Prophecy Awakened: Prime Prophecy Series Book 1 Page 21

  An Alpha must be fair and impartial.

  Another car arrives, driven by a woman. The moment Channon opens the door, a shrill voice spills out. Most sentences starting with ‘I told you not to—’ He quickly climbs in, shutting the door on the ear-splitting tirade. He doesn’t look back as he drives away.

  Riley comes out as the last car leaves. “We need to meet less often, Adam. People are gonna start talking.”

  I look at Riley’s tattooed sleeves, bulging muscles, his whispy goatee. I doubt anyone would be game enough to question his sexuality.

  He looks over to me. “Ah, the future constabulary. Think you’ll be as good as your dad?”

  “I hope so, Riley.”

  Dad grunts. “I’m heading off, Riley. Got some zeds to catch up on.”

  “Come round again Adam. This time for a drink.”

  “That’ll really get people talking, Riley.”

  We get in the car and head back through the streets. I think of the angry guys, their animosity pushing aside their better judgement.

  “I wonder what that was about.”

  Dad’s head falls back, resting on the seat behind him. “It doesn’t have to be anything big. Nowhere else are there two big and powerful packs so close together.”

  I look out the window, the dark world beyond feeling smaller all of a sudden.

  “It puts people on edge. And if you’re a young Were, with the fuel of alcohol in your blood, it doesn’t take much.”

  I ask the question I don’t want to ask. “Would this situation have been avoided if there was an alliance?”

  I get the answer I didn’t want to hear. “There would certainly be less of them.”

  I keep my eyes out the window, voice low. “I thought you’d say that.”

  Dad reaches across, squeezing my shoulder.

  We’ve been driving for a few more minutes when Dad’s voice breaks the silence. “It was nice having you there, Noah.”

  “Anytime. Although I didn’t actually do anything.”

  “You shared the load, just being there.”

  I realize Dad’s been doing this alone since Grandad retired. For two years he was supposed to have been taking me, training me. Today he finally got to do what he’s supposed to with his firstborn son.

  “Let’s go for a run, this week.”

  “That sounds good, Dad. Really good.”

  We’re driving down Valley Road, an appropriately named stretch of asphalt between two swelling hills—houses on one side, a grassy park on the other—when something catches my eye.

  I lean forward, eyes closer to the windshield. “Is that our…?” I quickly shut up, but it’s too late.

  Dad’s breath pushes out his nose with emphasis. “Yes, it is.”

  Beside the park, our blue truck is sitting beneath a spreading spruce. And next to it is Tara’s car. I scan the park. Unfortunately, I have plenty of time because Dad has slowed down.

  Mitch and Tara are standing by the tree. It doesn’t look like they ever went to the park. Because two sets of arms are wrapped around each other, and they are twined together like strands of rope, Tara’s head buried in Mitch’s shoulder.

  And Dad has seen it all.

  A rumbling growl vibrates next to me and I shift in my seat. That’s not good.

  “Get him home,” says a controlled, low voice.

  Dad accelerates. I get my phone out of my pocket, typing quickly.

  You might want to get home.

  The rest of the trip passes in silence.

  We’re only home for a few minutes—time spent with me sitting in a lounge chair, knee jiggling like it’s on speed, Dad pacing a groove into the lounge room floor—when Mitch walks in.

  He stops in the lounge entry, hands and jaw clenched. “I was already on my way back.”

  “I told you to stay home.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I told you to stay home.” This time each word is drawn out through equally clenched teeth.

  Mitch’s hands explode outwards. “We had to talk!”

  “Then you discuss it first.”

  “This isn’t about obeying your Alpha, Dad. This is about two people being torn apart!”

  “It’s not just about that, Mitch.”

  Mitch takes two steps into the lounge. “How can you do this? Tara and I…” Mitch’s hand arcs around, trying to encompass and convey everything Tara means to him.

  Dad takes a deep breath. “No decisions have been made, son.”

  “How can you even consider it?”

