(Three years prior to present day)
I snuck through the dark hallways silently to grab that midnight snack and ease my hunger. I looked off through the large glass doors of the living room. Outside was a castle. The castle. I paused and stood.
Through many complicated explanations, recently done, I’d managed to figure out that the witch named Ashena, the one who caused twins to have powers all those years ago – and the one who was still affecting them to this day, was in fact, my blood relative.
Weird, right?
She was my aunt.
I didn’t have a drop of witch blood in me.
She was only a half-blooded sibling to my father, but they happened to share the same one… who happened to be very evil, and also dead.
Very, very dead apparently.
Ashena was half wolf shifter. A wolf shifter, like us, from her father.
Half witch, half shifter.
And then, the story of what happened…
My father, the parents of all my friends?
They’d intentionally gone on a mission…
To kill him.
My grandfather, who was using the leading Alpha at the time as a puppet for his plans.
Years ago, through some sort of messed up magic, he’d become somewhat immortal and very, very twisted. When he’d come to his senses, fighting them, he’d asked them to end his reign. And they did, as mercilessly as possible.
Which was nice of them.
Mhmm.
However, it led to a very complicated and unfinished family tree. All because of dear old dead grandfather who couldn’t keep it in his pants.
Why couldn’t he have written it all down in like a book or something?
It could’ve been like ‘oh, and this is also my kid and I had another one and there’s two more’ and it would’ve been helpful.
The current list of my relatives, from my knowledge–
Ashena and her brother Otto. Half witch wolf shifters.
Ashena had a daughter, Minnie. So obviously her genetics were interesting.
My dad and his twin brother, Jacob and Danny Paylor, respectively. Wolf shifters.
Me, son of Jacob.
Hector and Charles were Danny’s kids.
The whole crew of us kids were wolf shifters too.
A set of triplets my dad had mentioned, or rather, mumbled to himself that one night and never elaborated on… likely wolf shifters of some sort.
Not to mention, the previous Alpha of the Northern Pack, Alpha Alein Norcell was a distant relative, and grandfather’s puppet.
Alein had three daughters. Bay, Briar, and Miyra.
Bay was Lizzie’s mother.
Miyra was Lynn and Josephine’s mother.
And Briar didn’t have kids, thank god.
If that didn’t complicate things enough already, there were already a large number of people on that list that I didn’t know about, I could go on for days with it, but I didn’t know their names. I didn’t know them at all.
That was fine though, I thought, they likely valued their privacy.
And we didn’t need a giant family reunion. What would we do? Celebrate that the guy was dead? And… that we were all related to him? It didn’t make any sense to do it.
I thought about everyone that came to this reunion.
I was the youngest person here. Not that it was a contest. The ‘children’ here were all within three years of each other in age, so it didn’t really say much at all. And Minnie, the only one of us that was younger than me, only in years though, was off somewhere in Europe. That was where she lived, after all, with all the rest of the witches.
In my mind, I replayed a moment from long ago. Years back. I saw it playing out in the darkness of the empty and quiet room…
It was a different reunion.
My parents were talking with the other adults. The rest of us kids had congregated on the other side of the room, mostly. I was kind of by myself.
So, I had noted, was Jane.
She’d stepped over to her mom and dad, talking quietly with them for a moment, her gaze unwavering and determined. Her eyes were lit up.
It – no, she, was pretty.
She always had been.
They nodded to her, saying something back.
I couldn’t hear them. It wasn’t really the noise of conversation in the room, it was more to the fact that I just couldn’t hear. Wolf shifters had some of the same heightened senses as a regular wolf, just as soon as we could transform into one… when we came of age.
Thirteen.
Yeah, I wasn’t thirteen yet.
Jane was.
And she was the prettiest person I knew, in either form. I’d seen her in her wolf form, and all I did was stare. About as much as I did when she was human. She was graceful in both. Free. It was hard to look away from her.
Just as I thought that, she turned to look at me, smiling. She came racing over.
“Lee, come on!”
She grabbed my hand, dragging me to my feet as she spun, racing toward the door to the deck overlooking the mountains. I stumbled behind her, trying my best not to fall on my face at the speed I hadn’t been prepared to go at just then.
