Page 3 of Fallen Wolf
I knew my wolf wanted to claim her, but the thing was, she deserved someone better. Stronger. Someone able to stick up to the others and tell them how great Ada really was. But I was weak, my wolf was hard to control, and I got into a lot of fights. I had spent most my life avoiding others, staying out of the spotlight and just trying to be one of the crowd.
As much as I wished she was mine, my fear of her rejecting me was too much to handle. How did I say I was sorry, for not standing up for her all those times? For not being her friend when she needed one.
Better yet, how did I tell her that I shifted into a gray wolf? That my wolf wanted to claim her? I couldn’t, so I just lurked in the shadows like some creeper. Watching her, making sure she was safe. Especially when she was in her car. I heard her today, speaking to her older sister Destiny, about Lexi. She wanted to be her friend so badly, and I wanted that for her too. She deserved a good friend, even if she was aKiba girl.
I was joggingfrom my house to the pizza shop that my parents owned and ran in Rawlins. They were short staffed tonight, one of the regulars had called in sick… that was what happened when you hired non shifters. They got sick. They were down a driver, so dad called me to fill in, I never did the deliveries. I couldn’t deal with the stares from customers so I was going to fill in for my friend River and he would be out doing delivery runs. I was running late because I had been out running with my other friend Mason and when I returned, I had seen the missed calls.
“Hey, Hux wait up.” I turned to see my younger friend and cousin, jogging up towards me. His beach blond hair tossed around in the breeze and he pushed it behind his ear to keep it out of his eyes. He was a surfer boy through and through just like his brother River. They were almost identical, if you didn’t know there was a two-year age gap between them, you would have sworn they were twins.
“Kenton, what’s up?” I pushed my own mop of dark curls from my eyes and slowed down for him to catch up. The evening air had a chill to it, and I could feel it more since I had slowed down.
“Uncle Leo called me when you didn’t answer, he asked for help. But I guess you got the message and I’m not needed?” I smiled at him and wrapped my arm around his shoulder.
“You are always needed.” I loved Kenton, his dad Daniel and my dad Leo were brothers.
Which made us cousins but not by blood, Leo was clearly not my biological father. I had two fathers— as did most members of Pack Rawlins, some had three— only the alpha didn’t share his mate.
I didn’t have a packmate, I didn’t know if I ever wanted to get married, especially with how bad I treated someone my wolf considered his mate. So I’d never asked anyone of my friends. They’d slowly made their own packmate alliances and now I was the only one not to have one. Not that you had to have one, it was just better to pick a shifter you could live with for the rest of your life, than be matched up with someone you couldn’t stand.
A packmate was usually a male close to you, a best friend or even a brother. And together you shared a female mate. Because in the wolf shifter world, females were never born. Only males were born shifters due to some old curse put on us, well that’s the story. But to have shifter kids you needed a female shifter.
To turn a human was dangerous and many females didn’t survive the transition. So, to reduce the number of deaths it became widely acceptable to share your mate. That was why most packs had a lot of males and never many females.
My mom, Blair, fell in love with both my dad’s– Leo and Grady– and they had turned her. She’d survived and moved in with them both to Pack Rawlins. Looks wise I took after my dad Grady. He was tall, black and had the most amazing curls which I’d inherited.
Mom had red hair and fair skin, she was covered in freckles and I had loved to trace them on her skin when I was little. She was originally from Scotland; she was here visiting the states, backpacking around when she met my dad’s and it was love at first sight. She had told me the story many times. How she had taken the wrong bus, ended up in Rawlins where my dad’s came to her rescue.“A little mistake ended up being the best thing that could have happened to me.”
I used to hate hearing it, but as I grew older, I realized just how lucky my dad’s really were, that she caught the wrong bus and came here. Although I never really noticed her accent, most people told me she had one, only mild, but it was there. I guess I just grew up listening to her voice that I never knew any different.
She loved my hair, she was so obsessed with it that she didn’t like it when I cut it. Same went for both my dad’s, so they were both rocking the long hair and if mom had her way that day, a man bun each. They always let her brush their hair, and well… I let her brush mine too. It was so nice to have your hair brushed by someone else. Not that I would ever tell anyone that. My friends might think I was really weird.
When we got to the pizza shop, dad looked stressed. His face was red and when he saw it was both Kenton and I, he visibly sighed in relief. He threw two stained off white aprons at us. They were clean but the stains never budged. He threw his car keys to River, who caught them and cheered. River untied his apron, he pulled it off and threw it in Kenton’s face laughing.
“Tips baby!” River yelled out, His fists in the air, clutching the keys. He bounced past me and grabbed my shoulders, “tips and babes.” He winked as moved around me and grabbed the delivery’s. I shook my head at him, River was outgoing and never had any issues when it came to talking in public… or picking up girls. Of all of my friends he was the most experienced with girls. Hell, even Kenton had kissed a girl.
I moved in behind the station, taking his place beside Kenton. I looked out the window and watched as River drove off, picked up the first docket and proceeded to make a seafood pizza. My dads’ special recipe.
4
Ada
There wereno wolves today in Rawlins, I guess that was good really. I had to get out the car to get the pizzas. I was early, so I thought it would be better to sit in my car for a few minutes. I looked up and saw River Smith walk out with stacks of pizzas, in those bags that keep them warm.
River was in my Biology class; he was pretty popular with the girls. But who could blame them… he was hot. That long sun-bleached hair looked so out of place here, he looked like he should be on a surfboard in Southern Cali. But he was here, in Rawlins, Washington. Where it was mostly raining or overcast. Those small hints of sun must be all that was needed for his hair to stay light, the roots looked darker and so I just assumed it was sun bleached. But then his brother, Kenton had the same hair. Or maybe they were surfers… and they knew somewhere sunny and warm I didn’t know about.
As he drove off, I looked over at the clock on the dashboard, it should be ready soon. I needed to pay first anyway, so I might as well get that out of the way.
I got out of my car into the chilly night’s air and locked the door and I headed inside the warm pizza shop. The smell made my tummy grumble. I was a lot hungrier than I realized. And it was so warm in here, I could see how working here would be nice.
I walked over to the man standing behind the cash register, he was older and had the same hair as River. Huh… I guess this was his dad. Maybe it was a natural color they shared. He greeted me with a huge grin.
“Hello there, how can I help you?” He asked and I returned his warm smile.
“I’m here to pick up for Ad…oh wait the order is for Graham, my dad.” I handed him a fifty dollar note. He nodded and called out my dad’s name loudly behind him to the workers, then proceeded to process the order on his cash register. Someone called back that it will be a few more minutes.
He gave me my change and I popped a five dollar note in the tip jar. He thanked me and I took a seat until it was ready. There were old magazines and some newspapers, but I didn’t want to read them. Instead, I looked outside the glass windows into the darkness that had crept up on me tonight. I can’t believe how long I was playing “dress ups” for. Across the street were the woods. I strained my eyes to see if there were any wolves lurking, maybe those glowing eyes ones I saw at school. When I didn’t see any I turned my gaze up to the moon, it was hard to see with the cloud cover, but it was there. When I heard my dad’s name, I turned around and stood up.
I was shocked to see the boy staring back at me at the counter was none other than Huxley Moore. The boy who I’d thought was my friend at the start of freshman year—my only friend— then when he realized I was not someone popular he’d just stopped talking to me. Destiny had told me that he had a crush on me. I had believed her and was so excited because I didn’t want to be just his friend, I had the biggest crush on him, so when he stopped talking to me… Well, that really hurt me a lot, but I hadn’t thought about that in a while.
