"I do understand," he says, cupping my face again just as he lets out a frustrated sigh. "I can't figure out how to deal with this, Yohanna, but I can't live without you." — Yohanna Iskaela has been alone for five years, but it all ends when she accidentally walks into a werewolf pack's territory, and her whole life is turned upside down since then. Follow her journey in a story filled with trust issues, forming bonds and self-discovery.
View MoreRain is pouring down heavily all around me. For every step I take, there is a new, brown puddle refilling my already heavy combat boots with more dirty water. I think a small rock has lured its way into one of them, too, but I’m not sure. My feet are numb, so I don’t feel the pain. They’re cold, wet and they’ll definitely hurt in the morning, but I can’t stop yet. I need to get at least halfway through this forest first.
The dirt road beneath me is slippery and muddy, yet I still haven’t fallen down and ruined my clothes. I hope I don’t either. They’re the last pieces of clean clothes that I have. A pair of very distressed jeans, exposing more of my pale thighs than I want to admit, making them freezing cold, even though my blood is naturally a lot warmer than everyone else’s, are covering my legs. Or, almost covering them, at least. I have a tank top, too, and a knitted sweater that my grandmother gave me for my fifteenth birthday. I’ve been careful to wear it, since I don’t want it ruined, but now it’s all I’ve got left. It’s a beige brown color, with my name embroidered into the back of its neck, where the tags on bought clothes would sit. It’s perfect. And I hope I can find a river to wash my other clothes, soon, so I can let this one take a breather.
I tighten the straps on my backpack. They tend to slip a little when it rains, and I’ve dropped the whole thing more than once before. So I’ve got to make sure I don’t do that again. I then pull some of my now dark copper-y, almost brown hair behind my ear, before looking forward towards the road again. My hair is normally a very vibrant shade of red, but when it’s wet it gets darker, and loses the vibrancy. I don’t mind. It makes it easier to walk past people without getting noticed. I don’t want to get noticed either. Someone might recognize me.
It’s a wonder no one has, but I don’t dwell on it too much. I like to think about it as luck, and I’m not one to turn away from that. I need it more than most, being alone and all. I’ve been on my own, homeless, wandering from town to town for five years now. Ever since my fifteenth birthday, when my body started changing. My grandmother didn’t mind and told me everything would be fine, but I’m not sure she understood what I told her and my “parents” that day. Every bone in my body suddenly broke and changed, and when I looked into my bathroom mirror, I was not human. I know now what I am, but back then? Hah, I was stupid enough to tell my parents after I changed back and they kicked me out. Their little charity case was no longer welcome.
After I ran from the city, they reported me missing. I saw them in a news-segment in a diner a few weeks later, and they begged me to come back. I don’t think they meant it. I think they just wanted to look good for media. I wasn’t their biological child, anyway. They adopted me when I was about two years old, and left me to grow up among their servants and maids. The only person that really cared for me in that household was my grandmother. She was kind, loving and gentle, and she spend a lot of time with me. I loved her so much, but I had to leave.
I never stay in one place too long. It’s not safe. Especially not when I don’t know how to control myself during the full moon. I change, then, and I usually don’t know how, when or where it will happen. One would think I knew something about this after five years, but I don’t. Just that it happens every full moon, and that I usually end up hating myself after.
A loud siren brings me to my knees on the dirty ground, and I put my hands over my ears as I fall down. A shooting pain runs through my whole body, lingering in my knees that are without a doubt split open from the impact, and I grit my teeth. Stupid, fucking sound. Once it dies down, I look up to see a huge beast in front of me, breathing out of its dark snout so hard it’s audible, and a cloud of mist emerges from its nostrils.
I’m not afraid of it, though. I’m just as scary as this thing every full moon, and I know how to intimidate a normal wolf by now. Another one walks up behind it, and I growl at them. Warning them that I can put up a fight if I have to, even though I don’t know if I can when I’m human.
The two wolves look at each other, then they get up on two feet, and starts changing. It happens so fast, like the split second where they looked at each other was merely a segment of my imagination. My jaw is on the ground after the two seconds it takes them to transform into two men, just shy of thirty years of age, I would think. They both look intimidating, yet scary as hell. I have never in my life seen another human change into a wolf, just like me. Or the other way around, like now.
And definitely not without it being a full moon.
I’m dead. There’s no way I can fight these guys.
“Who are you, and what are you doing out here?” the tallest one of them asks me, crossing his arms firmly across his chest.
