Belonging

RORY

“I was going back out to the foyer,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “To w-wait for you.”

“A little late for that, don’t you think?”

I continue to stare into his eyes, too embarrassed to look anywhere else. I want to let my gaze trail down his neck, lower and lower… I can’t move. Could hardly breathe. It’s like his gaze had locked me in place. My heart pounds so loudly in my chest I’m positive he can hear it.

Some drops of water drip down his hair and land on my face. I flinch, and that seems to break the spell. He leans away from me, and with a heavy sigh walks back into the room.

“Well, you’re already here. I had one of the females of the pack gather clothes for you. They’re inside that suitcase.”

I take a breath, easier now that he isn’t leaning over me.

“Thank you,” I say, too shaken to walk. I’m afraid I’ll just fall over. “Where will I be sleeping?”

I see him go into a walk-in closet, tossing the towel around his waist to the bed after he turned the corner. I blush.

“Here.”

My face, impossibly, gets even hotter. I try not to think about how a naked Alpha Everett is telling me I’ll be staying in his room.

“B-but this is your room,” I squeak.

“And you’re my mate.” He walks out, dressed in a simple jeans and T-shirt combo. “Where else would you sleep?”

I open my mouth to answer, but no words come out.

“I have another meeting,” he says simply as he walks past me and out the door. “Get settled in.”

I can only stare after him in shock. I’m seriously going to be sleeping here? In his room? In the same bed? I feel all panicky. Nervous. And the worst part? I’m kind of looking forward to it…

I walk outside the room and head outside, needing to clear my head. This mate bond is so intense that it’s got me excited about sharing a bed with a practical stranger. A very intimidating stranger that is very good-looking and makes me feel strangely safe, but still. Still a stranger.

I walk down the street and recognize a library. Excitedly I walk inside, eager to find some new reading material. It’s quite empty inside, and very quiet. Just how I liked it.

Skimming through the wonderful books on the shelves, both old and new, I slide out a few and flip through them, feeling the pages slip through my fingers.

A cough to the side of me causes me to jump in surprise and drop the book on my foot, not that I needed any more help being clumsy.

I glance over to the librarian, who narrows her eyes at me in a curious way.

“Hi,” I greet her with a cheerful smile in hopes of receiving an equally friendly one. Instead it makes her frown, not in anger or disappointment, but confusion.

“Hello, can I help you?” she asks a little warily. “You’re human,” she states, more to herself than to me.

“Yes. Alpha Everett found me injured when he was hunting yesterday. I’m very lucky he helped me,” I tell her, which grants me a smile from my praise of her alpha.

“Alpha Everett may be young, but he cares a lot for the pack and everyone here respects him. I’m Melissa, the librarian. Are you staying here long?”

Her questions are in no way hostile, conveying to me that she has nothing against humans among wolves.

I admire the stance Everett takes in the feuds between humans and wolves, and I assume he preaches this to his pack, even though Lucius detests me and Ace merely tolerates me.

But that’s more to do with the fact that I’m human and I’m the Alpha’s mate. They wanted their Alpha to have a strong wolf mate to lead them, not some eighteen-year-old human girl.

But I’m not as weak as they believe me to be, nor as human.

Yes, I may be the clumsiest human in creation, but I can also resurrect myself. That’s definitely not something everyone can say.

I need to learn more about it, to know if it was dangerous or not. To know why I have this power.

“Alpha Everett has invited me to stay for a while. My adopted mother was a wolf, so I know about the wolf world, and I don’t really have anywhere to go. I’m Rory,” I explain truthfully.

She nods in some understanding and then glances down to the book on the floor.

She and I move to pick up the book at the same time, causing our heads to knock into each other and sends me to the floor—just me though.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she apologizes, also realizing I said I was hurt yesterday and checking to see if I’m still all right.

She helps me up, along with the book, and flashes me a hopeful smile.

“This book is amazing,” she gushes.

“I know. It’s one of my favorites. This is a really nice edition,” I exclaim.

“Actually, the Alpha has a better edition of this in his library along with every other book. He has more books than what’s in here. But no one’s allowed in there because it’s his study.”

“Oh,” I reply, sounding a little disappointed. I remember the door marked as ‘private’ in the packhouse. Was that his study?

I love books, classics like Dickens or Hemingway or the Brontë sisters. And Everett has piles of books that no one else can get to.

“There’s a limited selection in here, but there’s enough.”

“I should be going. I was planning to explore today, and since I love books, I thought the library would be my first stop. It was nice meeting you, Melissa,” I declare with a bright smile.

She nods in agreement and bids me farewell.

As I wander back out onto the streets, I notice a boy with his elbows resting on his knees and covering his face, as if he were crying.

His curly hair sits messily on his head, flopping all over his hands.

I decide to take a seat next to him, keeping the silence, even though I know the pup smells me.

“I’m Rory,” I introduce myself, extending my hand out to him. Reluctantly, he looks up with puffy red eyes and narrows his eyes at my hand.

“I don’t speak to humans. Why are you even on our land?” he sneers, making me sigh a little and retract the hand. But I stay put, knowing he is only angry because of something else.

“Your alpha helped me when I was injured,” I tell him.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“And yet your alpha says otherwise. Why are you upset?” I ask.

“That’s none of your business,” he snaps defensively, looking away from me.

I know that look. I’ve had it myself.

