I wasn't planning on it but I couldn't help but switch pov's. I'm going to do it quite a lot I've decided, switching between around three different people, but maybe one or two others. Just wanted to warn those people that might really hate when it jumps from person to person.
That's all.
Thanks for reading, please vote or comment and most importantly, enjoy.
(Dedicated to joannaValero for giving me my first vote)
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Blake stared down at the papers in his hands and yawned. Goddess was he exhausted. When was the last time he'd slept? Last night, or maybe the night before?
He didn't know but it was long enough for even his bones to feel tired. He wanted to sleep, to fall into oblivion like everyone else on this world, but he hated sleeping. During the day it was easy to distract himself with duties and information, but night was different. When he closed his eyes his wolf punished him.
Every night, for ten years, he dreamed endlessly about Anya jumping. When he slept he relived the worst moments of his life. Him rejecting her and laughing with his friend, all the while regretting it with every fibre of his being. He saw himself distributing photos of her half naked, Mary snapping the photos in the locker room. Dozens of terrible things he'd done to her. Most often it was her jumping and him failing to save her.
Each time he would run to the railing. Sometimes he was simply too late as he had been in life, but other times Mary or David or even Eva grabbed him and dragged him back. The worst was when he ran towards her, reaching out to grab her hand, only to find that when he reached her she was so repulsed she pushed away, and into the river. Nothing ever stopped Anya from falling into the icy waters.
Blake sighed and buried his face in his hands. His head was throbbing and he wanted nothing more than to sleep without dreams. He thought about the sleeping meds he'd been prescribed but couldn't bring himself to take them. Constant nightmares and sleepless nights were just some of his many punishments.
He didn't realise he had slowly been falling asleep until the landline blared. He jumped up, causing his chair to flip over as he reached over for the ancient phone and answered it.
"Hello," he said groggily, wiping the sleep from his eyes and trying to make his voice deep and powerful, not croaky and dazed like it was prone to do after he woke up.
"Hey."
Blake froze and slowly pulled his chair up and sat in it.
"What do you want Eva?" Blake asked coolly, knowing that soft girly voice anywhere. At twenty-eight she still managed to sound like a fourteen year old.
There was a rustling and the closing of a door, "I'm sorry to call, you know I wouldn't unless it was urgent."
Black gritted his teeth and ran a hand through his hair.
He'd seen her only yesterday. He wished the time span was longer in all honesty. Before that they hadn't spoken in a good five years, but it was the anniversary and the remaining three decided to pay their respects.
Once, a long time ago, he had the thought that their friendship would never repair itself and it was over, he'd been right.
The five friends he had his whole life, the earliest being six and the latest eleven, were no more. They broke off all contact and never spoke again.
Blake couldn't have been happy. He didn't want to see any of them.
Eva, she'd been a typical popular girl, a cheerleader and smart and beautiful. Blake once thought he loved the girl. She was gorgeous, long platinum hair and sparkling blue eyes, plump limps he'd once spent hours kissing and were always smiling. Behind that happy exterior she was simply mean. She wasn't clever but effective. During the Bet she'd spread rumours and turned the entire school against Anya.
Now she was a mother of three, all little girls. She'd found her mate at twenty-one, the same week as she got out of the mental institution. Now her hair was messy, her once perfect nails chipped, her body scarred from a c-section and probably for the first time in her life actually happy.
Then there was David. Blake had yet to meet someone stupider. He'd know David since they were six and met playing little league. David had spent his entire life being given everything because he could play sport, and this left him with this horrid sense of entitlement. He was also an asshole. During the Bet he had played harmful pranks of Anya, setting trip wires and buckets of water of doors, endlessly and relentless.
Now David lived in another territory, working as a coach for a university team. After Anya died he'd never played again. Like Blake, he felt he had to be punished somehow, and he did that by giving up the career he'd spent his entire life preparing for.
