RubyAs I leave the library with Hybrid History & Other Stories tucked under my arm, I bump into Noah. He looks somewhat distracted, and simply acknowledges me with a quiet “Sorry, Princess,” before continuing down the corridor.My curiosity gets the better of me, however, and without thinking I reach out and grab his wrist. He stops and looks at me with a confused look on his face.“Everything alright, Princess?” he says.I quickly drop his wrist and bite my lip, nodding. “Yes,” I answer, “but I was just wondering… Have you seen Atwood? I haven’t seen him in a couple of days.”Noah looks around, then shrugs. “He’s just been working, that’s all.” He starts to walk away again, but this time I call out to stop him.“Noah.”He turns to look at me, and as soon as our eyes meet, I use my dazing ability in the same way that I used it on the guard the day I went to Greenwood. Ever since my eyes changed color, it seems as though my ability has become stronger.“What is Atwood working on?” I a
AtwoodRuby is nowhere to be found. When I go to her room, the place where the bed used to be is replaced with a black hole leading to nowhere. The library is a black void as well, and when I step inside, I feel weightless.All around me, claw-like hands reach out of the darkness. They grab my clothes, my limbs, my flesh, and pull me down, down, deep into the abyss. I’ve accepted it. No one is coming for me.When I wake up on the morning of Kayne’s funeral, my back is once again coated with sweat from the nightmares.It comes as a surprise to me that the day of Kayne’s funeral has arrived. It feels as though the night my beta was killed was an eternity ago, but it’s only been a week. Perhaps time has been moving in slow motion.The nightmares have only been getting worse, and so has my condition. With each sleepless night, my mind becomes more and more foggy. Soon, I feel as though I won’t be able to do my work at all.Ruby has to mark me soon. I know her wolf is beginning to emerge;
AtwoodAfter my incident with Ruby the night before, I decide to spend my Sunday working in my study. However, with my condition worsening as rapidly as it has been, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to focus on my work.Edith suddenly prancing into my study doesn’t make focusing any easier. She’s been practically stuck to me like glue since she got here, and it’s only gotten worse since I pulled Ruby out of school that day. I suspect that my mother has something to do with this, but I’ve been polite nonetheless.“Good morning, Lycan Atwood,” Edith says with a little curtsy. She wears a short pink dress with ruffles around the neck, thigh high white socks, and a pair of heels. She looks like a silly pinup girl.“Morning, Edith,” I say coldly, averting my gaze back to my work as I try to make myself appear too busy to socialize.Edith walks around my desk to the window behind me. When I turn around to see what she’s doing, she’s sitting on the windowsill with her legs crossed, looki
RubyI might be planning another escape, and I may have pushed Atwood away when he kissed me, but I still have feelings for him -- feelings that could not be replicated with Cayden despite our kiss in the forest. Seeing Atwood with Edith again only solidified those feelings.The feeling of anger that I’ve become all too familiar with bubbles up inside of me. It makes me want to tear the room apart again, but I manage to quell that urge and instead let my pain come out through the form of tears.I curl up on the bed, clutching a pillow to my chest and sobbing into it uncontrollably.I must drift off at some point, because when I wake up, it’s dark in the room. I sit up and groggily rub my eyes, reaching for my phone. It’s eleven o’clock at night. How did I sleep for six hours like that?Unsurprisingly, I’m starving. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand, crossing to the window to look out at the waxing moon for a moment. The moon is nearly full, its bright light casting a
Ruby Before I have time to run back to the castle, I shift back into my human form against my will. I assume that it will take some time to learn how to control when I shift, but there are more important things to deal with right now. I run as fast as I can through the forest and back toward the castle, where all is quiet still. However, I can now see a light on in Atwood’s study. Did he sense that I shifted? There’s no time to sneak around the guards, so I run right past them. They all look confused, and one tries to stop me. “Princess, is that you?” the guard calls out. “What are you doing out here?” I don’t stop despite his calls, but instead shout “Bear!” over my shoulder as I run, which causes the nearby guards to fly into a frenzy. There is only one thing on my mind: getting to Atwood and telling him about the Bear. My wolf seems to want to get closer to him as well, which makes me worried that she might mark him before I have a chance to stop her, but I’ll deal with that l
RubyIt’s been several days since I shifted in the forest and killed the Bear, and with each passing day I’m becoming more familiar with my wolf and my abilities. However, the longer I go without letting my wolf mark Atwood, the more temperamental she becomes.I start having dreams about marking Atwood. My mind becomes fuzzy, and my head is full of nothing but the thought of marking him. It feels as though I can barely focus on anything else.Will it be like this when I run away? I can only hope that distance will make my wolf less inclined to mark him. Maybe she’ll fancy Cayden instead and I can just forget about all of this.One morning, I wake up before my tutoring session with Robert. I’m groggy from a bad night of sleep due to the dreams about Atwood, but nonetheless push myself to climb out of bed and into the shower.I turn on the water as hot as it will go so that the bathroom becomes steamy, then climb in and let the hot water run over my body. I stand there for a few minutes
