“Sweetheart, you have to go to school today. It’s been a week.”
“No!” I yelled for the millionth time. “Leave me alone!”
Why won’t anyone leave me alone? All I want is to be left alone, to hide in my room like a coward, and refuse to face the world.
Is that too much to ask?
Obviously it is since no one has left me alone since my birthday.
That a*shole, whose name I refused to think or say, made my birthday the greatest day of my life. But, not to be outdone, he then quickly made it the worst.
Even now, I start to tear up thinking about it.
His words kept echoing through my mind, ripping at my heart and soul. Never in my life had I felt more dirty, ashamed, and disgusted of what I am than I did that night, and still did over a week later.
In his opinion, I was nothing more than a disgusting mutt, a dog of inferior birth, who shouldn’t be breathing the same air as him.
A*shole.
“You need to eat something,” Mom argued.
“I’m not hungry,” I mumbled.
“You don’t have a choice, so get your melancholy ass downstairs.”
Goddamn moms.
I rolled out of bed and sulked down the hall, stomping loudly down the stairs as I went. Once I hit the living room, a knock came at the door.
Instantly I was growling, thinking it was a trap.
I sniffed; not Jerk-face.
I opened the door and standing there was a deliveryman with a large vase filled with three dozen roses.
“Delivery for Jay Dee Lightfoot,” he said with a smile.
“Stay,” I growled, causing him to jump, startled, and grabbed Jarvis’ wallet off of the table and took a twenty from it. “I want you to deliver these back to sender. Here’s twenty bucks for your time.” I took his pen and scribbled the address on the signature line and broke each rose, just as he broke my heart. “Tell him I said to go get a tan without his ring,” I snarled before slamming the door in the stunned, and very confused, deliveryman’s face.
“That wasn’t very mature,” Jarvis informed from the kitchen doorway. “And you owe me twenty bucks.”
I flipped him off and pushed past him before flopping down at the kitchen table.
Like a stereotypical teenager who got her heart broken, I glared at everyone and everything, even the food.
I hadn’t eaten in days. I hadn’t showered. Hadn’t gone to school or to work. I was pretty damn confident that I had been wearing the same pajamas I went to bed in on my birthday.
Cain stayed with me all weekend while her boyfriend hung out with Steffen. I refused to let him in the house; already one vampire too many has an open invitation to my home. I still hadn’t figured out a way to recant that invitation either. Cain told me to forgive him, that he was confused and stunned, he’s old and set in his ways, and blah, blah, blah.
That wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
Jerk-face wouldn’t take his damn car back. If it wasn’t so pretty and innocent, just a pawn in his sick, twisted game, I would have taken a baseball bat to her.
She was way too pretty and innocent to, in good conscience, hurt.
A steady stream of packages, flowers, balloons, singing telegrams, you name it, had come to the house, and each was declined and sent back.
I wasn’t happy when I found out that Jarvis had gone shopping-shopping with Jerk-face. I told Jarvis to give him the stuff back, but he refused and told me to get over it.
Men, ha! Why did they seemingly always side with each other?
“So,” Dad started, “how’s it going?”
I glared at him.
“Well then,” he said with a chuckle. “You need to get yourself together and get over it.”
“No shit? Why didn’t I think of that?”
No one missed my sarcasm.
“Sis, aren’t you always the one who says to turn the other cheek?” Jarvis asked and smiled wide.
“That’s the bible, dumbass. When are you leaving? I’m tired of your damn optimism,” I sneered.
That was only partially a lie. I wasn’t looking forward to Jarvis going back to school. When he left, it’d mean that I was all alone again.
Great, now I’m crying, again.
Jarvis hugged me. “I’ll be back for Christmas. You won’t even notice that I’m gone,” he assured me.
And his reassurance caused me to cry even harder but I wasn’t entirely sure why. It could have been the lack of food, lack of sleep, or the nonstop chick flicks I had been watching for almost two weeks straight. Usually I was all about kung fu and action movies, but chick flicks seemed more appropriate.
For a brief, passing moment, I saw asshat’s face on Mr. Darcy. I pictured myself as Elizabeth Bennett when he proposed to her the first time, and pretty much belittled her and talked shit about her upbringing, lack of fortune, and family.
