Mesmerism (o.h.)

⚜Introduction⚜

Before Madelyn could respond in surprise to the return of her cousin's betrothed, Jackson was already following Andréa into the house. And before she could follow him, Bryan, another member of the pack, grabbed Madelyn's hand and pulled her onto the dance floor.

She squealed and started laughing, allowing her feet to carry her into various steps that she learned through the years.

The party continued on and Madelyn could forget for a while that she was only human until the moon's peak was no longer high in the clear night sky. She danced and laughed with members of her clan for most of the night. She drank dull beer but laughed and had the time of her laugh—like she did once a month, every month. She even watched as Oliver, her old flame, was dancing with a blonde girl that Madelyn knew wasn't a werewolf. The blonde was a vampire—the vampire; an Original.

Another thing that she did each month, was that she always saved the last dance of the evening for her cousin. However, he was nowhere in sight.

She excused herself from the party, and put her empty red Solo cup on a table as she made her way inside the large plantation house in front of her. Oliver was gone, and she didn't want to dance with him anyway, and she just wanted to spend the last of the evening with her cousin before they had to run back into the bayou for another month to pass.

She entered from the side, not far from where the party was. "Jackson?" she called out. As she did, the door she had entered from swung shut suddenly. She wasn't fully inside of the house when the door shut on her, so, the handles caught her backside. She gasped and stumbled forward, catching herself on the wall before she hit it.

"Maddy?!" he yelled out a few seconds later.

"Jackson!" Madelyn yelled, shrieking when the door she had walked through burst into flames. The fire quickly spread and Madelyn covered her nose and mouth with the sleeve of her shirt. She ran toward Jackson's voice as he called her name again.

The walls continued to burst into flames, and doors within the house kept swinging shut. She saw Jackson as he pulled the brunette from before away from swinging doors and more flames. That was when Madelyn also saw the girl's baby belly.

Madelyn coughed. "Jackson!" she cried.

He turned his head and saw his younger cousin running toward them, swiveling her body around to avoid flames as they grew larger and hotter. She got close enough for him to reach out and take her hand in his. He pulled her and the other brunette—Andréa—into a large room with a piano.

Flame sprouted out from somewhere near Madelyn and she cried out in pain when the orangey red-yellow embers licked her skin painfully. She yanked her hand out of Jackson's and cradled her arm close to her chest as he also let go Andréa's hand and tried to open a different set of doors.

They turned to leave the room to find a different exit, but the doors slid shut in front of them. Madelyn gasped and dropped to her knees, still cradling her arm to her chest. "Maddy," Jackson gasped out, dropping to the floor in front of her. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

"I'm fine," she gasped. His hand softly reached out to wipe her tears away from her cheeks, but she was in so much pain. Her wounds weren't going to heal as quickly as a vampire would heal, so, she would be in pain until she turned back into a wolf—at the latest.

"We have to get out here," the pregnant brunette said.

"Go," Madelyn gasped, looking up at her cousin.

He got up on his feet and walked around the piano to grab the bench in his hands. He smashed it against a window, but it didn't do anything. He brought the bench back up and against the window once more with a loud shout, but all his efforts did was break the bench into pieces.