So after hours of trying, I got out of bed and went to the living room to make myself a cup of coffee. It was already four o’clock in the morning at that point, after all, and it seemed sleeping was not in the cards for me tonight.
With a hot mug of latte, I sat on the couch and stared out the window at the darkness of the forest. Even though it was pitch black, I caught the leaves’ rustle as wolves, most likely, passed by.
I wondered how Lucien was faring. He didn’t tell me how he, as an Alpha, endured the full moon, aside from being the only one capable of restraining a wolf afflicted with Wildlight.
His face when he stared at Kate’s body, so full of despair, wasn’t a sight I wanted to see again. I hoped no one would suffer from Wildlight tonight.
I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to be a werewolf. With the ability to shift forms between human and wolf—did it feel liberating in a way? Being a human, even if only in shape, had constraints an animal didn’t, be they cultural, physical, or mental.
Hearing the animalistic howls outside, I wondered what it would be like to lose my humanity for one night every month. I mean, I already had something similar—my PMS hormones caused my behavior to be as close to that of an animal as I would ever be able to feel—yet this, obviously, was different.
From the howling sounds, I could tell the werewolves weren’t running around alone. There was something melodic, like a question-and-answer cadence, to their howls. Despite it being somewhat terrifying, there was also something musical and magical about those sounds.
Werewolves lived in packs, after all, and while Lucien viewed it through the lens of the leader, the Alpha, the rest of the pack probably acted like some sort of community. It had to be the only way for allthese supernatural creatures, Otherborne, to coexist without ripping each other’s heads off.
To be part of such a community, even if built on the mere common ground of being the same race, tobelongsomewhere like that ... Those things made me feel a deep, longing ache in my heart.
The supernatural world took your sisters, Drew,the voice of reason reminded me bitterly.Why would you yearn to become an Otherborne?
It was a good question, but I also knew the answer.
Because I’m lonely, and at least if I were a werewolf, or even another type of Otherborne, I would belong somewhere. Anywhere.
I wouldn’t be thought of as some sort of a cuckoo. A crackpot. A delusional grief-stricken sister.
I wouldn’t have to convince my parents of anything for the sake of some hopeless approval.
And, I knew, all that was selfish of me. It was like joining the enemy who killed my sisters.
But was it really the enemy, though?
Lucien wasn’t an enemy . . .
Shaking my head, I forced my thoughts away and distracted myself by looking at my phone. There were a couple of missed calls from my parents. I’d been in the cabin alone the entire day, with Lucien gone and Thayer only returning in the evening. I could have answered them if I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
Thayer and I had already changed the SIM cards in our phones to avoid any possible tracking by the Syndicate, and we also changed our numbers in the process. Thayer must’ve given our parents his new number and mine, too, because otherwise, they couldn’t have reached out to me.
Which would’ve been better, though I didn’t fault Thayer for doing that.
Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to care about my parents right now. Besides, I knew why they called: to tell me about another jobopening one of their rich friends’ son’s friends had in their wealthy conglomerate company. They would try to force my hand, to make me move back to Seattle and take that job, as they always did. They wanted me under their control, after all, so I would stop ruining their oh-so-precious reputation.
My resentment toward them was so integrated into my very being, I couldn’t imagine ever going back to Seattle, even just to visit.
They would never change. They would always put everything else first over their own kids, as they had always done. And I was sick and tired of playing their game.
I was sipping my coffee, tired yet wide awake, when the entrance door burst open. I jumped to my feet, spilling coffee on the carpet as I put the mug on the table. The door had been locked before we went to bed. Thayer and I made sure of it.
Yet now the door barely hung on its hinges after the wolf walking inside literally broke into the cabin.
A feeling I couldn’t quite name expanded in my chest as I watched the wolf, with his silky, glistening bronze fur and bright arctic-blue eyes, padding toward me, his eyes set on my face like a hawk’s.
Footsteps announced Thayer coming into the living room. The wolf’s eyes remained solely on me as Thayer asked, voice sleepy, “What the hell just happened?”
I didn’t look at him, didn’t move, didn’t break eye contact with the wolf as I spoke softly. “Thayer, close and lock the entrance door, please, and go back to your room.”
In truth, I had no idea if that was what to do. Anais hadn’t prepared us for a wolf breaking into the cabin—especially the Alpha of the pack.