Clear Waters without Mike and Avery was pretty boring. Brooks didn’t have anyone to talk to or anything to do. It didn’t help that he didn’t really know anyone else. He had not gone out for a run in the woods since his run in with the local pack. He had asked what the creatures with red eyes were but he didn’t get an answer. Ivy, the pack leader was very secretive. Brooks didn’t blame her, having a new wolf in her territory was bound to put her on edge. Especially knowing that said wolf had brought a siren with him. She was just being cautious. Being alone for a few days was making the wolf go crazy. Werewolves were affectionate tactile creatures, it was why living in pack worked so well for them. Brooks was missing his pack, his weird, completely unnatural pack.
The last time he had spoken to Avery they were cut off by Florence. Florence Battaligna. According to Avery, he and Flo had had some sort of fling before he and Brooks met. However after
The second day of the initiation process started out with a surprise for the top five ranked. The council of course waited until everyone had arrived to drop the news on the unsuspecting contestants and judges. The third and final round of eliminations was usually an individual rescue mission in an obstacle course filled with attackers. This year the council, well mostly the Battaligna’s and their supporters decided to change it up.“Five on five, capture the flag obstacle course.” Mr. Bishops announced. The arena lid up behind him to expose what they had set up the night before. It was huge. Avery didn’t remember the training facility being this big now that he looked at it. The arena had been separated into three sections, two of them were very small with the biggest section in the middle. They were separated by ten foot tall climbing walls. Avery figured that each team would start on one of the small sections and make their way into the middle secti
Brooks had not spoken to Wren since that morning. It had all been a mistake. He had let himself give into his desires and next thing he knew they both woke up in a tangle of limbs on the office floor. He had done it out of spite. He had done it to get back at Avery, which was worse than just doing it for fun. He felt his heart drop when he saw the message from the siren, his sudden panic was what woke Wren up. She smiled at him when she saw him. He pulled away from her and rushed out of the office to put as much space between them as possible. He felt dirty. He felt disgusted with himself. He felt wrong. Wren followed him through the restaurant as the two put their clothing back on asking what had happened. He felt her distress when he asked her to stay on the other side of the room. He asked her to leave without an explanation. He waited until the beautiful brunette drove away before he left the building himself. It was a chilly morning, he reached for Avery’s cardigan to put
The bar was empty as usual. Only a few people littered throughout the floor. Mostly after work crowd stopping by to de-stress themselves and eat snacks with friends. Avery walked ahead of the other two as they walked past the bar and towards the spiral stairs leading to the pool room. He didn’t stop to look back to make sure the other two weren’t too far out of reach. He always checked on them, he always made sure they were okay. But not that night. He had been cold and distant the entire day. It was unusual for him to not dote on the others, it was in his nature. It was his role in the group, he was the leader, the caretaker. Now he was just their leader. Everything he said to them was an order. Mike did as he asked because she knew that this would all pass. Brooks did what he said because he wanted to fix everything in any way that he could. Ruining things with Avery, he could lose more than just the relationship, he could lose his new home, his new life, his new famil
The wolves spread out with their claws already retracted ready to attack. It was hard to distinguish where the other things were going to come from, their screeching sounded like it was coming from all around. Robin came up behind Avery and pulled him closer until they were standing with touching sides. Stormy had done the same to Mike. The siren could almost taste the distain coming from Brooks when he saw the large, dark skinned wolf acting protective over Avery. Brooks was always the one who pulled Avery away from danger, he was always there to protect him, Robin was stepping on his territory. The blonde wolf shook the thoughts from his head and instead focused on the oncoming attack.“I'll be fine.” Avery whispered to Robin stepping away slightly. Avery was confident in his ability to defend himself, if he needed protections he’d ask for it. He kept eye contact with the hideous thing in front of them. He reached back and stepped forward throwing one of h
The group slept in shifts, just because the things outside had not attacked yet it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t. Avery skipped his sleep shift to make sure that Brooks was not left alone. He watched over him diligently throughout the night. He watched the sunrise through the sheer blinds, the creatures ran away into the woods avoiding the sun like it was death itself. Even with them gone he didn’t want to go to sleep. The poor wolf had not stopped shaking. Wren was in worse shape, her skin pigment had faded to a sickly white, the dark veins from her wound were branching out farther and farther. The skin looked like it was decaying, she was dying slowly, piece by piece. Ivy sat on the ground next to her sister. The hunters had offered her Brook’s room to rest but she refused to leave her side, even if she was going to be asleep. Robin however didn’t hesitate to take Avery’s room. Stormy took Brooks’s since Ivy wasn’t going to. He sat
He could feel his senses coming to. He was waking up, he didn’t want to but it was happening anyways. To be fair it was actually Mike that woke him up. His body felt stiff, and slightly sore. He wanted to keep sleeping but there was too much noise. “No! No! No!” Avery could hear Mike repeating and running down the stairs quickly. He had told her not to do that multiple times, she had fallen down them just as many times. He blinked his eyes open slowly. He was prepared for the sunlight to stab his eyes. Thankfully the curtains were still closed so the living room was dimly lit. He hummed lazily and rubbed his eyes to try to wake up. Several people were speaking angrily from the other room. It was probably Roz and Ivy butting heads finally. He had hoped that they could play nice for a few hours without him to buffer for them. Hoping had not really worked for him lately. He grunted and pushed himself up. The weight of Brooks’s arms kept him down. He had not noticed that the wol
The restaurant was filled with people eating their lunch. The dining area was loud, people laughed and spoke with each other over various foods. Avery was the first in the door since he was the only one who actually knew where everything was. He smiled at how well the business was doing even without him and Mike there. He knew he had made a great choice leaving Jerilyn in charge. A family of four walked past them and out the door. The parents smiled at Avery, they were regulars. An elderly couple sat at the first booth arguing over the menu prices. Avery quickly moved to them and showed them the senior menu. That seemed to calm them down. One of the bad things about working with the public was that they had a lot of emotions, emotions a siren could pick up on and feel. He hated feeling their anger and annoyance, it was best to make them happy. He continued moving forward and took the girls to the bar stool area, it was in the middle of the dining hall so it was perfect for them to k
Roz pulled the SUV as far into the driveway as she could. She put the vehicle in park and looked out the window. The sun was shining, it was a beautiful day, she would have usually admired it but the coming events had her thoughts elsewhere. She stepped out of the SUV and looked over the yard. The other vehicles had been moved into the garage. The wolves were all outside moving the pieces of outdoor furniture that lay in the yard. They had decided that if those things were going to attack them they needed a clear area to do it in. Brooks led them to the shack in the backyard so that they could lock it all up out of the way. Avery sat in the passenger seat motionless. His eyebrows were knitted together in deep thought. The pheromones swirling around his office replayed in a constant loop in his mind. He stared at the wolves as they stacked the furniture on top of each other. Just being within eyesight of Brooks made his anxiety start to rise. He had dreaded arriving home, all he had