Progress

RORY

I don’t wake up the usual way. Just to a log restricting my airways. I try to wriggle out of it, but I’m trapped shut against the wall and the log wrapped around me.

Where the hell am I?

I open one eye cautiously to find myself in Everett’s room, in his bed, with his arm cutting off my circulation instead of a log.

Although the two are very comparable.

“Alpha?” I call out, my voice strained and almost inaudible. But he must have heard it as he grumbles and tightens his hold. The opposite effect.

“Alpha, you’re killing me here,” I say, sounding like a strangled cat.

“Aurora, I’m stopping you from falling off the bed,” he mumbles in my ear, his breath fanning the back of my neck, almost making me forget that I’m suffocating to death.

What would it matter? I would come back to life anyway.

But Achlys did say that rogue territory and that limbo place are unprotected grounds, so whoever “she” is can get me there.

“But I can’t breathe,” I squeak, which suddenly makes him loosen his grip and turn me around to face him.

His eyes connect to mine as I breathe heavily, panting and attempting to slow down.

I give him a shy smile to tell him I’m okay, and his hand subconsciously strokes my cheek. But he snatches it away once he realizes his action.

We’ve had more conversations over the past two weeks, ever since I got back from rogue territory and hugged him.

But we’ve never been this close before.

“I’m sorry, Aurora,” he whispers softly, sighing and staring at me like he’s never seen me before.

“It’s okay, Alpha,” I reply.

“Call me Everett, little one,” he says, his hand resting back on my waist and tugging me to him again. “I don’t like waking up to you getting hurt. Is this okay?”

I want to, quite pathetically, tell him he can do anything and it would be okay. But his hand on my waist certainly is, so I just nod with a gentle smile.

“Just try not to suffocate me next time,” I tell him with a small giggle. “Everett,” I add.

I study his morning face, his eyes half open but still luminous with electric blue. His bare chest is definitely drool-worthy for a sight this early in the morning.

His pink lips just look so kissable, like they’re begging for me to put my lips on them.

“Can you say my name again?” he asks, and I furrow my brows at him.

Why would he—

Well, I do love it when he calls me Aurora. Or anything really. Like “little mate” or “little one.”

“Everett,” I say, his name rolling off my tongue. He is my soulmate after all.

His smile widens against all of his self-control, and I smile back at him.

Before, I couldn’t imagine staying in a pack like this, with this incredibly attractive Alpha next to me and the strangest and most dangerous gifts.

Or they could turn out to be curses. Whoever “she” is.

Everett will protect me, won’t he?

***

Later on in the day, after spending a few hours with Cassidy and Orion at the orphanage, I stumble into a few warriors, quite literally, and fall back onto the ground, my butt hitting the concrete sidewalk.

“Watch where you’re going, human,” one of them snickers, raising a brow at me as he looks down at me as if he is far superior to me.

I know the warrior wolves don’t like me very much at all, frankly. They don’t know that I’m Everett’s mate. No one besides the three titled wolves and Ophelia do.

But these wolves are more vicious to me than everyone else, much like the wolves from my old pack, the ones who killed me.

“Sorry,” I mutter, shuffling back before standing up to create distance between us. I bow my head and walk around them, quicker than my normal pace.

I hear their chuckles and snide remarks as I run off, but I just try to ignore it. It’s nothing I’m not used to.

In fact, it was a lot worse in my old pack because the Alpha set the example to hate on the human to the entire pack, whereas Everett is all about coexistence.

He’s not bothered that he has a human mate, he’s bothered that I would become his Luna. Lunas should be strong and preferably a wolf.

There hasn’t been a human Luna in…well, I haven’t heard of one. But I know there has been a couple at some point in time.

But honestly, I don’t know what I am. I don’t even know if I’m human.

“Hey, human!” one of them calls out from behind me, and I grimace before turning around.

I can’t just run off because that’s impolite, and they’ll hate me even more, but I wish I got further, out of sight. I look to them expectantly whilst inching back conspicuously.

“Why are you still here? The Alpha and Gamma always seem to be around you, or they keep you locked away in the pack house. Why are they letting you stay?”

I shrug innocently and nervously before averting my eyes to the ground.

“What’s your name again?” another of them asks, but not in a vicious tone like the rest of them, but a curious one.

“Rory,” I reply.

