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LAKE

~Maybe there is another mate out there for me. I was sure of it last night.~

~But probably not. I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I won’t get my hopes up.~

“Ms. Marvis.”

Principal Stewart shakes me out of my reverie. I’ve been sitting in his stuffy office for the better part of an hour while he chews me out for yesterday. I’m over it.

“Sorry, sir. I’m listening,” I lie.

He narrows his eyes, sensing my insolence. “From what Mrs. Steele told me, you attacked her unprovoked in the ladies’ room. Is that true?”

~Mrs. Steele.~

I have to physically bite my tongue when he says her name.

It makes my blood boil. I throw caution to the winds.

“Believe what you want, Mr. Stewart.” I shrug and sit back in my seat, arms crossed. “I know, as the future luna, she is a favorite of you in authority. No matter what I say or do, the punishment will be the same.”

He gives me another long stare, then pulls a disciplinary form towards him and starts scribbling away.

Deciding my fate.

~***~

A few hours later, I find myself in the same place I always seem to find myself nowadays: my bed. I’m pissed, glaring at the disciplinary form on my bedside table.

I’m being given in-school suspension for “attacking” the future luna of our pack.

I was warned it wouldn’t be so easily dealt with the next time it happened.

I turn away from the table and hug my blankets even tighter. Something is changing inside me. I can feel it through Lynne.

I’m irritated at the sound of my parents’ muffled voices downstairs. I can hear almost everything they’re saying due to my heightened abilities. They’re discussing what to do.

Whether or not I need to go to another pack with my uncle.

My mother came from the pack about twenty years ago when she met my father at an annual social event.

He lives about three hours away and is the beta of his pack. He and my mother are close and have been discussing my going to live with him since that night.

“You can tell she’s on the brink of it, Phil!” My mother’s voice is raised. Raised enough for my regular hearing to pick it up.

“I’m not letting my daughter go to that heathen pack of your past, Fae.” My father’s tone is calm and collected. I can tell he’s not going to back down.

“She’s safer with us here than she is there. You know what they’d do with her power, and they’d exploit her for it. I won’t allow it.”

I hear a thud that rattles the lights hanging above my bed. My body stiffens as I know what is about to happen.

My mother has shifted into her brilliantly beautiful brown wolf. She does so every time my father says something negative about her home and brother.

Her old pack isn’t the best of places. It’s full of wolves who are more concerned with sexual desires, and females are a lower rank. Even their luna isn’t respected as she should be.

“Enough.” Before I know it, I’m downstairs in between my mother’s wolf, Faith, and my father. I’m staring Faith right in her eyes.

Because my mother is a warrior’s mate, she has more of a temper, and she’s unlikely to listen to reason.

By staring her wolf in the eyes, I’m asserting my place in her life and that I’m her daughter. That I mean no harm.

“I understand you want what’s best for me.” I turn to my father before continuing, “Both of you do. But I’m eighteen years old, and with that, I’m a being with my own mind.

“I refuse to go to your pack, Mother. It’s full of males who don’t respect females as they should.”

My father crosses his arms and looks at my mother’s wolf. She looks discouraged and hurt. I know she’s having flashbacks of being in that pack before my father met her.

“I promise.” I hold Faith’s snout in my hands. She stands over five feet above me, but she allows me to bring her entire form to my level.

“I’m not going to turn on the pack. Lynne and I are stronger than that.”

A few hours later, I’m outside on the back porch. It’s raining heavily, but I can’t help but feel relaxed. All evening, it’s become evidently clear the throbbing throughout my body isn’t normal.

The clouds from the storm have blocked out the moon. It makes my heart ache.

Having Spiritual Alignment makes my being take comfort in the night sky, the stars, and especially the moon itself. It makes me closer to the one who deemed me worthy to have this power.

I’ve come out here because something isn’t sitting right with my wolf and me. It’s not unsettling or unnerving, but it’s something I’m not used to.

“Hey.” Riley sits down beside me underneath the canopy of trees. Lynne settles in the back of my mind and doesn’t stir. I reply with a shallow, “Hi,” and continue looking at the sky.

“You always do this.” Riley laughs. “Come out here, even on school nights, to look up at the moon.”

She’s right. I love the winter air and the taste of fresh rain out here. The smell of the wet pine adds to my sense of being home.

“There’s something in the air,” I say to her. “A change is coming to our pack. I don’t know what it is. It’s nothing bad, but Lynne is getting restless.”

“Well.” Riley puts her arm around me, and Landon appears beside me. His face is smiling gently, and his arm is intertwined with his mate’s.

“We’ll be here. This time, when something doesn’t feel right, both Landon and I will be there to support you. We’re your family, after all.”

“Thank you, guys.”

Landon pulls both of us into his arms and squeezes tightly but gently. My twin’s and best friend’s warmth and scents wrap around me.

And I can’t help but choke up on my own tears.

***

I sigh as I look up at the moon peeking through the treetops. The rain has stopped, and the smell of the damp forest ground helps me feel calmer.

Riley and Landon have left. I did feel better when they comforted me, but not even that could completely fill the hole I have in my heart.

The pain of rejection from my destined mate.

I want to be alone with my thoughts and the starlight.

“Why is this happening to me?” I whisper up to the moon. I wait for a reply, but I get no answer other than the wind in the trees.

Suddenly, a deep gravely voice speaks to me out of the shadows, making me jump.

“Hey Moonlight.”

I spin around to look at the hedges that surround the porch. He’s there. Jake.

He smiles at me, and I feel my heart skip a beat. I suddenly feel calmer after seeing him. His scent puts me at ease.

But at the same time, I’m confused. I’ve never felt like this for anyone except for Lucas…my ex-mate. Jake is just some random loner on the borders. He’s gorgeous, sure, but that shouldn’t give me this feeling.

~What the hell is going on?~

“What are you doing here?” I ask, my cheeks turning pink as his grey eyes pierce me.

“Just checking to make sure you got back okay,” he says, his voice casual. But I see a strange expression in his eyes. He’s watching me a little too closely. He looks hungry.

I fidget under his gaze, my face growing hot.

“In one piece, as you can see,” I mutter.

“Mm-hmm.”

He continues to stare at me, and I get more and more fidgety. I can feel Lynne getting excited. I can almost feel Jake’s wolf pacing inside his mind, too.

I suddenly get a thrilling thought: something is about to happen.

Something between us.

My muscles coil as I feel it coming.

A sense of anticipation builds in my chest. I see his eyes sparkle.

Any moment now…

“Well, it was nice seeing you, Moonlight,” he says suddenly, turning to leave. “I’ll see you around.”

And with that he disappears into the darkness, leaving me oddly flustered with my heart pounding fast and hard in my chest.

~What the heck was that?!~