*** read description first for tw, thank you, enjoy :)***
"Cora!" I stir in my bed, groan, and when I look at the clock on my nightstand I shoot up. Is that the time?! I race across my room, throw on the shorts I wore to the bonfire last night, brush my brown hair, trying to get the lower back length knots to untangle, but failing miserably. I leave my room, running to the front door to let Frea, my only close female friend, into the cabin. She had woken me up this way, tapping and yelling at my window, at least once a week for the last twelve years of our friendship. "Cora!" I heard her yell from the front porch as I stole a muffin from the kitchen island and ran across the living room.
"I'm coming!" I yelled. "Get up Owen!" I added, yelling down the hall towards his room. My dad would be up already, having left to have his morning hunt, but Owen was definitely sleeping like a turd on a log.
I ran to the door, threw it open in my urgency. "SURPRISE!"
I stumbled back and my friends laugh at my shock, and given not one of them had ever been able to surprise me much, I couldn't blame them. Frea, Alice, Durst, and Sam stood there with grins on their faces; balloons, flowers, gifts, and a sign that said:
Happy Birthday Coralie!...
And Owen ;)
"You guys are amazing!" I say as I hug each of them. They all said you're welcome and hugged me back. "Come in, have some food, I'll open these up!" I said as I invited them in, not that I had to, Frea only knocked out of courtesy when she picked me up for school. Our door was always open to the pack, and all of my friends were part of the pack.
"Well I feel loved." Owen said as he walked in from his room. Sam handed a present to him, Owen said 'right on', and he went straight to the fridge.
"You know tomorrow will be all about you anyway Owen." Frea said snidely. Her and Owen were like water and oil together, if you shake them up enough they got along, but when things were settled they pushed against each other.
"Oh, right, proceed." He said with a sarcastic and smug smile towards her. She rolled her eyes and handed me her present.
"Oh, bacon!" Durst said as he sat on the bar stool opposite the kitchen island of Owen, who started the stove in front of him. We all gathered around as he cooked, Alice helping him by making eggs.
I chuckled, shook my head at Durst, and opened my gifts with everyone encouraging me. My pack knew me well, and got me useful things, perfume, clothes, a new strap for my bow, and other little things they thought I would like. I thanked them a million times and we all laughed, spoke, and ate as much breakfast as we could muster. Breakfast was an important meal for any future werewolf, and our pack knew how to eat, in fact we always had food around considering from a young age our bodies ran off of more fuel than humans.
We ate, tidied up together, and the six of us headed out for the school bus together.
"I'm so jealous, this time tomorrow you guys might be changing already." Sam mentioned as we walked.
"Yeah, but you'll be changing in two weeks, I have to wait another month!" Alice protested.
"At least you're not the baby of our litter." Frea complained. By litter she meant the kids in or pack that were our age, it always happened like that, one member of the pack would get pregnant and then the other women would follow by nature, this happened every few years, with only a few children born in between. There were currently two litters younger than us, a litter of twelve year olds, and a litter born last autumn who were turning one about now. "I won't change for six more months." Frea griped; her mother had tried the hardest to avoid our litter and wait for the next, but Frea came regardless.
"And by then we'll all be so strong and fast you won't be able to keep up." Owen teased, getting Frea to chase him, and having to run into the bus to avoid her.
"I bet you anything by tomorrow he'll be chasing her." Alice giggled.
"For sure!" Durst laughed as we watched them fighting in the bus; all of my friends laughed with him.
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused. They looked at me as though I had just asked where the sun went at night. Like I had missed out on something completely obvious; common knowledge.
"We all know Owen is going to choose her for his mate." Sam laughed. "He denies the shit out of it, but it's only obvious."
"Is it...?" I said as I stepped onto the bus. I hadn't thought about the idea of mates, ever, I hated the idea. Owen wasn't as reluctant, but was a young man, who in his own words: "wanted to test the waters before diving in".
Now I realised, as I stepped onto the bus, that we were vulnerable to mating beginning tomorrow. I despise the idea. I don't want a mate, and I never had, I had seen too well, first hand, what having a mate can do to you. I watched my father suffer silently my whole life, because of it, I would not risk that.
I sat on the bench beside Frea. "Your brother gets on my last nerve." She said. I laughed, and felt relieved, she would never mate with my brother. My other friends were wrong. Me and my brother didn't need mates, we were stronger than that, better.
"Yeah, he can be a shi*t head." I laughed, feeling better again.
***************************
I danced as the bonfires light cast warm swaying shadows against the forest. I swirled and played in circles as everyone who wasn't joining in sat and cheered. It was a pack ritual to have a bonfire every night for three nights before a members changing. Not that it wasn't a norm at our home anyway. Tonight was for me and Owen, though. Tonight was the eve before our changing and all eyes were on me and Owen as we danced strong and proud across the woodland floor. The last two nights there had been a smaller amount of our pack here, but tonight everyone showed up to the circular clearing in the woods three miles from our home. The same place everyone here had been the night before their changing, same as our ancestors, same as my mother.
I felt her in every tree, every star, every crisp breeze against my warm flesh. I no longer felt the eyes of hundreds staring at me. I felt love, warmth, strength, togetherness. I danced around my friends, their happy faces beaming in celebration as one twirled past me, or another soared, and I felt more connected to them than I ever had. Owen grabbed me up, began to twirl me about, and I felt as proud of him as he seemed to be of me. My father yipped and howled as we danced together, and his loud howl began a wave of them. Me and Owen laughed and danced faster as the drums grew louder, and we never stopped; as the embers of the fires blazed against the vacuous darkness of the night sky we kept dancing, and dancing... Until we felt so sore we could collapse.
As I laid down in my bed for the last time before changing I still felt the rush of the party, my belly full of as much food as I could eat, my skin smelling of soot and ash, and my cheeks in pain from smiling and laughing so much. My stomach hurt and felt tense from all the laughing, my legs quivered from dancing so much, but my heart soared. I tried to sleep, but knew I couldn't, I was much too excited. Excited, because tomorrow I will officially be part of the pack, I can start doing runs, I can run just like them, soaring over streams and through the forest. I looked to my door as it opened.
"Coralie, what are you doing awake?" My father asked as he peered in, his russet skin glowing from the hall light, his pale grey eyes, the same as mine, staring at me with a smile.
"I can't sleep, I'm too excited." I said as I sat up. He let out a laugh.
"Of course you are, but you have to sleep for the change to happen." He chuckled.
"I know, I just feel... So alive!" I exclaimed, throwing my arms back as if it would cause me to soar as high as my heart seemed to be. He laughed again and shook his head.
"Just like your mother." He chuckled. "How about I take you on one more run with dad, you'll never want to again after you can do it on your own." He said. I beamed.
"Yes! Please!" I said quickly. I followed him out of the house, he ran into the woods, and in a minute he was back. His wolf form walked up to me, I pet the black fur around his collar, and when he was relaxed I climbed on. My fingers sank into the silky black fur as it glimmered in the night. My father was alpha, he seemed nearly the size of an elephant in this form, and had shoulders so strong he could carry at least five men if he needed to. "Okay dad, let's go." I said as I pat his coat beside me. Without hesitating his wolf form took off into the forest. I buried my face in the warm fur, and despite me wanting to enjoy every minute, I fell asleep to the thudding sound of his heart, and his paws across the forest floor.