About Three Months Prior…
I’ve grown up in one pack my whole life. Why? Because my Mom is the Alpha.
Alpha and Beta. Those titles are given to the two leaders of each pack. Though some tried to associate characteristics with the job position, it wasn’t accurate at all. Each Alpha and Beta had their own way of doing things, their own methods of keeping peace. Most had developed a sort of democratic approach, with holding meetings with the entire pack to determine what changes, if any, that the residents wanted to see.
So, it was just a title.
Alphas ended up making the final decision on things. Betas usually helped them figure out which choice was best, acting as a sort of aide. Alphas also remained in contact with the ultimate leaders of all wolves. They were practically like royalty… but they were also my aunt, my aunt’s mate, and my cousin, Lizzie. It sure takes the buzz out of meeting royalty when you're related.
In my home pack, the Nealon Pack, we were a bit different from others. Twins existed with powers, something that hadn’t always been the case. These abilities, these powers, were in varying degrees of strength as well as type.
Mom…
Well, she was a twin. And she had the rarity of three abilities. One of those was the barrier. She could feel when someone entered or exited with hostile intentions. She knew whether they were unwelcome or not, though maybe that was just her intuition and gut feelings talking.
Everyone here respected her as their leader. She kept them all safe. And since we lived apart from humans almost entirely, we felt more secure about being wolves. We could walk around, shifting between forms, and not have any troubles with it.
A lot of things went down twenty years ago, and all of us ‘kids’ ended up with a filtered version of it, despite our parents being directly involved. Basically, a bad guy was in charge, our parents took him out of power and restored peace, and that was that.
And then, because of that, they all decided to get together as a group at least once every year, up at this cabin that they all stayed at before they took the bad guy out. When they all started having kids? Of course, that was how my friend group was formed. Our parents all knew each other, some of us lived near each other, some even in the same pack, so it was pretty much a given that we’d grow up together, closer than we would have been otherwise.
I mean, one of them was unavoidable, I thought to myself as looked across the room. Yeah. Not only was Mom a twin. So was I.
Josephine.
Jo.
Technically, we tried not to do the ‘who’s older’ thing. But, I was definitely older. Just a few minutes. It counted.
We were kind of miracle babies to begin with. Mom and Ma couldn’t actually have kids. That just… they were both women. It didn’t happen outside of like fairytales and such. But it did. We weren’t adopted. Our parents were Mom and Ma, genetically, literally, everything. Ma found out she was pregnant and had us. There was no faking it either. I even had Mom’s eyes, the color, the shape, the whole shebang.
They totally had not been prepared to have kids. But we were fine. I mean, kind of. It was fine. Mostly. Jo caused a lot of problems with her abilities when she was little. I suspected that I wasn’t an angel either, even though my powers didn’t manifest until later.
Jo’s powers?
She could shift at any time from when she was like six months old or so. There was a little wolf pup running around the house causing mayhem from then on. It was important though, since she could do things that no other wolf shifter could. She could shift into her wolf before age 13, unlike the rest of the population. Everyone else had to wait until 13, which was also the time that True Mates could then recognize each other. They could never do that before both were at least that age. And then, everyone, and I mean everyone, had experiences of accidental shifting where they tore their favorite shirts or pants upon changing forms… Jo didn’t have that. Not once. Her clothes mended into her body upon the change, disappearing into her wolf, and then when she shifted back, they just popped right back out, undamaged. Everyone else came back butt-naked. It was ridiculous.
Ah.
Mom and Ma were one of those True Mate pairings. True Mates, the fantastical magical thing. Skin feeling warm upon touch, instinctive protectiveness over each other, feeling drawn to one another… yeah. It was a thing everyone basically had assumed didn’t exist that often. And then it seemed everyone was finding their True Mates, their destinies. That whole group that my Mom had worked with to ‘liberate twins and wolves’ all those twenty or so years ago found their True Mates.
All of them.
It wasn’t even like they needed to pick their True Mate over someone else. All of them had been totally single before they met each other. I mean, the whole True Mate thing wasn’t set in stone. You could always say no.
I doubted there were many cases of that though.
Mystical, magical, destiny or the guy down the street?
Destiny seemed pretty popular.
Either way, I was going to be one of them outliers. I had a feeling. I’d choose my own path. I’d choose who I wanted to be with, whether it was the easy path or the hard one. Destiny had no hold over my heart.
I slipped back into my room to get ready for bed, putting my laptop back on my desk. Before I turned away from the desk, I pulled out a hidden drawer and slipped the box out. I lifted the lid and let my fingers caress the tops of the papers.
I couldn’t hide my smile as the weight in my chest lifted, just at the sight of them.
Returning it to its hidden compartment, I walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I did, gazing blankly into the mirror, I thought about it all.
If I had to choose…
I’d choose the one who had given me those papers. I didn’t want something else. I didn’t want to meet a handsome stranger, have to let down my walls and then watch as he slowly starts to realize what a mess I am. I didn’t care to live that through. I already had someone who was kind and smart and would hold my hand and never judge me or tell me I’m making a big deal out of nothing.
I had someone who cared to listen to me ramble about my problems. He didn’t try to solve them unless I asked. He was…
In a word, he was like perfect, somehow.
Perfect for calming my heart and soul.
And I was kind of in love with him.
I climbed into my bed, wishing Jo a good night.
I closed my eyes and thought of him, with a small smile on my face. Maybe one day, we’d get over whatever awkwardness was still hanging in the air. Maybe one day…
We’d talk face to face again.
That would be nice.
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