“You know, I used to be in another pack. And because I was human, they would bully me, call me names, made sure I knew I didn’t belong. And eventually, I let them win, I let them run me out.”

His eyes snap back over to me, small growls coming from him.

“I’m not getting bullied.”

“I didn’t say that, you did.” He huffs and rests his chin on his knees with a frown plastered on his face.

“I…I don’t know why they pick on me. Just because I’m an orphan.”

“They pick on you because pups like that, need someone to torment. I was an easy target because I was different to them, and you are an easy target because you’re different.”

“I don’t want to be different,” he furrows his brows at me.

“Why not?” I say. “There’s nothing wrong with being different. Who wants to fit in? Fitting in is boring.”

“It might be boring, but at least I might belong,” he tries again.

“But forcing yourself to fit in, it goes against your own nature. They could only dream of being as interesting as you, and that’s why they’re picking on you.” I don't let it go.

“I wouldn’t say not knowing my parents is all that great,” he says with a small chuckle.

“No, it’s not. I know what it’s like to be an orphan. But we are orphans, and we can’t change that. It’s what makes us interesting. We develop emotions that some people never do in their lifetime.

“They don’t experience grief or loneliness or being different. And they may not be great to feel, but you’re much more complex than any of them could be.”

“I’m Orion,” he says.

I chat with Orion for a while, attempting to raise his spirits and also make a friend. I don’t want to feel so alone in this pack.

Victoria made sure I never had any friends in my old pack, turning everyone against me and against humans.

Sometimes you just need someone to talk to, someone who isn’t family; you need a friend.

And if I don’t have friends here, I might as well just go back to the pack that tried to kill me; it would be like living there.

I decide to head back to the hospital to see Ophelia. The guards by her door stop me, scowls on their faces and their tree trunk-like arms blocking my entrance.

“Let her in,” that sweet voice calls out through the door, making the reluctant guards let me pass, still scowling as I send them an ‘I told you so’ smile, before swanning in with unearned confidence.

“I thought I’d keep you company if you want,” I say with a bright smile. Ophelia chuckles and nods as she pats the space next to her on the bed.

In the short time I spent in this hospital, she was my saving grace, giving me hope in this pack and Everett, despite her bias.

“You are easily the sweetest girl I’ve ever met,” she tells me, sighing and grasping my hand in her shaking one. Must be a symptom of her illness or side effects of her treatment.

“What’s Everett got you doing today?”

“Nothing. He told me that I was to stay in his room, and then left,” I complain with a big huff as if I have the whole weight of the world on my shoulders.

And then I proceed to pout like a three-year-old. In my defense, the past few days have been unbelievable, especially for a human like me.

“Just give him a chance, Rory. He’s not bad, really.

“He’s distant now because he’s fighting the mate bond, and he believes that the bond will make him blindly make his decisions, whereas he’s an alpha and is incredibly responsible.

“He does what’s best for the pack.”

“Which I respect. But I’m... I just got here. He’s put me in a place I don’t know, allowing me to have nothing familiar. And he’s barely had one full conversation with me.”

“He’ll come around. I’m sorry, Rory. But please stick it out. I’m a dying woman and I need someone to look after my boy when I’m gone.”

I already know Ophelia is a mother figure for Everett, her caring nature so evident to me.

Everett needs her. She can’t die. It can’t be left up to me to support him. He might even reject me.

“I don’t want you to die.”

When I don’t get a response, I peer over to see her unconscious figure, her hand still intertwined with mine. I remember what I tried to do before Ace and Lucius interrupted me. I was going to try and heal her.

I look around, making sure I won’t be interrupted again. But before I can prepare myself, suddenly I feel this horrible sucking sensation in my chest. It feels like my soul is being siphoned out of me, and a terrifying emptiness spreads inside me.

My eyes widen but I can’t move, I can’t even take my hand away.

I just stare at her with heavy eyes.

My chest begins to tighten. The breath in my lungs escapes me so I can’t scream. But I want to.

I really want to.

My hearing turns to only muffled words, like bubbles have jammed my ears. My sight melts away too, the scattering of dots crossing my eyes before darkness.

It feels as if my life force is being taken from me.

And when I can no longer think or hear or see or breathe, my mind fades too.

There it is again.

The blinding white surrounding that stretches for miles with no end, and that same leafy-green door to match the plants wrapping around the frame.

The same glowing mist filling me with emptiness as if it was made of ghosts, lonely lost souls, pleading to leave through the door but being denied.

Then it hits me. Maybe that’s what they are. Maybe the mist is souls. Maybe to each of them, I am mist too. I am lost and dead. Because that’s what happened. I died. Again.

From…nothing. I did nothing. I wasn’t clumsy. No one killed me. I didn’t kill myself as believable as that might be.

I just…I was on the hospital bed, with Ophelia, trying to make her feel better.

And now I’m dead. Again.

And this mist at my feet and clawing at the door, these are the dead.

“Aurora,” a voice whispers, causing my head to swing around, searching for the source.

“Aurora,” another voice chimes in, almost hissing it. Soon enough, others join the calling of my name, for some unknown reason.

Before I can ask what they want, I’m forced through the door, passing through the wood with no problem, no branches brushing me, no thorns pricking me, completely phasing through this door, over the threshold.

I startle awake, finding Everett’s and Ophelia’s wide eyes looking at me as I catch my breath.

What the hell?