Eight Hours before Change

Morning came slowly. I was still drifting somewhere between sleep and being awake when my mother’s voice cut through the room. “Livana. Wake up.” I pulled the blanket higher over my face, prompting her to snap, “Livana. Don’t start today.” A second later, the blanket disappeared completely, and cold air rushed over my skin. I groaned and rolled onto my side, dragging the pillow over my head. “I’m not going.” “You say that every morning,” she countered. “And I mean it every morning,” I muttered, earning a tired laugh from her.

“Livana Isole Liveshade,” she said, using my full name now. “It’s your last day of school and your birthday. You are going.” Birthday. The thought pushed through the fog in my head. Eighteen. The age where everything was supposed to make sense, the age you met your mate, and the age people stopped looking at you like you were unfinished. I wanted all of that. Nothing dramatic. Nothing complicated. Just something normal. But thinking about it this early in the morning felt exhausting, so I rolled over again.

From somewhere deeper in the house came another voice, younger and entirely too cheerful. “You’re going to be late again!” It was Genevieve, forcing me to crack one eye open. “Why are you even awake?” I called back. “I live here,” she called back, as if that explained everything.

I stared at the ceiling for a moment before finally sitting up, my red hair falling into my face in tangled waves while morning light slipped through the curtains beside my bed. My mother was folding clothes nearby, calm in the way mothers were when they had already decided how things were going to go. “You have school,” she reminded me. “I have exhaustion,” I countered. “You have both,” she said. I laughed quietly and pushed myself to my feet.

The moment my feet touched the floor, something stirred faintly inside me. Nyx. My wolf was always there, quiet and watchful at the back of my mind. "You’re slow again," she murmured. “Not now,” I muttered. She went silent after that, though silence never really meant absence with her.

Breakfast was simple; toast, tea, and something slightly burnt that nobody mentioned. I sat beside Genevieve, mostly pushing food around my plate while my father read something on his tablet. Every now and then, he glanced up at us with a distant sort of expression I couldn’t quite place. Genevieve, meanwhile, was talking enough for three people. “So after school, I’m going out,” she announced. When I asked with who, she replied, “My life.” “That’s not a person,” I pointed out. “It’s a lifestyle.”

My mother sighed, telling Genevieve to finish her breakfast, but my sister ignored her and leaned toward me instead. “You’re eighteen today, you know.” “I’m aware,” I muttered. “Big year,” my father said finally, looking up from his tablet, but I just gave a small shrug. “It’s just a number.”

My mother looked at me for a second longer than usual. “It’s never just a number,” she said quietly. I didn’t answer. Maybe she was right. But as far as I was concerned, I didn’t need fate to hand me some grand story. I just wanted things to fall into place like they were supposed to: a mate, a bond, and a life that felt certain for once.