UnMasked (MSW book 2) [SAMPLE]

Chapter 3 - Michael

This is a SAMPLE only.

MAY 2022 UPDATE: Go read "Lucy", a spinoff of the Masked SheWolf trilogy, now updating on Wattpad, and its "Behind the Scenes" companion book that includes character profiles and a complete recap of the trilogy, as told by the characters in interview format.

***

Maybe this is bad idea. Maybe being in the same house as so many werewolves is dangerous, especially when one of them happens to be the mate who rejected me. But I'm beyond caring about anything right now.

I don't care if my family and I stay at the pack house for longer than three weeks, and I end up going through that time of the month again when everyone will immediately know my secret. I don't care that I'm alienating everyone around me. I'll give them all the same 'f*ck off' look. I don't even care that my dad agreed too quickly to move in with the pack when I said I was okay with it.

Hell has actually frozen over, and that's exactly how I feel. There's no life in me, and I'm past the point to care about bringing it back. The frustrating part is that I know this is not me. I'm not someone who gets discouraged so easily. I've certainly had much better reasons for depression during my life than being rejected. I'm overreacting, and I know it.

Yet, my wolf side has taken over, and it is completely consumed by grief and despair. I can't block it, although I want to very badly. But now that I'll be living under the same roof as him, the ache is going to be even harder to fight.

I don't know why I said yes. On some level, I think it must be because of the urge to be near him. But I can't be that self-destructive, can I? I don't know anything about my emotions anymore, other than the darkness and ice that have surrounded every part of me that used to be alive, and I don't care enough to find out. I hate that I've sunk so deep over something I know I can overcome. If I wasn't a werewolf controlled by her emotions, of course.

The whole idea of having a werewolf mate is so foreign to me that I don't know how to deal with it. There's no manual to help me understand why I'm experiencing these emotions or what I might feel in a given situation. For all I know, seeing Logan in wolf form is turning me into the soft-hearted girl I don't want to be.

No one alive has any experience with true mates, so it's not like I can find someone to ask for advice. Plus, there's the fact that I don't want anyone to know. If it's foreign for me, the one living it, how is someone who doesn't know what I'm feeling supposed to help me?

This doesn't change anything in my plans. My birthday is still in four weeks, and I'm still going to move out and live on my own when that day comes. Or I could leave earlier if my time of the monthhas already started by then, which is probably what's going to happen. What does it matter if I will be leaving this house or the pack house?

"Dylan, honey," I hear Mom call me from my bedroom door.

She's taken the habit of calling me that all the time. A couple weeks ago, I may have found solace in the fact that I'm a daughter in her eyes now. But given the state I'm in, it's just another reminder that I'm weak.

I face her. "Yeah?" I ask.

She looks at me sideways as if she's hesitating. I can see the worry in her eyes. I really hope she won't make me talk about what's bothering me. I don't want to do that right now, or at all, to be honest.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" is what she mercifully asks.

"Yeah," I say again.

"We don't have to do this if you don't want to," she is quick to assure me. "I don't know if we'll be staying for more than a couple of weeks. But I want you to know that we can leave whenever you say so. It's all up to you."