“It’s amazing how time flies,” I say, staring at my growing stomach in the mirror. “Not long ago, I was looking at myself in a wedding dress. Now, we only have to wait four more months until we meet our daughter.”“I can’t wait,” James says, as he hugs me from behind and kisses my neck. “I’m so excited to meet her. I already love our little family.“And yet somehow we’ve still managed to stay on top of things. I’m a much better Beta with your help. Our pack is so much better with Ben’s strength. Everything is going so well. Our future is so bright.”“It is,” I agree. “I couldn’t ask for anything more. I can’t think of anything better.”Still, not long after we leave the house to put into motion any better plans we have. We started having these weekly meetings with Ryan to stay on top of things. We’re always trying to improve our pack’s lives.We’ve even gotten them more involved with the community at large. We’ve made Ryan realize that there’s strength in having good ties with peo

A sudden jolt of pain wakes me, and I couldn’t be more thankful for it. “I had the worst nightmare,” I mumble to James. “You wouldn’t believe it. I know they say that can sometimes happen with pregnancy, but I wasn’t expecting anything like this.”James doesn’t answer, so I role over but instead of being greeted by James, I’m stopped by a horrible pain in my shoulder.I open my eyes and look up at a dust filled sky. I remember. But it can’t be. It all has to be a nightmare. It has to be a nightmare. This can’t be real life.I close my eyes again as tears fall. If this wasn’t a nightmare, then they won’t ever stop falling. It has to be a nightmare. It has to be a nightmare. I don’t want to look, but I know that I must. I have to get some sort of idea as to what’s real and what’s not. I did just wake up, after all. So, most of it could be a nightmare. It has to be.Eyes open, I look to my side and see a pack I don’t recognize. Or at least, I don’t want to recognize them. The

This limbo between being awake and crashing into the worst nightmares continues throughout the night. The pain is torturous. The nightmares are agony.Finally though, I awake and see gold light coming in through the window. I feel refreshed in a way, at least physically. I’m able to sit up.“Do you think it’s okay to stand?” I ask.I glance around the hut which looks even cozier in the light, but I don’t see my mysterious savior anywhere. Was he just a dream?No. He couldn’t have been seeing as I’m here. He must’ve just left for a little while. I decide to try standing, and at first, I am wobbly. But then, I regain my balance and am able to walk around a bit. I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to use or see, so I try not to touch anything or do any sort of prying.My stomach grumbles, remind me that I am starving though. I suspect the man wouldn’t mind if I went into his kitchen and ate some food. But it doesn’t feel right, so I decide to walk outside and try to see if there’s an

My heart flutters at his words just like I’m a teenager all over again. But he says it so quietly that I’m not sure that he wanted me to hear it. I don’t know how to respond to it anyway, so I don’t respond. I hope he’ll leave it at that.It’s difficult though because the more we talk, the more impressed I am by him. He tells me how he moves about the world while blind and I become more attracted to him because of his strength, his courage, and his determination to never give up, even though being blind of course is something difficult to live with. “I don’t think I could do it, honestly,” I say, after we’ve talked about it longer. “I don’t know how you do.”“That’s nothing compared to what you’re going through,” he says. “You’re so strong to have made it this far. I’m in awe of you.”I can’t fully argue with that because I would rather be blind than lose my whole pack. I’d rather be blind than lose James. Which makes this all so much more difficult.I just lost James. He died in

I race through the night in wolf form, my anger and need for revenge driving me. Even though I know this is dangerous, it feels like fate. It feels like I need to be back home.Time slows in the most agonizing way possible. My thoughts shift between fear for my daughter and horror over what's happened to my pack. I can't get their deaths out of my mind. The only thing that helps is knowing that I will avenge their deaths soon.The closer I get to my home, the more intense my thoughts become. What was once a place of peace for me has become a place that haunts my nightmares.I’ll make it a place that haunts them.As I near my home, an awful scent clouds all the familiar, far more pleasant scents. It has warped this space into a place I don’t recognize.It’s the smell of dust, blood, tears, open intestines, and unimaginable pain. It’s the smell of corpses who have already begun decaying.I want to turn back. I know I can’t do this. It’s too awful to even fathom. This is too much fo