Mary's POV
With my eyes closed I feel everything more clearly. The sweet smell of the flowers, the warm sun on my face and the cool silkiness of the grass underneath me. These are the moments that I treasure. When I can just lie outside and think. There is no one to answer to and nobody who tells me what to do all the time.
I take a deep breath and feel the fresh air filling my lungs. As I exhale I try to release all the stress that I have been carrying around. I only have one more week of freedom, one more week until I turn 18 and meet my mate.
I never wanted to get married, not even as a little girl. But even so in just seven days I am going to turn 18 and my father, the Alpha, will host a big party inviting all the other packs in our region so that I can find my mate and get married.
Ever since I was born I have heard people tell me that I have to find a suitable mate, someone from a good family or even better, an Alpha. As if it were my choice. I can't decide who my mate is, that is up to destiny.
All my friends have always been so exited about finding their mates, it's supposed to be something beautiful. Finding your one true soul mate, that one person that was made for you and only you. But not me, I have always dreaded the day.
What if he is not what my pack or family expects and deserves. What if he is just a normal person or even worse comes from a family of poor standings. I often wish I could be just a normal person, maybe then I could find my mate without all the pressure.
But that is not the only reason that I don't want to get married. I have witnessed my parent's marriage for years. My mother submits to my father without question. He always uses his Alpha commands on her when she doesn't agree with him, although she mostly does just because it is easier.
I don't want to end up like that. I like the little bit of freedom I can still call mine. As soon as I am mated and married I won't have any freedom at all anymore.
Suddenly I hear someone yelling my name and ripping me out of my thoughts. I sigh and open my eyes.
"Mary! Your mother is looking for you!"
I groan and sit up. I already know who has come looking for me. The only one who knows about my secret hiding place is my best friend Belinda. She is like the sister I never had and I tell her everything. I turn around and see that I was right as Belinda comes running onto the meadow towards me all blond hair and long, tan legs.
She sits down in the grass next to me and tucks a blond lock that has escaped from her ponytail behind her ear.
"What does she want now?" I ask her as she starts fiddling with some grass she has pulled out from the ground and is now holding in her hands. She shrugs.
"I don't know. All I know is that she is looking for you and she says it's urgent," she answers, still a little out of breath from her run here.
I sigh again and roll my eyes.
"Of course she says it's urgent, it always is with her isn't it?" We both laugh a little at my mom's tendencies to over-exaggerate and then we get up and slowly start walking back towards my house.
My meadow is located just outside of pack territory. We're not actually supposed to venture outside of our territory but what my parents don't know won't hurt them.
After we have walked for a little while we finally step through the tree line at the edge of my family's property. Before I go inside the house Belinda sweeps her hands over me to get the grass off of me so my parents don't get suspicious about where I've been. She gives me a big hug and wishes me luck. She knows exactly how my parents are and she always has my back and helps me out of trouble.
I walk inside and go straight to the kitchen, where I know that my mother will be. I find her sitting at the kitchen table sipping on a cup of tea while something is boiling on the stove. This is what she does. She spends her days doing menial chores around the house and yelling at the staff. This is the typical life of a wife, at least as far as I can tell.
I clear my throat to let her know that I am here. She looks up from her teacup and motions for me to come over and sit in the chair across from her.
"Mary, where have you been? I have been looking for you forever," she says in her stern voice.
I look at her and wonder how she became this way. My mom is very beautiful but she is always so formal and strict. I guess she has had it kind of rough. She had me just a few months after my parents got married so she was very young when she became a mother. My younger brother came just two years after that so she was a mother of two at 21 already.
"We have to talk about your party. I still don't know what kind of food you want or decorations or anything," she says while giving me a disapproving look. I think my mothers biggest disappointment is that I am nothing like her. I hate all this stuff like party planning that she loves.
"Mother, you are so much better at all of that than me so why don't you just take care of it. I mean, it's not like I actually give a damn about this party anyways. So, just do what you want and I'm sure it will be just great." I try not to sound too harsh but I actually don't care about my 18th birthday celebration. All this talk about it is just reminding me that my freedom is slipping away by the minute.