Yeah, I could totally relate.
However, the happy ending wasn’t possible in any way, shape, or form. My romance hit the skids right after the insult. Unlike Elizabeth Bennett, I was strong and wouldn’t roll over on my beliefs or who I am just because some super hot guy apologizes and pays off some douche to marry my annoying little sister—not that I had a sister or anything, but still.
Against my better judgment, I stopped fighting my parents and agreed to go to school.
It took me half-an-hour to get the brush through my hair. It had become a blonde haystack that was trying to turn into dreadlocks; the white Rastafarian in Western Washington look didn’t work for me, to say the least.
Jarvis drove me to school in Mom’s car. I refused to lay a finger on the BMW. He walked me to class, bullshitted with the teacher well after the bell; I think he wanted to make sure that I didn’t freak out and run from the room screaming like some psychopath when Jerk Faced walked in. I looked out the window the entire period, hoping and praying that the seat next to me would remain empty.
When the bell rang, I breathed a sigh of relief because Jerk Face never came, so Jarvis kissed me goodbye now that he was sure I wasn’t going to freak out at school...
He gave me much more credit than my lack of mental well-being at the time deserved.
No one said anything to me for the next two periods; I guess I looked like a crazy bitch still, and the bitches whispering about how I marked a vampire wasn’t something to broadcast to the school.Yahto hinted that I looked a bit cracked out and insane; I couldn’t argue with him there because that was exactly how it felt...the insane part, not the crack part.
I shared fourth period with way too many vampires for my liking, not that I had anything against most of them.
“Hey girlie,” Romeo greeted and forced a smile before hugging me.
I didn’t return the embrace but it didn’t stop him from doing it.
“How are you doing, you look like hell!” he lovingly informed me.
“Thanks, I was going for the depressed-emo-constipated-sparkly-vampire-lover-who-can’t-act-her-way-out-of-a-wet-paper-bag look. How’d I do?” I dryly commented and rolled my eyes before slumping down on the floor and pulled my knees to my chest.
I wasn’t really in the mood for gym.
“You look like shite, more so than usual,” Georgiana agreed as she danced past me.
I flipped her off; I didn’t have the strength to do anything else.
Abigail and Steffen sandwiched me between them.
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
“A bullet with a vodka chaser?” I asked, hopeful.
Steffen laughed. “Now, now Jay, drinking is never the answer.”
I looked over at him annoyed.
“Or suicide,” he added with a chuckle. “I always pegged you for the forgiving type.”
I growled at him.
He put his hands up in surrender. “Bad joke. But seriously, Girlie, Tanis is so sorry. He’s been listening to depressing music at concert levels. There’s only so many times one can hear All By Myself before you want to kill yourself! Seriously, I haven’t gotten laid since before your birthday.”
Abigail smacked him in the back of the head, giving him a warning look.
“What? It’s true,” he argued. “It’s like the rise of Hitler-level forced abstinence all over again,” he whined.
Abigail’s mouth fell open with a popping sound and she looked at him with wide eyes. “Tell me you did not just compare your lack of a sex life to the persecution and mass murder of millions of my people but your people!” she hissed.
Steffen shrugged and reluctantly nodded. “Baby, that was a rough time for everyone involved, but, comparatively speaking without the added genocide, it’s nearly as bad. Everyone’s super depressed, well those with a soul!” he called out loudly, getting a middle finger from Georgiana in return, as he desperately tried to change the subject and ignore his snarling wife. “Jay, talk to him for a minute, just give Tanis sixty seconds. If you feel the same way after he says what he has to say then he’ll leave...he’s prepared to leave if that’s what you want him to do. Please, Jay? Everyone makes mistakes.”
I didn’t want to hear any of that.
Sure, it would have made it so much easier if Jerk-face left. It would be that whole out of sight and out of mind thing. But I wasn’t remotely strong enough to let him go if he did leave.
Be strong Jay Dee, be strong.
“Please?” Steffen whispered, looking intently in my eyes and his pupils dilated. “Please, just give him sixty seconds.”
“I’m a f*cking werewolf, that shit doesn’t work on us,” I snarled.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I forgot.”