AtwoodThe past few days have been a blur. Ever since Ruby found and killed the Bear in the forest, my men and I have been scrambling to make preparations. The Bear’s presence on our castle grounds only means one thing: they’re getting braver.I’m impressed with Ruby’s ability to kill the Bear the first night she shifted, however. This must mean that her wolf is extremely powerful, far more so than any other hybrid that I’ve encountered. What makes her so powerful, though, still baffles me.The morning after she killed the Bear, Noah and I were still patrolling the forest. We must have scoured every inch of that place by the time the sun came up, but we both knew that our work wasn’t done yet. Just because there were no more Bears on the castle grounds at that moment didn’t mean that there weren’t more Bears nearby. I found it odd that a single Bear would venture onto the castle grounds alone. Was it a distraction? A spy? A scout?Our suspicions that it was a distraction were confirme
RubyThe image of Edith holding Atwood on the floor of his study gives me so much pain that I’m unable to sleep all night. I spend the night tossing and turning, and by morning my lips are all chewed up from nervously biting them.I wish I could just not care about Atwood so that these things don’t pain me as much. I want to be able to run away with Cayden and not think about Atwood anymore, but now I’m not so sure if it’s even possible.If only I had someone to talk to.The sun is still rising when I get out of bed and shower to make myself feel better. My body is sore from the sleepless night of tossing and turning, but the warm water helps.“What should I do?” I ask my wolf as the hot water runs over my body.“I say to hell with the curse,” she replies instantly. “Let me mark Atwood. He’ll never look at another woman again once I mark him.”I shake my head with a sigh.Clearly, my wolf is too preoccupied with the thought of marking Atwood to be a good voice of reason.Nancy would k
RubyThe feast goes on for some time longer, well into the night. Some of the guests begin to go home, leaving gifts for Atwood and I, while many others stay and continue to party.“Feasts are always like this,” Atwood says, swirling his champagne around in his glass with one hand and poking at his cake with his fork with his other hand. “On a few different occasions, we’ve had to escort partygoers out of the castle because they simply wanted to party all night.”“It’s refreshing,” I respond, taking a bite of cake. The cake is moist and not too sweet, with buttercream frosting. It practically melts in my mouth. “I’m happy to see people dancing and having fun, especially after what happened at my birthday party.”Admittedly, however, I’m starting to get tired -- and Atwood can tell.“Come on,” he says, standing from his chair and holding his hand out for me. “Let’s sneak out the back here. Everyone is too drunk to notice. I’m getting tired of all the noise.”I nod and take his hand. We
RubyBefore I know it, I’m standing behind the church doors, waiting to walk down the aisle.The morning feels like a blur. As I stand here now, my heart racing with butterflies in my stomach, everything else feels so small and insignificant. All that matters is right now; the flowers in my hand, the veil on my head, the sweat on my palms.It’s just like my vision.I know that when those doors open, Atwood will be standing at the end of the aisle. Nancy and the other bridesmaids -- Beck is one of them, surprisingly enough -- will be standing off to one side, while Atwood’s groomsmen stand on the other side. The priest will be smiling at me, his robes a vibrant combination of red and gold.Tamara will walk ahead of me, tossing flower petals down at my feet while the wedding guests look at their new Princess in awe.And at the back of the room, the shadow figure will be there. It’s always there, watching, lurking.I will ignore it.I will marry Atwood and pretend that the shadow figure
RubyAtwood says I was sleepwalking last night.I think it was something else.All I remember is waking up in his arms on the forest floor, but my body feels… strange. Like there’s a bit of me missing inside.After I woke up in Atwood’s arms last night, he insisted that we return to the castle in case I start sleepwalking again. I obliged and let him carry me back. He took me straight to my room and didn’t leave my side for the rest of the night, which would normally make me happy, but it only solidified my suspicions that something else happened in the woods.I can’t explain it, nor can I understand it, and I don’t want to try right now. The wedding is today and I just want to focus on that, focus on joy. Perhaps it is just my nerves and it will dissipate after the wedding. Regardless, I’ll take Nancy’s advice and see a therapist. Maybe that will help.Polly comes and wakes me up in the morning. I’m surprised to see that Atwood is already gone, no doubt preparing for the wedding and