"Oh, well then. I guess I will just take care of it all. If you really don't have any ideas or opinions..." She looks out the window and the sunlight shining in reflects off of her hair and her hazel eyes shimmer.
I sigh. I don't want to hurt her feelings but I'm just being honest.
I get up and start walking out of the kitchen when she calls out to me again.
"Your father wanted to see you as well. He's in-"
"In his study," I interrupt her. All she does is nod her head. That is where my father spends all his time so it wasn't hard to guess what she was going to say.
I head through the house towards my dad's office. On the way I run into my younger brother Andrew.
"Hey big sis, what's going on?" he asks as he gives me a quick kiss on the forehead. He is two years younger than me but still so much taller which annoys the hell out of me.
"Going to talk to father," I say as I roll my eyes. He chuckles at me and gives me a small shove on the shoulder.
"Come on, you can handle him. You've always been able to deal with his crap," he says while smiling at me.
Andrew is the only one in my family that understands me. He is not like me in the fact that he actually wants to find his mate eventually, but he understands that I'm under much more pressure than him. I'm the oldest child of the Alpha and therefore whomever I end up with is going to be a big part of our pack.
"Well you should get going, don't want to keep father waiting," Andrew says with sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"Mhm..." I mumble as I turn and continue walking towards the office.
I knock on the door and wait for my dad to answer. When I hear him call out to me to come in I open the door and enter the room. He is sitting by his desk but when I come inside the room he stops whatever he is doing and looks up at me.
"Mary, come sit. We have some business to discuss," he says and motions with his hand for me to sit in the chair across from him. This is how it always is with him, all business. I take my seat and he immediately starts talking.
"I finally heard back from the last pack in our region about the party and they're coming. So that is now all taken care of. All five packs are coming with each of their Alphas." I can hear the pride in his voice as he tells me this. His biggest hope in this world is that I will be mated to an Alpha. This way our pack will be joined with his pack and make us that much stronger.
"Well, it seems like you have it all under control around here, what did you need me for?" I ask him. He looks at me for a while with that same disapproving look that he shares with my mother and then stares down at the papers on his desk again.
"We need to speak about your duties as my daughter. All of your shenanigans were... acceptable before, when you were younger and before you mated but now you need to be more careful. You need to start taking on more responsibility around here. When I step down you are going to take care of the pack as the Luna and the person you end up with will be Alpha consort, the one who will help you lead and make important decisions. You are a royal and you need to start acting like it. Have you given this any thought?" he says while still looking down at his desk.
"Not really," is the only answer I give him. Every time I screw up or do anything that my parents think of as reckless or irresponsible I get this talk. The talk about how I'm going to be the future leader of the pack and that at some point I'm going to have to grow up. I hate it. I don't want to become responsible and take care of everyone. I want to continue living the way I've been living, taking risks and not really caring what anyone thinks or about the consequences.
My father looks up at me and opens his mouth as if to say something but I stand up before he has the chance to. I can sense screaming coming and I don't want to stick around for it.
"I have to go," I tell him and before he can utter another word I turn and walk out of his office.
I walk out of the house and as soon as I'm outside I grab my phone and send a quick text to Belinda saying that I will be at her house in five minutes.
I run through the town and when I reach Bee's I ring once on the doorbell and then walk inside. Her parents are rarely ever home so I can always just go right in.
"Bee, where are you?" I shout out as I stand in the foyer.
"Living room," she shouts back.
I find her sitting on the couch watching some crappy reality show on the TV.
"Uh-oh, what happened?" she says as she puts the TV on mute.
I sit down next to her on the couch and shake my head.
"I got the usual speech about how I am reckless, irresponsible, the worst daughter in the world, yada, yada, yada... I don't want to talk about it," I mumble as I settle in on the couch a little more and throw my feet up on the coffee table.
"Okay, so what are we doing tonight?" Bee asks. I love how she knows me so well. When I am feeling down she knows exactly what will make me feel better.
"Let's go out!" I say more enthusiastically.
"Woho! Come on!" she shouts and we head up to her room to get ready for the night.