I glare at him. I don’t want to tell him anything. How can I trust them? They just showed me, a human, that they’re able to shift into wolves. I would never show a human that I can shift. I’d be signing my own death certificate, practically shoving myself into a coffin and nailing it shut.
“How’s Alba?” I ask, attempting to change the subject, at least for a couple of minutes.“Oh! She’s great, they’re all great!” she gushes. I can tell by the way her eyes light up that she is really happy for them. “Marco was wonderful, as expected, and their little girl is doing so well! I think they agreed to call her Anna.”She continues to tell me about the baby’s weight, height, who she resembles most and everything in between as we both empty our cups, and she looks so happy, I don’t have it in me to ask if she thinks Azaire and I will end up with burning hearts over this. I can handle my own, but the thought of him suffering because of me, is killing me. Which is why I believe we’ll end up like that in the first place.Despite my wish to get to know my brother and my own pack, I do want to try to work things out with my soulmate. As crazy as it
I stare at Azaire. Did he really just say that he wants me to stay with him? As in… he won’t even consider going with me? If mate-relationships are going to be like this, with the man deciding everything, I don’t think I want to be his mate. Or anyone’s mate, for that matter.“I didn’t even say I was going,” I explain calmly, “I said I wanted to, but I want to talk about it first.”“Then talk,” Azaire demands, as he lifts his ice cold stare to look me in the eye.I cross my arms and scoff at him. He has managed to go from worried, to vulnerable and now to angry, or maybe even distant. It’s like he’s pushing himself away from me, to make it easier for him if I want to leave him. He’s a stupid jackass who should really try to control his feelings a little more.“We’ll go home to talk for a bit,” Aiden
“I don’t think Azaire will let Yohanna go that easily,” Juan says with a slight smile, “he’s become quite attached to her in this short period of time.”“But they’re not mated, or marked?” Tristan asks, and Juan shakes his head in confirmation. “Then it’s not a big deal to take her with me. She belongs with us, we’re her family.”“What if I don’t want to leave this place?” I ask before I can let my brain process that I’ve even opened my mouth at all.As soon as my Alpha turns around to look at me with his terrifying glare, my stomach drops and I feel like I should just drop down to my knees to let him know I acknowledge his power and authority. It’s ridiculous.“You don’t?” he asks, tilting his head and taking a threatening step towards me. “You don’t want to know
“No,” I say, “I have been a lot of places.”Tristan looks at me, and his expression turns back into the serious one he had before.“Like where?” he asks, crossing his arms.“I grew up in Dalen,” I tell him, and grip Azaire’s arms as he holds me. I’m not sure how my angry Alpha slash brother will react when I share with him where I’ve been, and why, so for now I’ll choose to trust Azaire a little bit more than my pack. “I was adopted by a human couple, and lived with them ‘till I was fifteen, and then I shifted for the first time, and made the mistake of confiding in them, so they kicked me out. I’ve been on my own since then.”“You’ve been alone for five years?” Tristan asks, the growl in his voice is back already, and I fight the urge to let my spine chill.“Ye
My feet carry me to the nearest window, where I can see the cars come up one by one, parking in front of the big house we’re in. The first one is a midnight blue sports car, different from the other two, who are also fast-looking cars, but they’re painted a bright yellow, and bright green. Once the cars stop, the music stops, too, and I see Paul exiting the house. He stands looking at the cars, with his arms crossed, without a doubt ordered to do so by Juan while he tends to his daughter.Azaire puts an arm protectively around me, and leans closer to the window to listen, as I feel the warmth radiating off of Alexander and Aiden, when they approach us to see, too. The blue door opens up, and a tall, broad guy with hair as black as night exits the car. His face looks narrow, but chiseled, with a five o’clock shadow barely visible under his dark locks. The door of the bright yellow car opens up, too, and a guy with matching yellow hair steps out,
“This just adds to what I’ve been saying all along,” he says, and turns to his father. “Yohanna should never have left that basement on her first day, she can’t be trusted. She is clearly not mate material, for anyone, especially not my little bro-““Alessandro,” Juan growls loudly, staring angrily at his son. “That’s enough. You are entitled to have your own opinion, but you’re not the Alpha yet, I am. And I decide that Yohanna and Alexander are both under our protection, until we know their pack has good intentions.”“Dad, she forced him to go into Rogue territory, they were found, and let go. Rogues never let anyone go, one of them must have a foot on the other side,” Alessandro protests, shaking his hands in front of him as if he’s showing us all some kind of evidence.He has a point. After what I heard, and how we prepared for
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