AtwoodThe last time I slept in the forest, I was just a pup.It was a warm summer night. Lawrence, Freya, Paul, Kayne, and I had spent the day playing and hunting in the woods where it was cooler beneath the shade of the trees. Eventually, we became so exhausted from our day of playing “grown ups” that we all flopped down in a big pile beneath the pine trees, still in our wolf forms, and fell asleep right then and there.I remember that I had felt so much bliss that night. It was as though sleeping outside was in my nature. Even when my mother punished me the next morning for not coming home that night and forbade me from ever sleeping in the woods like a “scoundrel” again, I never regretted it.Now, as Ruby suggests that we sleep in the woods tonight after our hunt and our animalistic sex, I feel the same bliss that I felt that summer night all those years ago.And my mother isn’t here to tell me I’m not allowed.Ruby and I shift back into our wolf forms and find a good spot beneath
RubyLater in the evening, after we’ve spent a few hours just walking around the castle grounds and enjoying the nice weather, Nancy goes home.Even though it’s much warmer outside than it has been in a while, my face and hands are freezing from spending the day outside so I decide to head in to warm up. I can still hear a bit of commotion in the ballroom as the wedding reception is still being set up when I get inside.My stomach starts to growl and I realize I haven’t eaten all day, so I head toward the kitchen to find something to eat.When I enter the kitchen, Atwood is already there. He’s sitting at the counter with two plates of food.“Perfect timing,” he says with a smile, gesturing to the other plate. “I figured you’d be hungry after trekking around the castle grounds with Nancy all day.”I can’t help but smile at Atwood’s kindness as I take a seat at the kitchen island. The food is still steaming, fresh off the stove. It’s a simple plate of vegetables, chicken, and rice, but
Ruby’s POV“I’ll always protect you, no matter what.”Atwood’s words stick with me, even after he leaves me to go back to the wedding preparations.I know that he’ll always protect me, but how can he protect me against something that may not even exist? How can he protect me against something that has manifested in my own mind; a token of my own guilt and fear?When Atwood leaves me to go back to the ballroom, I still feel as though there are eyes staring at the back of my head. When I turn around, however, there is nothing there.Just then, the sun comes out from behind a cloud and shines through the small stained glass window in the alcove. It casts deep red and purples on the castle floor, and for a moment, I don’t feel so afraid.Maybe I just need to go outside. Maybe some fresh air will help.I run back up the stairs, taking two at a time, and head back to my room to get changed. I send a quick text to Nancy to ask her to meet up at the castle, to which she immediately replies wi
RubyAfter we finished cleaning up Vivian’s room last night, Atwood told me that he had a lot of work to do for preparations since the wedding is almost here, so I decided to sleep on my own. My bed felt cold and empty without him there, but I knew that it would only be forty-eight hours until we’re officially married and will share a bed every night.I’m awoken this morning by Polly knocking on my door. She has a sweet smile on her round face; a massive improvement from Alice’s mean mug waking me up every morning.“Good morning, Princess,” she says with a curtsy, entering my room and opening the curtains to let the morning sun in. “I hope you don’t mind, but Lycan Atwood has asked me to wake you early this morning.”“What for?” I ask groggily, sitting up in bed and rubbing my eyes.“Your wedding dress fitting, of course!”My eyes widen and my heart begins to flutter. It hasn’t fully hit me yet that our wedding will be so soon, but hearing that my wedding dress will be fitted today fi
RubyWhen I was first whisked away from my home to live in the castle and be Atwood’s bride, I thought I would hate it. And truthfully, I did hate it for a long time.But now, as I wake up in the warmth of his hidden bedroom, with his scent filling my senses and the feeling of his lips on my skin, I’m glad that I’m here. Fate has a strange way of making things happen.“Good morning, little bird,” Atwood whispers in between gentle kisses on my chest and neck.Last night, we made love for the first time. I thought that we would follow tradition and wait until marriage, but like so many other things that have happened over the past few months, the outcome was different from my expectations.For the first time in months, I feel peace. Alice, Edith, and the Queen are gone; I’ll be marrying Atwood in just a couple of days; and I’ll return to school in a few weeks as the Princess of the Lycan Kingdom.While the whereabouts of the Queen and her minions are still unknown and there is always th
AtwoodAs soon as Ruby says that she experienced the void, memories of my time there come rushing back. More than anything else, memories of what Vivian said to me there flood back into my mind.“Visit my room more... Turn on the lights and light the fire... Let both yourself and Ruby enjoy the room, rather than shutting it off from the world. Most importantly, uncover my painting; I like to watch from there.”Her words ring in my head as though she’s speaking them to me in this moment, but I know that’s not the case. Vivian has finally crossed over to an eternity of peace. From now on, she only exists in the snow that falls from the sky.I’m okay with that. I think Ruby is, too.I stand up and start getting dressed.“Get dressed,” I tell Ruby. “I want to show you something.She throws on her robe and follows me out of my hidden room, taking my hand as we exit the study into the cold, dark corridor. Everyone else in the castle, aside from the guards who are watching the entrances lik