“Is there a problem?” a familiar voice asks out of nowhere. Gamma Ace strolls up beside me, scowling at the four warriors in front of us in a scolding way.

“No, Gamma. Just talking to our token human of the pack,” the one who spoke first responds, a little tenser.

Whilst Everett holds complete power in the pack, and what he says goes, Ace and Lucius also hold that kind of power, just not as excessive as the Alpha.

“Well, stop,” Ace states with authority, stepping slightly in front of me to show I’m protected by him.

After my talk with Ace the other day, when he found me on the field training, he seemed suspicious.

Maybe because my lying skills are utterly nonexistent and he wasn’t fooled by my story about what happened out in rogue territory.

But he seems closer to me now, as if he is watching out for me, keeping me safe. And I strangely feel as though I can trust him, not like I’d tell him more than I need to.

It would only create more problems, problems I don’t need. Especially when I’ve been hearing a voice in my sleep.

Of course, I believe it’s my subconscious fearing that voice I heard in rogue territory.

There was something about that voice. Something that unsettled me wholeheartedly.

It almost felt familiar, but maybe that’s me overthinking it.

The real problem is the fact that I’m losing sleep over it and more frequently falling out of the bed, which is why Everett feels the need to strap me down with his arm now.

“Yes, Gamma Ace. We’ll be going,” the wolf answers reluctantly before marching off with his little posse.

Once they’re far enough away, Ace turns to me with a stern look and rests his hand on my shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be talking to them,” he states like it’s an order. “This pack is quite accepting of the idea of coexistence, but a human living in the pack without reason is not an idea they favor.”

“I can tell,” I mumble with a slight pout at the fact that this feels like a father telling off his child for the child’s naivety.

“Well, stay away then.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” I whine, stomping my foot out of instinct. “Why are you here anyway?”

“You don’t like my company?” he teases, taking my hand and dragging me along with him.

“I don’t know. It depends,” I say, sighing.

“Depends on what?” he asks curiously, looking down beside him.

“What your company is like? I don’t like talking to grumpy wolves,” I tell him with a bright smile. He rolls his eyes, but is quick to catch me when I stumble.

“Grumpy, huh? When am I grumpy, little Rory?” he teases with a smirk.

“You’re always telling me off every time you see me. ‘You shouldn’t be out here,’” I mimic in a deep, grumpy voice, which he chuckles at.

“‘You shouldn’t be talking to those wolves,’ ‘why are you in this field.’”

“I don’t sound like that. Plus, you shouldn’t have been there,” he says with a shrug. “I looked into that pack of yours.”

My head snaps to look into his eyes, trying to figure out what he means by that. He can’t tell them I’m alive. They’ll really question that.

I mean, if Everett makes me his Luna, they’ll eventually know, but I don’t have the Luna protection yet, and Everett isn’t committed to me, which means I don’t have his protection.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing, really. I just wanted to see your reaction. You’re so scared because…”

“Because they tried to kill me,” I state like it’s obvious. They tried and succeeded. They actually killed me.

He narrows his eyes at me for a second before nodding.

He walks with me back to the pack house like a bodyguard, and I take a book from Everett’s office. I’ve concluded that Everett doesn’t care anymore that I go into his office.

He knows, he can smell my scent in there.

But after he confronted me the first time and saw that I just wanted to read his books, I think that’s his way of granting me permission, just ignoring the fact I’ve been in there.

I decide to sit outside, a few blocks down from the pack house, on a bench next to this old concrete building.

It was said to be the old pack house, but they say it’s used for something else now. I’m not all too bothered about it. It’s just peaceful out here, alone with my thoughts.

When a hand clamps over my mouth, I know whoever it is would be a lot stronger than me.

Maybe it’s this “she” Achlys was talking about. But Achlys said I was only in danger in that limbo place and rogue territory because they’re unprotected places.

Even though limbo is dangerous from what she told me, she’s the only one who has and can give me answers so far.

Maybe I should go back there. Purposefully kill myself. Then again, saying that thought clearly like that sounds ludicrous.

But back to the fact that someone is dragging me away against my will.

I still struggle fruitlessly, just to say that I did. Maybe I don’t have to kill myself.

The worst thing whoever this is can do is kill me, and it seems that I can’t die.

So, bring it on.