Forbidden

Chapter 21

21

I woke up and looked at my bedside clock.

Saturday.

And it was late too. I’d slept in all day and my mom had refrained from waking me up. As I moved to sit up, I heard my shoulders scream out and my knees groan. Then suddenly my body was assaulted by a shameless tumult of what seemed like never ending pain.

I felt so horrible.

And one look in the gilt framed mirror across the room told me I looked the part too.

“Ugh!” I groaned and fell back onto my pillows, staring hard at the ceiling and trying not to let last night’s events erode my brain.

I shut my eyes to ward off the bitter memories, but heard the door open instead.

“You can open your eyes Mish, I know you’re awake.” A voice called to me.

I opened my eyes and caught sight of a head of frizzy pink hair and a terry cloth towel.

Tegan.

“Tegan, it’s—” I looked at the clock. Damn, 3 o’clock? I’d slept for that long? “Still too early for me to be awake,” I moaned, pitying myself.

“Oh, cry me a river why don’t you.” Tegan rolled her eyes, rooting through my dressing table for something and coming up short. “Where’s your flat iron?”

“Bottom drawer,” I answered, placing a hand over my eyes.

I heard the drawer slide open and close again. “And I’m borrowing some of your clothes.”

“What for?” I demanded, sitting up.

“Uh, do I really need to answer that?” she flushed as she gestured to her towel clad body.

I stayed silent for a while, trying to decipher that statement, and then it clicked. “Yeah, um, don’t answer that one, I really don’t want to know. Wear one of my dresses.”

“Hmm,” Tegan said, plugging in the flat iron and running a hand through her messy hair. “Maybe I’ll do that—Hey! What’s this!” she yelled and then, “Ow!” as the iron dropped onto the table and burnt her hand.

Still, I heard the exited ripping of paper, and a few muffled curses as Tegan tried to tend to her burn and deal with what had excited her at the same time. I noticed that it was Randel’s envelope from last night. I should have thrown that into the trash bag of all his stuff too.

“Oo, it’s a house party. Wait a minute…” Tegan frowned and held up the glittering pink invitation to me. “How in the name of Neptune did you get an invite to Genine Atkins’ party? She doesn’t even like you!”

Genine Atkins was a human, who unlike the other humans at my school ignored the natural human instinct to shy away from us wolves. She wanted to be close to the predators, she wanted to sit at our tables and she wanted to date us. It was almost disgusting how much she wanted to fit in with us, when she knew nothing about our cultures. And I suppose in a normal town she could get away with that.

She was by all means beautiful, even for a human, with coffee colored hair and golden tanned skinned and the most entrancing aquatic eyes you’ve ever seen. She had all the boys at school completely smitten with her, all except the wolf boys and that didn’t make her too pleased.

But she wanted just one.

Randel.

When Randel and I had first got together, I was so infatuated with him that I didn’t want her to have any claim on him. To me, he was already mine, and it was going to stay that way. So naturally, I began to protect what was mine, out of natural wolf’s instinct. I’d said and done things to Genine that were all less than savory and she’d hated me from then.