid me another visit to tell me that one of my neighbors claimed to have seen a young man hop over the fence in my backyard before hearing a loud bang. The bang they heard must have been the sound of my back door being turned into splinters. Officer Rollards was looking for anyone else who had any information on what happened, but I hoped they would just give up. If the police found out what really happened, Lio and everyone else who wasn’t human would be in danger. Celeste and I sat on my front porch painting each others’ toenails. She had chosen a clear polish with a rainbow shine for herself and I had chosen a cherry red with glitter. It had been a long time since we had some girl time. “So where’s Lio?” She asked, focused on carefully painting m
By the time we got to the Eleri County carnival, the sun had started to set. All of the rides were lit up now. I was actually happy to make it here when the lights were on; I loved how it looked all lit up at night. I could hear people screaming with terror on the Pharaoh’s boat. The ride rocked back and forth until they were close to being upside down, I never liked it. The feeling of my stomach in my chest didn’t excite me. We got our wristbands that allowed us to ride all of the rides and play the games until closing time for an unlimited amount of times. “Should we split up?” Priam asked. “We should get on some rides together first and then everyone can go ahead and do their own thing.” Lio said, looking around at the dozens of rides. Baltasar suddenly pointed ahead of us at what looked to be a four-sided, ten story tower. There were people strapped into seats on all four sides and each seat held five people. While we watched, the four sets of seats suddenly dropped
When we got back to Delwyn later that night, Lio’s people went home. Baltasar went to Celeste’s house, and Lio came to spend the night at my house. It was Githinji’s duty to keep the pack in line for the night. I sat on the right side of my bed, brushing my hair into a ponytail. I didn’t feel like twisting it up tonight so I did a blow-out. Lio was coming out of the bathroom from a shower. I could feel heat from the steam seeping into the room. He came and stood in front of me, one hand behind his back. He hadn’t put a towel around his waist but he did dry off. I looked up at him, setting my brush down on the bed slowly next to me. “Lio, what are you hiding?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. He smiled, but he didn’t reveal what he had. “I wanted to give this to you when we were at the carnival but, you weren’t too happy with me at the time.” He said. He took his hand out from behind his back and hanging from his fingers was a gold necklace. The charm was a solid gold wolf tha
Saturday was here, the big day. I was having kittens. Lio kept trying to reassure me that I had nothing to worry about, but he didn’t know my mother. We went to Edison’s Food SuperMarket to get what we needed for tonight’s dinner. I told Lio that I was going to cook and he eagerly volunteered to help me. It was a nice warm seventy four degrees outside so I wore my yellow and orange spaghetti strap sundress with a blue jean half jacket. I chose my orange wedge heel shoes with the look. Lio was wearing a mint green, long sleeve dress shirt with a solid gray tie and gray dress pants. His dress shoes were the same solid mint green and he had his hair flowing free. I kept getting strong whiffs of his cologne and I thought I would faint from how good it smelled. It wasn’t even the fact that it was men’s cologne; it was because it was on him. I walked down an aisle that had the pasta and rice while Lio pushed the cart. He pretty much fought me for it when we came in, I told him he spo
There was a highway coming up along with the fields and farms on either side. We’d been running faster than I realized. The wereleopards were still behind us and catching up fast. Some of the other wolves were ahead of us and only a few were at our sides. Every now and then we had met up with the Shifter Task Forces but they weren’t half as much trouble as the wereleopards were going to be. I raised my head enough to look over Naremi’s head and saw a large number of wereleopards heading towards us. It didn’t look like Naremi or Lio planned on stopping so I put my head back down and braced myself. I heard and felt Naremi growl beneath me as we got closer to the wereleopards. Naremi suddenly stopped, making me jerk forward a little. I raised my head again to see what had happened and found that we were surrounded. The leopards stalked towards us snarling. Lio stood in front of Naremi and I baring his fangs at them but they were unmoved. My heart was beating faster than I thought po
Two weeks later, we were still staying at the cabin and everything had collapsed into chaos. It was a war between man and beast with no end in sight. I’d found some comfort in having Celeste around. She and I were able to have conversations without her taking emotional shots at me now, so I was pretty sure that she was trying to forgive me. I unfortunately couldn’t say the same for my parents. I’d told them the truth last week over the phone and they haven’t answered my calls since. I wasn’t too surprised honestly, that’s exactly how normal people should have reacted. On a lighter note, Byana and her people left a few days ago. We’d rescued everyone from one of the containment facilities, but not without heavy losses. Some of the wolves questioned whether or not we should have left them there or not, which had a lot of them fighting amongst each other. The mood in the house was morbid; I could still feel a lot of tension and anger between everyone. We were tired, mourning our los
After a full report from Githinji, everyone did their best to unwind. There wasn’t much anyone could do at the moment, especially me. Celeste and I were lying on a blanket in the backyard close to the tree line. It was night time now and the stars weren’t out tonight. I had never seen the night sky so clear and blue before. We were on our backs looking over at each other, talking. I had gotten Celeste up to speed on everything, but I could tell that she wouldn’t be cozy around the wolves anytime soon. Baltasar was sporting a pretty red handprint on the right side of his face, compliments of Celeste. “How do you deal with all of this Astraia? All by yourself?” She asked. I sighed before I answered. “To be honest I don’t know if I’m dealing at all. There are a lot of things that I have to accept about their world. Even now, I feel like going back to my parent’s house and forgetting about everything I know. Unfortunately, I can’t.” Celeste turned onto her side, facing me.
