Runner

Chapter 1

Hi everybody! This is my first story on Wattpad. Picture of the main character, Laurel Langley on the side. I do not own the picture.

This is the prologue. Enjoy.

Runner

It all started one fall evening. 

The last of the leaves were dying and the crisp scent of winter emanated throughout the forest. The birds were flying south to escape the bitter cold, and the rodents did not tarry in burying themselves for the end of the warm season.

I stood atop the cliff that dipped down into the ocean, the saltine scent sending me into a state of tranquility. Alongside me was my best friend, Aliana. who too felt the magical ambiance of the cliff setting. This was sort of our thing, Aliana and I, to find the most beautiful places and feel its wondrous power, experience its awe. 

I closed my eyes as the gossamer breeze danced through my hair. It was a peaceful evening to watch the sun drown behind the ocean.

I gazed over at Aliana and admired her inflated belly. She was due to have her baby boy any day now. My best friend had already picked a name for the pup with Anthony, her mate.

Mates.

I had often wondered when I would find my mate. For us werewolves, or Shifters as the correct term allows, the proper age to find our soul mates was 17. I had turned 17 last August and had yet to find my soulmate. My gaze drifted over  to my best friend who basked happily in the dimming light of the sunset.

Aliana was luckily found by her mate when she was only 16, two years ago. Anthony had just turned 17 by that time. Of course, Aliana hadn't felt the pull until she turned of age, but the minute she turned 17 years, the mating bond was put into play, and the attraction was irrefutable.

It was not startling that Aliana had found her mate earlier than the norm. One glance at her was enough to entice you for a lifetime. Her countenance was a grand feast for the eyes, a beauty envied and sought after. Aliana's long fiery red hair blazed in every type of light. It was not only her hair that seemed to emit light. Aliana herself seemed to catch rays of the sun and moon and stars, artificial light made by man, and she reflected them in streams and waves to warmth. Her pale, alluring green eyes were flecked with a metallic gold that often softened to honey. Her porcelain, delicate face was speckled with artful freckles the entire pack envied. And alas, her plump, pink lips smiled genuinely at everyone and everything. She was angelic. She was warm. She was beautiful.

I however, did not classify as gorgeous, enticing, alluring, not to mention, beautiful. Or at least I had never really been known as the label. 

I was exceptionally ordinary. 

I had dull dark brown hair that closely resembled the colour and texture of twigs and tree bark that in no way reflected light like Aliana's did. My face was petite and sometimes made me look painfully malnourished. My large round eyes seemed way too large for my head and were a pale blue. I often compared my disproportionate eyes and head size to Gollum, if that paints the image well enough.  I had a slim, gangly figure, no adamant curves like Aliana. I was average in every way, shape and form.

It's not that I was unhappy with myself. I think. I don't know. Maybe I was just unhappy with the state I was in. Not physically, but as a whole.

See, people like Aliana, Anthony even, just seemed to have it all together. True love, a baby on the way, complete with a white picket fence.

But me?

I was an invisible piece of printer paper in a larger stack of the same material, waiting, just waiting for my time to come. And who knows? Maybe when my time comes, i'll just end up as scrap anyway.