Chapter 7 - Yvonne
When I offered to help out in any way I could around the pack facilities as payment for being given refuge in Girdwood, I still had my reservations.
Though Luna Aurora assured me that no one would really bother me in the library, since most of its visitors were the younger werewolves who attend classes in the local school, I was still wary.
It was her idea to place me in the library despite my offer to cook in the cafeteria. She was adamant that the library was the right fit for me, but she has no idea what she’s done by posting me here.
She’s opened up a can of worms….
As soon as I walk in, it’s as if a foreign wind breezes by, billowing out my hair behind me, and I’m frozen on the spot. My eyes immediately go to the window up ahead, and I’m instantly hauled into memories that I refuse to face right now.
Luckily for me, five years is a long time, and things have changed. The chair I would usually sit on in the corner is long gone, and in its place are rows of wooden benches with carved wooden desks against the wall.
I let out a tiny breath of relief, but still find myself walking toward that window, my feet moving of their own accord to take me to the spot where Dawson Black had claimed my virginity.
I thought I’d buried those memories so far back that I’d never have to see flashes of the images of that night, but they cloud my vision now.
Absentmindedly, my hand lifts to the window pane, my fingertips brushing along the chipped sealant around the window.
As I stare out beyond the library building at the village center ahead, my eyes become blank canvases in which paintings of that night begin morphing in my mind’s eye. I remember having a similar experience while I bawled my eyes out during one of those nights after Dawson rejected me.
It’s how I was able to determine that I was pregnant. First, an empty chasm of deep nothingness that soon turned to the blood cells beneath my skin, and a pattering heartbeat that signaled Gio’s formation in my womb.
It was more than just the vision that alarmed me, but the feeling that came along with it. I just knew I was pregnant back then, just as I know that the walk down memory lane has elicited another strange psychic vision that cannot be explained.
As the mist in my vision unfurls to a scene of the forest in the outlying area of Girdwood, a flash of onyx skitters by, growing larger and more menacing as a bleating cry rings through my eardrums, the ominous, dark presence startling me out of the vision.
When I’m snapped back into the present moment and the bustling village comes back into view, a hand flies to my throat. Parched, it takes me a moment to gather my senses and process what I just saw, what I just felt…
“Yvonne,” comes Luna Aurora’s sweet voice from behind me, and I’m startled again, goosebumps erupting across the flesh of my arms.
“Luna Aurora…” I breathe, letting out the deepest, longest exhale.
“Are you alright, Yvonne?” Aurora frowns as she approaches me, sauntering forward with graceful steps while cradling her belly.
“I’m…” I pause to gulp, needing to lubricate my throat so I don’t sound so croaky. “I’m fine.” I plaster a smile on my face to mask the lie.
I’m anything but fine.
Not only am I in the spot where I lost my virginity, but I just had a seemingly psychic vision that makes no sense to me.
Aurora doesn’t seem convinced, her frown plastered on her face as she joins me at the window.
“Are you sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Aurora speculates as she lifts one brow.
Still distrustful of everyone in this pack, I shake my head, unwilling to reveal that I’d just had what I suspect is a psychic vision like the one I had years ago that revealed to me that I was pregnant.
Just then, a group of she-wolves entered the library, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the distraction, being pulled away to tend to their queries. Between a rock and a hard place, I’m flung into what I suspect will be my undoing.
But to my surprise, the group doesn’t seem to care about who I am. Though I recognize some faces from the past—faces that had been scornful around me when I was a nerdy teen who didn’t fit in—they don’t seem to recognize me.
Or maybe they do, and they just don’t care that I’m the Lang girl whose family almost cost the pack their anonymity amongst the humans.
Maybe everyone moved on, and I’m the only one stuck in the past.
When I’m done tending to the group, I notice that Luna Aurora hasn’t left, hanging by the non-fiction section as she browses through a leather-clad book.
“Found something you wanna read?” I ask as I approach her.
She chuckles lightly, but lifts weary brown eyes at me, her lips pursed. “You’ve read most of the books in here, right?”
“Mostly from the fictional side,” I reply as I gesture to the shelves on the opposite side. “But I have delved in some of these. Why?”
“Just asking…” she muses as she returns the book to its slot. “What do you know about the old legends? Or more specifically, the demon dog?”
“Demon dog?” I frown, the name ringing some distant bells. “I think I have come across that name. Why?”
Aurora sighs as she turns to me, her head bent as she begins to whisper, explaining the troubles the pack has been facing over the past few months.
As she speaks, my jaw drops. I had no idea that Snehvolk was being haunted by an evil spirit that sprang out of history books, threatening to wipe out the pack.
She tells me about the recent attacks—the last one being two months ago, when the alphas had all been wounded in combat against the malevolent force that cannot be impaired by mortal creatures.
She takes my hand and leads me back to the window, recounting how the elders and alphas decided her fate a few months ago when the demon had already killed three werewolves from the pack who’d been traveling alone in the woods.
She was meant to be sacrificed to the demon as the pack’s offering in exchange for safety, but Alpha Elias quickly discovered that they were fated mates and protected her.
Listening to her, all I can think about is the safety of my son. If it wasn’t for how happy he is in Girdwood, this situation with the demon would have been enough reason to leave again.
“That’s how I was able to figure out who I really am,” she says with a sigh, staring at her open palms.
“The alpha’s fated mate…”
“So much more than that,” Aurora smiles as she lifts her eyes back to mine. “I am a descendant of a powerful tribe of witches, Yvonne. I can wield those powers against the demon, and I often have psychic visions that keep us one step ahead.”