  I stay in my seat—Dad on my right, Mitch on the left, my head probably looking like it’s at a tennis match, watching my inner battle being played out before me. In all its excruciating, gory glory.

  “This isn’t about what I want, Mitch.” My father’s shoulders cave in, a shattered leader. “I don’t have the luxury of that option.”

  Mitch steps back out of the lounge room, a defeated warrior acknowledging this is a battle he never could have won.

  “We were saying good-bye.”

  He heads up the stairs, heavy feet scraping from one step to the next. His last comment wafts down.

  “We know the pack always comes first.”

  23

  Eden

  “You’re not going to be late for school again.”

  Caesar whines, burying his head into the pillows. It’s nice to have someone do your talking for you.

  “Get up.”

  My mother, wearing a dark grey jacket with black piping, stands at the end of my bed, bangled hands on hips. They match the hoop earrings peeking from beneath her hair. Apparently forty-eight hours is her accepted mourning period.

  “You need to get to school. And you have an appointment at the Shoshoni Vet Center after. Don’t be late for that one.”

  That has me sitting up. “The where?”

  “We talked about it last week.

  A hazy memory filters through my mind. My mother speaking, taking my silence as assent.

  My head drops back to my pillow beside Caesar. I look into soulful brown eyes. It’s just too hard. Seeing Noah at school had only inflamed the wound, made me realize how close to the surface it is.

  I curl beneath the covers, trying to find some warmth.

  My mother sits on the bed, and I peek around Caesar’s muzzle, looking for signs she’s softening again.

  Granite eyes look at me. “Life keeps moving. So do we.”

  I don’t think she understands. “I have nowhere to go.”

  “We move away from this.” She waves her arm over my curled body. “Toward something you can actually rely on.”

  She gets up and walks to the door. As she grips the handle, she turns. “Everything else, it’s just not worth it.”

  By ‘it’ I assume she means the new world I discovered. A world composed of feelings more overwhelming and real and amazing than I ever experienced. A world which had a new sun. Where every time that sun brushed my skin, I blazed with sensation. A world where I revolved around that shining star.

  Or is the ‘it’ the aftermath once that world implodes? A new reality where you turn around to find your defenses collapsed. A new reality that leaves you raw and alone and exposed. Where the coldness grips with icy fingers deep down, right to your marrow.

  I sit up, feet falling to the floor, limp hands on the bed beside me.

  Was it worth it?

  I dress, blindly grabbing jeans and a thick sweater from the left-hand side of my wardrobe. I don’t bother with breakfast; I’ll just make it on time as it is.

  School slaps me in the face with that question everywhere I turn. Like walking alone to class, where I once got to taste what it was like to have a warm hand, warm body to accompany me.

  In psychology, where I once had some ability to deflect Bianca’s comments.

  “So, Eden. Too bad it didn’t last with Noah.”

  Brandon frowns, leaning back in his chair.

  My whole body
tenses, my teeth clench, my fingers clamp onto my pen. “Change is inevitable, Bianca.”

  “So true. We just have to look for new opportunities, don’t we?”

  She reaches out to pat my arm, but I pretend to adjust my knot, figuring hair is something Bianca can understand. She smiles a kind, insincere smile.

  I want to get up and leave. Instead I put my head back into my book. And pretend I’m alone in the room.

  Time crawls like a sedated snail. The moment the bell goes, I’m out of my chair and heading for the door. I’ve just stepped through when I hear my name. I turn, to see Brandon coming up beside me.

  He leans forward, eyes narrowed with concern. “Ignore her.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He gives me a small smile. “If you ever need to talk…”

  I try to smile back. “Thanks.” Knowing I never can.

  I turn to head down the hallway, and freeze. Noah is standing by the lockers, a statue carved from misery and anguish. Brandon scowls at him.

  I feel his flash of pain. I wrap my arms around myself so I don’t start shivering in the climate-controlled hall.

  That question follows me between classes, where I once scanned to find then intercept. Now I scan so I can avoid and run.