She pushed the door open without hesitation and pulled me out into the darkness under the stars, all the way over to the far railing. I looked up at them, somehow shining brighter than the lights inside. They were stunning. Probably the brightest thing I’d ever seen.
But, when I turned to see her again, I knew I’d been mistaken.
She somehow outshone the stars, even as she gazed up, the moon lighting up her face, her dancing eyes glittering as she pointed out the stars to me.
“Look! It’s the archer!”
Archer…
Uh-huh…
“And over there…” Her voice trailed off in my mind, even as her mouth continued to form words.
Sure…
It was too bad that all the constellations had been determined and named. The brightest star should’ve been in a constellation named after Jane.
Her eyes found mine, alight, somehow reflecting those bright stars. She tossed her head at the sky as she watched me.
“Do you see them?”
I nodded.
I saw them in her eyes.
In her words.
That smile.
She was my first crush…
Jane.
Jane Blackstone.
Someone far too incredible for me, as I was now. Maybe…
Maybe in a few years?
Maybe…
The words almost stung in the back of my mind as I thought them.
A few years.
A few…
We all knew there were people that were destined to be together. They knew it by touch, by sight… They recognized each other, if almost by instinct.
True Mates.
Every pair, every adult back inside that room had found that connection. They’d found their True Mates… and they were with them. The two of us were the results of that connection, along with all of the other kids.
In a few years, Jane would probably…
She was so spectacular, she’d likely not be able to keep her True Mate away. She’d pick them.
Of course… of course she would. I’d never have a chance against that.
I smiled at her.
But at least I’d have this. This moment. This memory. This friendship with her.
She was a good first crush.
She was a good best friend.
Even if I was crushed in the end.
This was fine…
She smiled back at me, her eyes crinkling at the corners a bit, her eyes squinting at the force of it. Somewhere along the line, she’d let go of my hand, only to have linked her arm in mine. We were joined at the elbows, staring up at the sky.
I would accept being crushed.
I just – I hoped those stars would remain ever constant… and remind me of her, even when she went off on her own journey without me. And maybe, they could do the same for her. Maybe the stars would remind her of me too.
That would be nice.
I’d like to remain…
To remain…
I sighed, the silence of the cabin returning to me.
This was now.
That was then.
And, it seemed I’d still have to see if she’d choose me. Even if we were True Mates, she still had the right to say no. She could still choose someone else. Nothing was set in stone for us.
As I moved on from the living room and wandered into the kitchen, I remembered something from four years ago, maybe a year or so after that stargazing moment with Jane.
“We should at least make a bet on who finds their mate first.”
Lynn had said that. That day, Jane and her mother had visited our pack. Lynn and her twin sister Josephine, along with myself, all lived there. And we had joined up at the swing set.
She’d gone around to each of us, saying when she believed we’d find our fated matches, like our parents had all found.
Lynn started with her own sister.
“Cause we all know you’re going to be last.”
Jo hadn’t said a word against it. Whether she thought her sister was right or wrong, we didn’t know. She kept it to herself with a sigh.
“Jane’s going to find hers first. Lee, you’re going to be last.”
Knife to the gut, those words. I’d already developed a crush on Jane by then, and suddenly it felt so one-sided. It felt – I was hurt by it. The more time that passed after that, the harder it was to think she was wrong.
The harder it was to hear Jane’s voice, to read her letters…
“Lynn, you’re last.”
I’d spit out.
A triumphant look on her face, she named herself just one step behind Jane.
“Nope, I’m second.”
Four years after that, and here we were.
Last, huh?
I stared at Jane. To me, it didn’t look like I was going to be last, Lynn.
I wasn’t anywhere close to last.
“Midnight snack?” she questioned.
I laughed a bit, nodding my head.
“Yeah.”
Despite the warmth I was feeling, just by being near her, I felt bare.
I…
I was only wearing sweatpants.
But, she was… she was just in a tank-top and shorts. They looked thin.
We let go of each other hesitantly, simultaneously.
I showed her the box of crackers stuffed between my elbow and my side. She smiled and nodded a bit, huffing out a breath of laughter.
It was silent.
Too quiet now.
I set the crackers on the counter.
Her gaze drifted down to my bare torso and I felt my breath hitch. My throat felt like it was closing up. I gulped.
Oh god. What do I do?
What was supposed to happen now?
I just–
She licked her lips and cleared her throat, looking away from me. I let out a shaky breath.