As I had this inner battle with myself, my consciousness started to shift from where I was now to some unknown location. Whatever I was seeing was sort of blurry so I couldn’t make out the surroundings very clearly. I could see people walking through a wooded area and some were being carried by the others. It looked like some of them were severely injured too. The way I saw them was as if I were walking behind them, so I couldn’t see any faces. The faint sounds of their voices were whispers all jumbled together and nothing made much sense. I was able to look around so I tried to find anything that could give me a hint as to where I was. On the ground there was nothing too distinctive except some orange flowers that seemed to only grow at the bases of the trees. My vision started to clear up a bit more and I could see more clearly, I could even hear the voices better. I looked up at the people walking ahead of me and they began to slow down. There was a red headed woman support
I awakened the next morning feeling fully rested for once. Lio was lying on his stomach next to me sleeping soundly. His jet black curls were half way covering his face, the rest were fanned out on the pillow. I propped myself up on one elbow, my chin resting in the palm of my hand. With my other hand I started softly gliding my fingertips along his spine. The memories of last night started playing back in my head. The ritual was complete; I was his mate for life now. A lazy smile was fixed upon my lips as my fingers slid back up towards his shoulder blades and into his thick mass of black curls. There were many times I would lay in bed admiring him like this; if I were the first to wake up. This time was different, my thoughts and feelings were different. The current situation we were in didn’t fill me with as much anxiety as it did before. For once my uncertainty, worry, and doubts were not present to ruin my happiness. While I continued to watch Lio sleep peacefully, he began
Some might look at me and think, ‘that poor woman’. I thought that I was the luckiest woman alive to have found a man who loves me as much as Lio does. As we entered the cabin, Lio kept one hand on my waist while he held my other hand in his. I was a little unstable on my feet still but at least I could stand now. Githinji opened the door for us before stepping aside and letting us pass. He came in behind us and closed the door. We walked down a dimly lit hallway that led into the kitchen. There were a couple of people eating at a booth style table but I didn’t recognize them. “Where is everyone?” Lio asked no one in particular. A woman with long, dark blue curly locks, deep dimples, blue eyes, and caramel skin answered him. “Some are in the den, others in the basement. Lady Byana requests your presence upon arrival…” She spoke with her head lowered, not meeting his eyes. I took the behavior as fear at first, but I realized that it was something more; respect. Lio simply
I was lying in bed in the spare room of Adel’s house. There were two windows open halfway to let the gentle summer breeze inside. Adel had given me a cool bath to keep my body temperature from rising too high, which helped me relax a bit more. There was a thirty-four inch LG TV on a wall mount ahead of me. The soap opera channel was on but I wasn’t really paying attention to it. I looked over to the right side of the room to see Adel and Githinji sitting on chairs that appear to have been brought up from the dining room table. They were conversing quietly amongst themselves but I noticed them glancing over at me every now and then. I had not even an ounce of energy left in me, I felt so drained and tired. My eyes started to slowly close as I lay there. Before I could let myself slip into a dream state, Adel came to me and shook me. I opened my eyes startled. “Adel? Why would you do that!? You scared me…” I asked, sounding agitated and frightened at the same time. “I’m sorry
This room was different from what the throne room had looked like. Cotton, peach colored drapes covered the bland stone walls and lanterns burned brightly throughout the room. There was only a king sized, onyx platform bed. It was covered with peach, white, gold, and tan throw pillows of all shapes and sizes. A door was open to the right which looked like a huge master bathroom. This kind of custom living must’ve cost a fortune. Teris tossed me onto the bed like a person would a coat before sitting on the edge of the bed. I managed to sit up using one of my hands to keep me steady. I wasn’t sure how I was slowly regaining my strength but I was happy nonetheless. “Oh this is one of the best days of my existence, Astraia. Do you know why?” He asked, looking straight at me. I just shrugged my shoulders. “Today I will finally have my revenge and tear my enemy down to nothing. I will have the wolves as my slaves and their territory will be mine. Your pathetic brother is mer
I was lying on Petros’s lap in the back seat; against my will of course. Petros had been ready to fight anyone who offered to ride in the back with me unless it was my brother. One of the women at Iericho’s place had lent me a dress and a pair of underwear. I respectfully declined the underwear offer. There was no way I was going to wear another woman’s underwear, even in an emergency. Iericho was driving while one other man from his sloth sat in the passenger side. We were on our way to Teris’s mountain chateau. Most of Iericho’s people were there and the rest were following us in their own cars. I knew the wolves would come to my rescue, but I was still worried about what kind of state Lio was in. If I felt this weak and drained, he must feel the same if not worse. For once I wanted Lio and I to live a peaceful life together. Going into this relationship I knew the risks very well. Regardless, Lio had made me happier than I had ever been in my life. “Why are we going to T