  Biology is the worst. Where seeing him is unavoidable. Where I need my defenses the most. The ones that no longer exist.

  I head to my back bench, concentrating fiercely on the patterned lino floor. But it doesn’t make a difference. Because although I can not breathe as I walk past, although I can not look as I stare straight down…

  I can’t not feel.

  I fall into my seat, emotions and nerves already raw. Wishing this was already over. I get out my books, my pens, my resolve, and stack them neatly around me. I’ll focus down or up, nowhere else. I’ll look at my text or Dougherty only.

  Then I look, his presence a magnetic pull to my eyes. Blond hair crumpled and mussed. His shoulders hunched, muscles defined beneath his shirt. His back sculpted and chiseled. Looking both desolate and delicious.

  They tense, just a miniscule shifting of his shirt. It’s enough to break the spell and my gaze shoots to my book. Pain has me panting shallow breaths. The twofold pain of two people.

  I won’t be doing that again.

  Then there’s lunch, which once held laughter and chatting and touches. Now I’ve returned to lonely locker bays, my peanut butter sandwich repeatedly lodging in my throat. Wanting to come back up.

  In math, where I got to taste what it was like to have a friend to talk to, now I have two girls, neither knowing what to say, avoiding looking at each other, awkwardly conversing.

  “Have you figured out question three?”

  I point to my sheet. “You need to calculate the tangent first.”

  Tara returns to hers. “Oh, thanks.”

  At the end of the day, where I once had summer eyes promising me tomorrow, a graze on my cheek filling me with heat and warmth, now I have dread, cold and hard. I no longer linger in the parking lot, but rush to my car. Inside, I pump up the heat, and leave school as quickly as is safe.

  How am I going to do this day after day?

  I almost forget I have the appointment at the veterinary center. Meaning I have to make a U-turn down a side street. I’m not sure why my mother would choose now to make this happen, and I don’t think I have the energy to do this. But I definitely don’t have the energy to deal with my mother if I don’t go.

  I enter a standard veterinary reception room: tiled floors, neutral colors, plastic chairs. But no receptionist. I ring the bell, the ding sounding loud in the empty room to my sensitive ears. And no one comes.

  I don’t want to ring it again; my raw nerves aren’t up to it. So I stand and wait, taking in the posters advertising worming tablets, scientifically balanced dog food stacked on shelves and a sign saying ‘please keep your pets contained at all times’.

  I have my back to the door leading off to the side when I hear it open. I turn at the sound, to see a woman, probably in her twenties, enter the room. Her brown hair is up in a ponytail; she’s drying her hands on some paper towel. Tanned skin and lean limbs speak of long hours outdoors.

  She looks down beside me, registers no pet by my side, and raises her eyebrows. “Can I help you?”

  “Ah, I believe I had an appointment to discuss a volunteer placement?”

  “Oh yes, of course! Your mother rang.” The woman crosses her arms. “She was very—”

  “Pushy?”

  She smiles. “Insistent, that I make a time to see you. Now, I’m not so good with human names…”

  “Eden.”

  “Come on in, Eden.”

  Rather than entering an office, we head out the back. We enter a large room where four pens line the back wall. Two dogs rush up to the mesh doors, one a fluffy, white shih tzu, the other a dark Doberman. To my left the wall is lined by a bench, underneath are rows of drawers, above are rows of shelves. In the middle of the room is a stainless steel table, and sitting on it is a cat carrier. Hissing feline and all.

  “Just be careful of Jaws. He’s a little unhappy about having a urinary tract infection.” Protesting yowl echoes around the surgery room. “And about being here.”

  The cat wails, closely followed by a round of shih tzu yapping and Doberman whining.

  The woman heads to the opposite wall, and starts emptying a box into the trays and drawers. I stand between the shelves of medical paraphernalia and the hissing table, awkward and silent.

  “So, a volunteer placement, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shoshoni Vet Center services Jacksonville’s domesticated animals. But we also service the Reserve, so we have wildlife coming through the doors fairly regularly.”