A frown furrows my brows as I stare disbelievingly at the luna of the pack.
A witch who has psychic visions?
Is that what I’ve been experiencing ever since I returned to the Snehvolk Pack? The recurring vision of the open forest that becomes consumed by a dark, ominously black floating presence?
“You’ve been having them too, haven’t you?” Aurora asks gently as she places a hand on my shoulder, startling me out of my thoughts.
“What? No. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hastily defend, letting out a nervous chuckle. “Why would I be having visions? I’m not a witch!”
Aurora giggles dismissively, but her eyes remain skeptical as she watches me. Feeling uncomfortable, I narrowly escape her questions when another group enters the library.
“Excuse me,” I say politely as I escape her imposing proximity and make my way to the front.
I still don’t know if I can trust anyone from Snehvolk, harboring resentment of my own for the past. Besides, it would be ridiculous to claim that I have certain powers linked to the legends.
I’m just plain old me. I’m not special.
***
Luna Aurora assured me that she’d bring Gio home today, since it was my first day at work in the library. Though I still have my inhibitions about trusting the members of the Snehvolk Pack, Aurora has been nothing but good to me and Gio.
Both she and the healer, Rissa, have been taking turns seeing to my son despite my best attempts to assure them that I can manage it all, just as I have been all my life.
Truthfully, the assistance and support do help, allowing me to take a casual stroll through Girdwood and admire the soft blanket of snow covering the village. Knowing that the pack has moved on and couldn’t care less about my past, I’m able to breathe easily without that worry hanging over my head.
I hug my arms across my chest, letting the gentle whiffs of snow kiss my cheek and cool my naturally hot temperature. When a snowflake perches on my nose, I slow down and giggle, and have the profound thought that I can’t remember when I last allowed myself a moment to breathe.
Despite Aurora’s intrusive question still plaguing me, now that I’ve come to realize that I’m not the most despised outcast in Snehvolk anymore, I don’t really have any reason to want to leave.
Except, there’s Dawson, and the thought of him immediately ends my moment of glee as I redirect my vision to his house nestled near the forest up ahead.
I’m just about to make my way toward the cottage when a howl rings out to signal the return of the alphas.
According to Aurora, the alphas have been spending their recent days hunting down the demon that plagues the pack.
But there’s another miserable, despondent wolf wail that drifts through the air, closer to the east side of the forest, that keeps me frozen. It’s not fear that renders me immobile, but a certain curiosity that has me waiting to see who comes out.
As if I don’t know.
As if I’ve been expecting him.
Golden tresses of fur flow out as Dawson’s wolf emerges from the forest, his beady blue eyes downcast as he slowly trots toward his house. Once he’s near the porch, he shifts into human form, and that’s when I notice blood splattering out on the wooden platform.
Gasping, I have the sudden urge to rush forward and ask what happened when his hand covers a ripped part of his sweater near his ribs, and rich crimson blood gushes through his fingertips.
He’s been wounded, and he’s bleeding out. But the alpha remains unbothered as he pulls open the sliding glass door, takes a staggering step inside, then casually slides the door closed behind him.
Why am I still standing here, lurking in the shadows of his garden, watching as he calmly rips the rest of the sweater off his body while he stands at the mirror beside his fireplace?
My eyes dart to his reflection, my bottom lip slipping loose when I see his tantalizing features, the way the muscles on his torso flex as he tends to his injuries.
There’s a part of me that wants to go over there and help him, my softer, compassionate instincts remembering the feelings I had for him and wanting to act on them.
In hindsight, when I thought I was in love with Dawson, I would have done anything to care for him. Now, my fingers tingle with the desire and sudden urge to do just that, remnants of my feelings surfacing to remind me of what I felt.
But it’s more than that. Now, as I stand in the shadows of nightfall over Girdwood, watching Dawson flick his dripping hair back as he concentrates on wiping his wounds, I find myself falling down a rabbit hole.
The tip of my tongue skims my bottom lip as my eyes trace every contour of his muscles sheathed in flawless honey-golden skin.
I travel my gaze to the fine line of hair just below his belly button that narrows into his trousers, promising the sweet pleasures beyond his happy trail.
That’s when a flicker of awareness sparks between my thighs, the recollection of our fateful night of pleasure awakening from the depths of what I thought I’d long buried.
My eyes flit back up to Dawson’s face, contorted with focus, with his tongue pressed into his cheek. The sweat beading on his skin makes my mouth water, and I have the unwarranted desire to lick the droplets—
No!
I catch myself just as a hand goes to my throat, stroking it as I recall what it felt like to have Dawson’s lips marking my flesh in the most sinful places.
I shouldn’t be having these thoughts about him. The last time I did, I acted on it and ended up with a broken heart.
Apart from not fully trusting the pack as a whole, I have no reason to trust Dawson either. He’d hurt me once before, and he could do it again if I allowed him to.
I won’t allow him to do that, and entertaining my fantasies will get me nowhere except for heartbreak.
Despite the lust punching holes in my gut, I have to rebuild my armor of indifference, sticking to the shadows that will get me to the log cabin behind his house, where I’m safe from being found out that I’m still affected by his presence.
He doesn’t need to know what he does to me.
I won’t allow him to find out. Especially when I can hardly believe it myself.
I should hate the alpha, and there’s no place for baser desires to rear their ugly heads and tilt my world off its axis.
He hurt me before, and he can do it again. This time, I won’t allow myself to fall victim to his charms, even if all he has to do is breathe without knowing that I’m watching him for me to be so hot for him.