Then there was Mark and Jessica, Blake was sad to see them go. They'd died two years ago, in a horrific car crash. Blake himself had had to go and sort the issue out, watching as their mangled bodies were pulled out. The twins had been decent people. During the Bet they had gotten Anya in trouble, making it look like she was the one to flood bathrooms and lets out frogs, and silly things like that. Blake would always hold respect for the both of them because they had wanted to stop, begged to be let out and for all of them to forget it. But Mary hadn't let them.
Mary.
Mary was quite possibly the worst creature on this earth. She was cold and cruel and evil. Mary had been the one to come up with the Bet. She'd caused all the problems.
Blake wished every day that he had been brave enough to resist her. That was the thing about Mary; she could convince anyone to do anything for her or with her. She could smile sweetly and you would do it to be nice, but more often than not she threatened and coerced.
During the Bet, Mary had played the biggest part. She'd ruined Anya's credibility with the teachers, dropping her grades, she aided Eva in spreading rumours, helped design more intricate and harmful pranks for the twins and David, and worst of all she'd helped Blake reject her.
Often Blake had desires to find her and strangle her thin, pretty throat. Maybe that's why she left.
One month after Anya's death, and two weeks after the blood oath, Blake had gone to her house to scream at her. He'd arrived just in time for her to wave as her father drove her to the airport. Occasionally she sent him a postcard, with a red lipped kiss on the paper and the name of whatever pack she was visiting. Mary had to have been to every pack in the world. Yet, she was never where she said she was. It took Blake too long to realise that she was picking up the postcards, signing them and then mailing them days or even weeks later.
When Blake thought about what she might be doing it made him shudder.
Blake sighed, and focused on Eva. Her breathing was loud and uneven in the phone and for some reason Blake found the hair on the back of his neck rising, and his wolf growled in the recesses of his mind.
"What's so urgent you have to call," Blake checked his watch, "At four in the morning?"
"I had to wait for the kids to go to sleep and Jason."
"Why?" Blake didn't want to do niceties.
"Because, my mother told me so interesting news that I thought you ought to know. No, something that you need to know."
Blake was sick of talking to her already. He had never been able to stomach any of his old friends since the incident.
"What is it?"
"Mary's coming back."
Blake dropped the phone and before he knew it his skin was rolling, his bones breaking and gliding and he was a wolf.
Grim found out the hard way that when she transformed back into human form she was still hungry and tired, being a reaper didn't get rid of the human needs, just held them off.
So Grim found herself weak with hunger and exhausted at six am. She hated mortality.
She would've stayed in her reaper guise is she could, but right now she needed information and walking around in a heavy black cloak, with a scythe in hand just didn't send the right message. If only death had decided to stop in Halloween.
Grim ran a hand through blue hair and looked down the street. She was sitting on a bench and watching the world just start to wake up.
The bakers arrived the earliest, and Grim was close enough to smell the cakes and bread baking, making her empty stomach all the more obvious. Other restaurant owner filtered in, setting up tables and beginning to prepare the days dishes. By eight the entire street was thrumming with life.
It was a school day so the morning was filled with parents and children scrambling around. By nine fifteen the world was once again calm.
Grim was starving.
She cursed her teenage self for not having the courtesy of dying with money in her pockets.
It was then that she realised desperate times called for desperate measures. She stood, the world spinning slightly. She needed to eat and she needed to sleep, and soon.
Slowly she walked down an alleyway between to shops and when she came out on the other side she was a reaper. It felt better to be a reaper, she felt stronger. She sat in the shadows and waited.
The day got warmer but she didn't feel it. Grim waited for several hours, aware of every second, until it was midday. They should have had enough time to get a respectable amount of money.
She sighed and closed her eyes, when she opened them she was in front of a take away place, selling burgers and chips that would have made her mouth water if she was in human form.
Clenching the scythe in hand and making sure her hood covered nearly all her head Grim walked in.
When she came out she had two shopping bags filled with drinks, a dozen or so chocolate bars and packets of chips they also sold, and lots of containers of hot food. In her pockets was also around two hundred and fifty dollars. Grim cursed the invention of credit and debit cards.
She sat on a roof eating as she watched as police arrived. She felt bad about how the cashier and cooks were going to explain a woman in a death costume stealing from them. It had been easy brandishing her scythe, that was always sharp and shining, and they just handed her what she asked for. They had looked very confused when she demanded food.