“We’re done here,” I hiss and stood up, having to use the wall for support. I really needed to hunt, it was seriously taking its toll. I had never gone that long without feeding before.
“Are you okay?” they both asked, getting to their feet, and offered me a hand of support.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s a mutt thing,” I said coldly, and headed to the locker room to change. I was done for the day. I was going home, not going to work, but home. I might attempt hunting, but I wasn’t sure.
I honestly felt like I didn’t know anything anymore.
I was obviously wrong about the one thing in my life that I had never questioned. I thought that Jerk-face loved me and wanted to be with me...I thought he saw me for who I really was.
But I couldn’t have been more wrong if I tried.
Apparently I was nothing more than a quick screw, something to distract himself with...that is as long as I was human. Once my lack of humanity registered with him, with the extremely slow vampire, I wasn’t good enough for him. It would be a cold day in hell when I would be with someone who thought they were better than me. It was bad enough that I had to put up with that shit from nearly everyone else. But Jerk-face was supposed to be the one person that I didn’t feel like that around. Even if I eventually forgave him, there would always be weirdness. His words would always be in the forefront of my mind...I honestly didn’t think that I could simply go back to acting as if everything was okay between us. Knowing Jerk-face as well as I seemingly did, he would always be weird around me after his little ‘inferior bitch of servitude’ spiel if we ever attempted to move on with whatever it was that we started, and I couldn’t handle that.
“I am better and I deserve more than that. For once, I am thinking about myself,” I mumbled, trying to give myself a pep talk but it wasn’t helping in the least.
My house was empty by the time I got home. Walking around my empty home and cave-like bedroom made me even more depressed than I already was.
I needed to hunt...I needed to remember what it was like and what it meant to be a werewolf, that way maybe I wouldn’t have been questioning if Jerk-face was right or not.
I opened my bedroom window and took off my clothes. I looked at myself in the full length mirror and sighed.
Just like vampires, werewolves needed blood to survive. Some needed it on a daily basis, usually the larger males, because our bodies burn through calories at an accelerated rate. Phasing burned a large amount of calories due to the extreme physical change, so I braced myself for the draining process.
When I was younger, I was able to tell when I phased. The feeling of my body changing, reshapening, smooth skin bursting with fine, white hairs, maw elongating, teeth sharpening and elongating, razor sharp claws tearing through the soft skin at what used to be my fingers and toes. But the older I got, the more seamless it became; what once took a measurable amount of time was now seamlessly done in a blur of movement comparable to those of a vampire. Mom said that type of fluidity doesn’t happen until you reach fifty or sixty years old, sometimes older: apparently I was an overachiever.
In the full length mirror, my black eyes were staring back at me; snow-white fur covered my slender, muscular body, my black nose had a cute dark rose shaped heart which Jarvis always teased me about when I was younger.
I was a good-looking wolf, even though being a wolf was the reason behind my heartbreak and current situation.
Oh well, it is what it is, I silently mumbled to myself.
I took a step forward and collapsed...
...the amber-eyed vampire swaddled the pale child in his shirt, with no time to clean the child of the afterbirth, he held her tight to his chest and ran.
The Aslak army swarmed the cave, the ringing of metal against metal and the howls of the dying guards flowed along the breeze behind them.
The vampire ran as fast as his ancient legs could carry him, effortlessly floating across the snow, through the woods, and a snowy mountain pass, leaving no trail behind them.
When the fires from the burning city and villages were far behind them, he sought shelter from the impending storm which was licking at his skin. The only shelter to be found was a deep cave with a hibernating bear gently snoring in the deepest recesses of it. Toran quickly took care of the bear and used its fur as a blanket for the crying child. The closest human city was more than a thousand miles away, and all of the smaller villages with werewolf inhabitants were destroyed by the Aslak on their march to the Holy City.
The Aslak attacked more quickly than the Valkyrie had anticipated. More than three-thousand villagers lost their lives in the Holy City alone, and five-thousand warriors died defending the outer region. The Aslak split the Valkyrie forces, spreading them thin, and in a single precision strike, the Valkyrie were destroyed and the Holy City was left vulnerable.