“So…”
Her eyes flashed up to mine, alert, wide.
“So?” she whispered back at me.
Jeez.
This was more nerve-wracking than I thought it ever could be.
“Can I…” I paused. Uh… what was I trying to ask? I restarted. “May I… grab your hand for a second?”
“Um, sure.”
She reached out a shaking hand to me. So I wasn’t the only one scared out of my mind? The only one freaking out? I guess that’s good. We can totally freak out together.
My hand grabbed hers, firmly. Where we touched practically burned with heat. What was cold seconds ago, was now thrust into a flaming fire without warning.
This was what I thought, then.
It wasn’t just at dinner.
It was now.
Always.
It was always going to happen, whenever we touched, until a bond was made.
Our eyes held each other, neither of us able to look away.
“It’s not a fluke, right?”
“No.”
“You feel it too?”
“It’s hard not to.” She shrugged a bit sheepishly. “I’ve been trying hard not to stare at you all night.” And then she gave me a smirk. “Failing a bit.”
I chuckled.
“Me too.” I looked her over, all over, taking a deep breath as I did. She was still Jane. Even without the yellow dress… she was beautiful. “Somehow, it’s kinda like I already knew.”
“Yeah.”
The silence between us now wasn’t charged with confusion or tension. It was understanding, it was… the knowledge that we missed each other.
And I did.
I missed Jane so much when we weren’t talking.
There was letter after letter that I never sent her.
But I kept them.
I had all of them in a box under my bed.
“Let’s not tell anyone yet,” she finally said, quietly, her eyes drifting away from mine, as if she was worried I would disagree with her.
It was a sort of gray area on whether we should or not, but honestly, the way I was feeling on it…
“Keep it between us for a bit, out of the spotlight? I agree.”
We were in complete agreement.
She met my gaze again and sighed, relieved.
And if we were going to be completely honest now… There were a few more things I felt I needed to apologize for.
There were actions I needed to clear up.
I wanted to say things as they were, in my mind. No excuses for my behavior, just admissions of what was going on in my mind at the time.
“I was actually kind of worried before tonight, because I’ve had a crush on you for years.”
Her gaze softened.
“You were worried that we weren’t…”
“And that… we were…”
That either way, no matter what happened, tonight was going to change us…
And I didn’t want to lose her.
She brushed her fingers lightly through my hair, a smile growing as she did. If I could, I’d let her play with my hair forever like that, so long as she smiled like that. Then she released my hand, only to crush me in a hug.
“I’m glad it’s you,” she mumbled into my chest.
I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto her, just as tight.
Her fingers were pressed against the bare skin on my back. Firm. Warm. It wasn’t like anything I had felt before… not that I had people touching my bare back often enough to know. Yet, it felt like she would leave imprints there, of her hands, her fingers, forever, with just this one touch. She would be forever burned into my skin.
And that was perfectly fine with me.
I tucked my head into her shoulder. I was taller than her at this point. I’d always been shorter, not that she gave me grief over it. She smelled good. I closed my eyes.
The girl I had fallen for, the one who was a couple years older than me, the one with a radiant smile that hid her fears and worries… those things that, over time, she shared with me, and it made me grow to feel more than just the feelings of a crush, and even more than just love… Respect and admiration among other things.
That all belonged to the girl hugging me now. The one I had knowingly tried to distance myself from, to hide those growing feelings.
That was useless.
Had she grown as restless as I had?
I stopped calling her because I was afraid I’d just hang up, shift into my wolf, and run over to her house, to her window, just to keep hearing her voice for far longer than a battery on a phone could last. I was afraid of that burning desire just to see her face, to talk in person. And just the thought of being in the same room as her at night time or even in the daytime… it was torture to even think of being able to see her.
Her pack wasn’t actually that far from the mine. And that knowledge did things to me. It was like a curse.
My heart couldn’t handle those thoughts with her nearby. So, I’d tried to ignore everything in me that said to keep her close, just like this, for as long as she’d let me. I kept telling myself that she’d have someone out there, some future true mate that would waltz her way and sweep her off her feet, right in front of me. In that instance, I could do nothing. I didn’t want to be so helpless to these feelings.
We held on even tighter, unable to let go.
How could I?
It was impossible for my heart to let her go.
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