Grim shrugged to herself and continued to eat.
It did feel good to eat if she was honest. Ten years of not drinking or eating had never bothered her until now, food was so amazing.
But she couldn't focus on food, she had to focus on what stopped death, thinking as she ate.
Did she know anything about necromancers? No. Though, from the evidence she had drawn the conclusion that necromancy was the art of death, or something to do with death.
She had no idea how to find a witch. How did the council even know there was a witch here? Why couldn't they find this witch by themselves?
It did not good to think about that. What she needed to do was look at the pack records. Werewolves were meticulous with their record keeping. They wrote reports if even a fly entered their territory.
Grim had more experience than most. Her father's best friend had been alpha Gregory. She'd grown up running down his halls and laughing as he gave her piggy back rides.
Of course!
She could go to alpha Gregory! He had to take her in, she was like the daughter he had never had and he loved her. He also had that giant pack house, where all the records were stored. This was perfect.
She knew something had to go her way sooner or later.
Grim finished her food, and neatly packed the garbage into one of the empty bag, teleporting to a bin just long enough to drop it off and for one of the cashiers to point to her. Grim waved at the police running towards her just before she disappeared.
The pack house was also different from her memories.
It was a mansion, no doubt about it, and was built hundreds of years ago, gifting it with beautiful architecture. It was two stories, but so wide Grim knew from experience it had around forty rooms. It was white, with marble columns and a balcony on the second level. The building was perfectly square, and Grim found it brought back nearly as many memories as her old home.
But just like her old home it was different.
Gregory in his spare time was an avid gardener, leaving his lawn almost glowing green and always being decorated with flowers in bloom. The spare time he had, after pack duties, was endless and he occupied himself. The house had been around so long that there were things that needed fixing or upgrading. Gregory had done all these, until he could have sold the home for several million.
Now, Grim wouldn't be surprised if it never sold.
The grass was knee high and dry, a dirt brown colour. There were long weeds growing where there were once flowers, the odd dandelion providing colour. Not only had the garden fallen into disarray, but also the home. The walls were a faded white from dirt, the windows smudged and in need of a clean, and everything simply looked old and washed away.
It made Grim wonder if Gregory was alright.
Gregory came from a line of alphas, but he had always been cautious. He had no siblings as his mother had difficulties during the birth, leaving him the only one to bear the burden. It also meant that there was no one to take up the mantel if he happened to die, so Gregory had lived an extraordinarily careful life. He wouldn't have had to be careful if he had a son or daughter to pass the title onto, but he refused to marry anyone except his mate, and ten years ago he still hadn't found her at forty.
Maybe he had finally found his mate and simply spent all his time with her. Or maybe they had a new baby and that required all their time. Suddenly Grim felt bad about approaching the door and asking for him to accept him.
But she needed to. She had only three months, which seemed so treacherously short when she thought about it, and she had to succeed. Grim wished her main thought was about the souls struggling to rip free and slowly dying and during dark, but really she was worried about herself. She did not want to be punished, did not want to be sent down.
Steeling her spine she walked forward, scythe and cloak fading away. She wanted to remove the dozen or so piercing on her face but didn't have the time. She wished she looked older and nicer and friendlier.
Grim pressed the doorbell but nothing happened and she was forced to knock loudly with the ancient brass knocker. Again Grim cursed human ears as she strained to listen if anyone was approaching.
She only heard him when he was turned the handle and opening the door.
Grim stumbled back, her mouth stretched in a silent scream of horror.
No. No .No. No. No. No. This couldn't be happening.
She had planned to stay away, hide from the rest of the werewolves, relying on the fact that they had no doubt forgotten the depressed little nobody who died a good decade ago. She hadn't even dared to think of him. She knew it would have made her dissolve into panic, so she focused on staying away.
Well, that plan just went up in smoke.
Because right now she was staring at Blake, at the man who was destined to be her soul mate, the one who would love her forever.
The man that, in the end, was the reason she'd jumped to her death.
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