Toran hadn’t seen anything like it in centuries, not since the Dark Wars which nearly tore the mythical world apart hundreds of years ago. He saw his friends killed, the royal family of the rare and beautiful race of white werewolves, the Varulv, murdered. Kaia, the small newborn in his arms, was the last of Varulv, thus she had to survive no matter what.
With no milk, and the crying child refusing the bear’s blood, Toran was running out of options. The howling wind would keep their location from the Aslak for the moment, but the child was in need of nourishment or she would surely perish.
As a last resort, Toran slid his dagger from his boot and pulled it across his forearm. He presented it to the child, and without hesitation, she drank...
...“Sis, can you hear me?” Jarvis asked and he poked me repeatedly in the cheek.
“No, leave me alone,” I groaned and fought against my eyelids. “What happened?”
“You tried to phase,” he whispered. “But since you haven’t fed or eaten anything in days, you collapsed. I found you when I came home.”
“Huh, that sucks…”
Wait, his voice is an octave higher than it should be.
I forced my eyes open and looked at him but he was looking across the room; he was lying.
“Who found me?” I demanded.
When he didn’t answer, I followed the scent of flowers to my nightstand. A delicate blue vase sat with a breathtaking arrangement of blue and white orchids. In front of it sat a card with a coiled up snake chain necklace with a red diamond ring in the center of it.
“That sonuvabitch, he broke into our house?” I groaned. “Please tell me he didn’t take my suggestion seriously and attempt to tan without his ring.”
“No, it’s supposed to be a token of how you are his world, and now that you have turned from him, he is in perpetual darkness until the light of your heart can once again illuminate his existence…he didn’t pay me enough to recite this romantic shit,” Jarvis mumbled and folded up the piece of paper he was trying to hide in the palm of his hand and shoved it in his pocket. “I would like to point out, Sis, that he only broke into your room,” he said. “It’s a good thing he did, otherwise I’d still be in Vancouver.”
“What were you doing there?” I mumbled.
“It doesn’t matter. I do have friends, y’know,” he said and made a face at me. “He called me and said he found you. I rushed back as soon as I could. I met Mom and Dad and the doctor here at the house. Tanis didn’t leave until Dr. Summer Wheat checked you out, hence the IVs in your hand.”
Lovely, now I owe that jerk. Great.
“Wait, how did he call you in Canada?” I snorted; obviously they were pumping me full of more than just saline.
“Um….well,” he chewed on his bottom lip as he cracked his knuckles.
“Bro?” I whispered.
“When we went shopping for your presents, he wanted to get what you really wanted, which was crap for me. So we went to an electronics store and he got me a really nice laptop, camera, a second pocket camera, and an MP3 player. He got you the same, and a cell phone, but it’s all in the car you won’t touch.”
“That didn’t answer my questions,” I pointed out.
Softly he growled in frustration. “He got me a satellite phone so you and Mom can call me no matter where I am in the world. That way we can keep in touch, because he knows how much you miss me when I’m gone, and with the cost of calls to Russia, he thought it’d make you happy. For being a suckhead who took your virginity then broke up with you the same day, not to mention, insulted your entire species and family, he isn’t a bad dude.”
Oh god. This can’t get any worse. Seriously? Prince Suck Head Heartless Rat Bastard just keeps doing shit to make himself look even better. Why can’t he be like normal boys and just get over it, or at the very least, stand by his words and initial breakup? Instead, he keeps being the good guy, minus the whole breaking-and-entering-stalker thing.
Not happening.
“I’m starting to dislike you as much as I dislike him,” I groaned.
“At least you can call me and bitch about it, that is, as long as you’re still talking to me.” He smirked, and stretched out on the bed next to me and pulled me into his arms. Absently I caressed my fingers over the new thin, white scar on the inside of his arm: number seven. “The doctor said you need to eat for a couple of days and get stronger before you try to phase again. She also suggested that you hunt with a buddy, in case you crash again. I could suggest a vampire who would love to watch you like a hawk, or a stalker, or a love crazed suckhead, either way, he would do it and not think twice. Give him a chance to see you as the beautiful wolf you are.”
Not happening.
“Bite me,” I mumbled so he did, and I flicked his nose for it.