Beyond the Curtain

27 | rule 85

RULE 85: DO NOT SURROUND YOURSELF WITH BAD INFLUENCES, EVEN IF THEY ARE MEMBERS OF THE CIRCUS.

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Left alone in the forest, I stomped my way to the den. Without even thinking about it, I had been able to navigate to my home base. I had been able to trace my steps back to their origin. And, I supposed I had begun to see the appeal of the snow.

For someone like me who could not and did not rely on their werewolf senses, the snow had provided a way of trekking through the surrounding area without so much as a worry about which way to head home.

Home.

I shuddered at the word.

The den was certainly not my home, but I didn't know what else in my life would constitute such a place.

Through my brief travels with Rowan, I had charted through different packs, but they never felt right. They never felt like home. Theo and Sage's pack, Nightfall, had been the closest thing to feeling at ease and completely myself in a pack, but my time there was brief.

Yukinawa, while a beautiful pack in and of itself, did not feel like the right fit either. I knew I had not given Yukianawa enough time to grow on me, but I knew deep in my soul, no matter how much I opened my heart up to Yukinawa, my home was somewhere else in the world.

I had yet to find it.

However, I knew I shouldn't have been thinking of where I would call my permanent place of residence, not when a dark reality hung over my head. If I did not get a grip on my wolf, there was a real possibility I would never have the opportunity to find a home for myself in this world.

Instead of thinking and wondering about my life beyond the snowy fortress I resided in, I needed to focus on the here and now. I needed to focus on connecting with my wolf. Then sooner, the better, and the sooner, the quicker I could be on my way out of here.

My mind wandered to Rowan. I wondered what would become of him—of us—after I had reconnected with my wolf. The guttural urge to be with my mate simply did not exist, because I simply did not have a connection with that part of my instincts.

But I couldn't deny the fact I found him attractive—how each time I looked at him, I noticed something new to marvel at. But I had seen a lot of pretty faces come and go into my life. It didn't mean anything, Or rather, I didn't want it to mean anything.

So worked up in my thoughts, I marched over to my pillow and began to dress in some of the clothes Sage gave me before I noticed someone looming close by.

They were the first to speak. "What's got you so riled up?"

With a pair of athleisure clothes on, I turned to face the person who spoke to me as I did not recognize the voice. A girl, roughly around my age, sat a couple feet from me in her human form. Her legs were sprawled out, and she had a lazy grin etched on her face. Her brown hair was tied back in two braids at either side of her well-chiseled face. "Now, I've got to ask: what's got you so surprised, girly-pop?"

"Uh," I struggled to think of what to say, re-wrapping the warm blanket over my shoulders. "I thought no one around here liked to be in human form."

She laughed, her chin bobbing up and down. "Having fingers and toes that can move around so freely is an odd sensation," she acknowledged before continuing, "But, in the cold of winter, there are not many reasons to be walking around—or even sitting—in your human form around here."