Quinn
We arrived at the small house, music already carrying outside.
I followed Daxyn and Benji into the house.
The house was filled, people sat on every sitting surface and stood in every corner.
I looked around, observing everything, watching everyone.
That was when my eyes spotted a girl sitting on the couch next to another girl.
Both of them were whispering and laughing, no cares in the world.
I wasn’t even sure either of them had noticed more people arriving.
She had long dark hair that had a slight wave to it, and dark brown eyes.
I was locked onto her, watching her laugh.
She had a tan, the kind you get from spending every day at the river.
Joy emitted from her. My chest tightened, my stomach turned.
Guilt. I was enjoying the sight of another female while in a relationship. I dropped my eyes.
I’d met Paxton a few times when he was at other parties, but I hadn’t realized this was his house.
Then he came out of the kitchen with a cake in hand, singing happy birthday.
Happy Birthday, Zalayuh! Most of them yelled.
There was a one and a seven on her cake.
Shit. She was also underage. Everyone kept feeding her liquor; she would finish a shot, and someone would hand her something else.
I went to find a bathroom and found a line. I stood against the wall waiting for the bathroom when someone ran into me from behind. I turned around. There she stood, barely.
“Sorry,” she slurred.
I stared at her. Our eyes locked. Everything in my brain went silent.
My brain tingled from top to bottom. I just bound on her.
God. Fuck. No. Not her. She was beautiful, yes, stunning actually.
She wasn’t a werewolf. She was five years younger than me.
I always knew that Julie wasn’t the one, and I’d accepted that.
My dad had always told me what it felt like. Electrical tingles like a limb that had gone numb, but over your entire body. Combined with a fire lit in your stomach. Your every sense focused only on them.
I felt it. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. Hell, even if she were a wolf, she probably wouldn’t because of how drunk she was. I helped steady her against the wall. I was pretty sure her world was spinning inside her head.
“Thank… God… Aspens… not… here,” she slurred out.
I tilted my head. “Who’s Aspen?”
“Sister… she’s baby…” she said.
“Oh,” I replied.
Shortly after, she disappeared for the night.
Times like these made me wish either of my parents were still here. Right then, I needed my dad. He was also bound with my mom, who wasn’t a werewolf either.
After that night, I found myself asking about parties they were going to, trying not to be obvious.
It seemed that there was a party at their house quite often.
I vowed that I wouldn’t introduce myself or make any moves until she turned eighteen.
Unlike Benji and Daxyn, I had morals. I figured out that Benji also had something for her.
Both of them were friends with her, Paxton, and Maggie. They hung out even outside of parties.
Every party I went to, I’d hide out in the corner observing Zalayuh.
Taking everything in. Come fall, when Julie came to visit, I broke up with her.
I knew it was for the best. Even if Zalayuh didn't want me, I couldn't stay with Julie knowing another woman had my attention.
I may not have acted on it, and Zalayuh didn't even know I existed, but it felt wrong.
Julie and I shouldn't have been a couple anyway.
She was eleven hours away, she wasn't the one, and I couldn't trust her with my secret.
We had been friends since we were toddlers.
She gave me a piece of something I missed, but I knew she wasn't the one I was destined for.
I decided that on her next birthday, I’d introduce myself.
Maybe she would be interested. I drove myself that day instead of riding with my cousins.
When I walked in, Daxyn was sitting next to her, and they were laughing about something he’d said.
He knew I liked her, but then again, Benji liked her too.
I retreated into the dining room. I never got the opportunity to say anything.
She and Daxyn drove somewhere. I left. At least he waited until she was legal.
I should have told them that I was bound to her.
They would have respected the werewolf code and left her alone completely, but I hadn’t.
I was worried about what they would say or how they would use it against me.
Benji and I got along better than Daxyn and I, but we were all cousins at the end of each day.
Most of our problems stemmed from werewolf hierarchy bullshit.
Before any of us shifted for the first time, we didn’t care about that.
I was a year older than Benji and two years older than Daxyn, so I shifted before them—at nineteen.
The first full moon after our nineteenth birthday, if we were to shift, that would be the time it happened.
Nothing could have prepared me for that first shift.
Ravik barely taught me. Part of it was my fault.
He’d been my favorite uncle until my dad and he fought, and he had my dad killed.
I knew it was wolf politics, but I could never forgive him.
I didn’t think he could forgive himself for that either; he barely could stand looking me in the eye.
Of all my siblings, I looked the closest to my father.
The full moon was five days after her birthday, and I casually asked Daxyn about what was up with him and Paxton’s sister.
He said they were only friends… I pushed more, and he finally admitted they had hooked up, but it was just a hookup because he was beyond horny.
He knew he couldn’t get attached to anyone.
He was supposed to marry Annabelle, something their parents arranged when they were little.
To join packs and strengthen the bloodline on her side.
Her father had only been half werewolf and bound with a human woman, despite his parents’ wishes.
Daxyn hadn’t really wanted that, had objected from the beginning, but started to accept that it would happen.
His only way out would be to bind to someone else, which hadn't happened.
Leave it to the fates to make Daxyn near infertile and then hand him a pregnancy anyway.
I hadn’t had time to decide what I was going to do or when to tell Daxyn or Benji that she was mine. Weeks later, I was summoned to the cellar that was way out of town. I thought he wanted to talk about using the cellar again for newly shifting kids, but that wasn’t it at all.
She was lying on the cold ground, passed out.
As soon as I saw who it was, I immediately dropped my eyes.
I couldn’t let Ravik know what she meant to me.
I wasn't even sure why he’d taken her, or what the hell was happening.
Then, piece by piece, he revealed that Daxyn had gotten her pregnant.
I almost puked right then. Instant regret hit me hard in the chest. If only I’d told them that I’d bound with her, if only. We wouldn’t be in this situation.
Why did the fates do this to me? To her?
If she was meant for me, then why did she get pregnant by the person who was supposed to be infertile?
He ordered me to watch over her, to make sure she didn’t go anywhere.
As if she would, she was one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, with barely any muscle mass to her.
I wanted to grab her up and get the hell out of there, but that would have been a death sentence, because where the hell would I go? I didn’t have a plan. Who has a plan for something like that?
I turned it off. Every ounce of guilt. Off.
Sadness. Off. Anger. Off. I had to shut my emotions off.
I couldn’t be nice to her. At first, it seemed like I’d only be watching her for a short time while he came up with a plan.
The first time I was able to leave, I marched in and demanded he tell me what the hell he was doing.
I got reprimanded again. The more I questioned him over the years, the more he chose violence to remind me he was in charge.
He figured out quickly from my behavior and questioning my cousins that we all liked her, but that I’d been asking a few too many questions.
If he had plans for someone else to do this, it changed to me.
She was my weakness, and he figured it out.
He refused to give me details on what his long-term plan was, other than that she must remain alive and captive.
He brought a midwife in who made it clear that Zay was not doing well.
She needed to be fed better. Ravik didn’t care.
I went to the kitchen staff and told them they needed to send me meals as well.
I paid them under the table to make my plate healthy and full of protein.
I gave her my plate and ate what she was given.
I called my Titi and played hypotheticals.
She quickly figured out that I was in deep black water. She knew it wasn’t a hypothetical.