  This has my attention. Jaws lets out another spitting hissy fit, and I take a few steps toward his carrier. The vet continues emptying autoclaved scalpels and tweezers into a stainless steel drawer.

  “We have countless kids ringing up, wanting to work with the baby badgers, cuddle the cute little raccoons, hand feed the pika. Do you have any experience with wildlife?”

  A swan. A grizzly bear cub. I’m not sure if the cougar counts. “No.”

  “Right.” And now I look like any other kid with a pushy mother. “I can filter out most people just by mentioning the cage cleaning.”

  “I volunteered four afternoons a week at a vet center in Boston, and some Saturdays. I cleaned cages, walked dogs, prepped instruments, checked vitals, monitored anaesthesia…”

  The vet holds her hand up, her mouth quirking. “Anything you don’t do?”

  I think of the empty receptionist chair, and my mouth shoots off before I can think. “People.”

  “Ah, a woman after my own heart.”

  I’m now beside the table, and Jaws is quiet. I peer into his carrier; a great big ginger cat looks back at me, feline eyes blinking.

  “And I’ve been accepted into early placement for Veterinary Science at Wyoming State.” Not that I intend on going there. The icy sadness that is never far away slices through me, raising goose bumps.

  Jaws steps forward, rubbing his cheek against the bars of the door. I reach a finger through, scratching his chin. A low hum reverberates from within.

  I realize the room is quiet, and I turn to see the vet watching me, eyebrows raised. I blush, straightening.

  She angles her head to the side. “Do you mind putting Jaws in the last pen for me?”

  I blink at the request. “Sure.”

  I open the cage door, and Jaws jumps out, onto my shoulder. His thick ginger fur curls around my neck, his tail brushing my collarbone, his eyes closing as he gently nudges my cheek. Low purring sends a vibrating warmth down my spine. It’s a soft, soothing sound.

  I take him to the last pen, leaving space between him and the dogs. Inside is a bed, a bowl of water, and a tray of litter. Jaws brushes his head against my chin, letting out a small meow.

  I rub my chin on his orange
head, whispering into the folds of his neck. “Thanks.”

  I extricate him and place him in the cage, missing his comforting warmth. Jaws heads for the padded place at the back, curls up, and closes his eyes.

  I glance back to see what the vet is doing; her back is to me as she stacks bandages. I walk past the Doberman, my fingers brushing against his cage. He licks my hand, brown eyes big and sad. As I squat down in front of the shih tzu, he brings up a furry paw against the cage. I brush its leathery surface—touching comfort from this little dog.

  The moment I’m back at the table, the vet turns, making me wonder how absorbed she really was. She smiles a warm smile.

  “So, when did you want to start?”

  My own eyebrows shoot up. “Anytime. Later this week?”

  “I could use a hand on Thursday—that’s surgery day.”

  “Sure. I’ll head over after school.”

  “Excellent. Do you have any questions?”

  “Um, maybe your name?”

  She bursts out laughing. “Oops, see? Not so good with human names.” She puts out her hand. “I’m Emily Patton.”

  I take her firm grip. “Nice to meet you, Emily.”

  “I’m looking forward to working with you, Eden.”

  The drive home is quick. I reflect that this will be a good thing. It gives me something to focus on, and the comfort of the animals was heartwarming. Right now I’ll take any warmth I can get.

  My mother is already home when I walk in. I bet her staff are thinking she’s seriously ill to be taking this much time off. She’s sitting in the lounge, TV on the local news, wine glass on the coffee table.

  “So, how did you go?”

  “Good. They actually service the national park, so I’ll get to help with wildlife too.”

  “Great. How often?”

  Apparently the frequency is more important than the work itself. “I’d say a couple of afternoons a week.”

  “That’s a good start. We’ll look at increasing it from there.”

  “It’s fairly similar to what I did in Boston. It won’t make a difference for college applications.”