Mara fingered her nose ring more out of nervousness than anything else. College, it seemed, had more cons than perks and she was about ready to hang it all up and quit school for good.
What am I doing here anyway?
The four walls that held her in at that moment represented a white prison to her then. She wanted nothing more than to leave that damned room and hurry into the world just outside. The flowers, the scent, the feel of nature beckoned to her, demanded of her, enticed her. Mara shook in her seat as she held her #2 pencil right above the scantron. Her eyes darted to the test next to it and she scowled.
History, she deemed, was an unnecessary subject.
It was all just a bunch of overdramatized facts meant to enforce and not educate people. The Salem Witch Trials, did not interest her at all.
Witches weren't her cup of tea.
She smirked to herself at the thought of actually meeting a witch and bubbled in the first answer that sounded right to her. She knew she would pay later if the answer was wrong, she was sure that her Aunt Clarisse would chide her for yet another bad grade. But she was the student, Clarisse wasn't.
Thirty minutes into the test she completed it with a smile, a sense of satisfaction at having been one of the first to finish before the hour was up. She gathered her satchel bag, soft beige material with studded pink flowers and half-moons all over it, along with her scantron and test and made her way to the front.
The professor, a woman of spinster age and golden looks took her test with a grimace, more to herself than to Mara. Mara, smiled anyway and muttered a quick, "Thank you," before setting off outside.
The moment she stepped outside the A&H building she noted the change it weather. It had dramatically changed from a bright and sunny day to thunderous clouds and a thin spray of rain.
Thankfully she wasn't afraid of water in the least bit, it was her satchel bag that she was more afraid of. She could easily dry off with a towel, but those documents; her poetry and school work could not be so easily dried.
"Mara!" She looked around until she found the owner of the voice and smiled.
Andrea, her close friend waved to her from across the courtyard, she picked up her pace until she was nearly running and stopped right in front of her, "Hey, good to see you're not dead yet."
"Rafe hasn't annoyed me to death yet," she laughed.
Mara simply nodded and followed her lead as she made her way past the courtyard and student center to her car parked a few feet away from the trees lining the campus. Mara was thankful that she'd spotted her, now she could salvage her work and make sure it was dry by the time she got home
On the car ride back Andrea teased her, "Alec asked about you." She wriggled her too thin eyebrows and pursed her pale lips.
Mara chuckled, A harsh one at that as she combed her thin fingers through her still wet, course and curly hair, "Alec is pathetic."
"You shouldn't be so picky," Andre warned, running her fingers through her own long red hair, "he's perfect for you."
Mara shrugged and looked out the window as they passed by the miles and miles of trees and forest land that outlined their complex. She didn't think he was perfect for her, in fact she thought he was the worst guy imaginable for her. She could care less of his relationship to the alpha, she simply didn't like his personality. For one he was too course, and vile. Most of the things he said to her were of a sexual nature and though she wasn't necessarily innocent she was still a virgin by every meaning of the word. He had no way to talk to her like that, Cousin of the Alpha or not.
"He's a shit head, and I hope he rots in his vomit."
Andrea wasn't the only one who pushed her to fall into Alecs arms, it was also her aunt, the beautiful fair skinned and dark haired Clarisse, "It's a blessing after the shame your mother cursed you with. Alec, is the one for you."
Whoever she were to choose, it would be someone that she wanted. Alec didn't fit into her equation with his small brain and supposedly even smaller manhood.
"I wish you would think about it. I'm your friend and I love you. You know that?"
She did, but it still didn't change a thing. Alec, something about him made her skin crawl and she didn't like it one bit. He wasn't ugly but he wasn't so aesthetically pleasing that he had women dropping at his feet either. Alec was rather average with a stocky muscular build, black curly hair and emerald green eyes. If anything attracted women to him, it was his relationship to the Alpha, he shoved that down anyone's throat if they allowed him to speak. He was that as well, insufferable and arrogant.
"Yeah," Mara pressed her slightly brown hand against the window and pretended to touch each and every raindrop sliding down its glass on the outside.
Her mother, she didn't want to be reminded of her either. Her shame, her love, her death. She'd rather forget that she had two parents and simply focus on the one person she did have, her aunt Clarisse.
But she couldn't escape the fact that she was different, not just her skin color which was the result of an affair between clashing skin colors, one pale and one the darkest brown, but also who she was. Half of this and half of that. That's what everyone meant when they told her she should be thankful to have Alec so enamored with her.
Loup-Garou
The word clouded her thoughts and poisoned her mind as she thought of what everyone would say when she attended the event that night. She was sure to hear the cat calls and the insults that they loved to rain down upon her every chance they got.
"How are you feeling?" Clarisse wringed her hands together as Mara paced the mottled carpeted floor in her room.
Mara bit the tip of her index finger and continued pacing, "Like I can't do this."
"But if you keep practicing, it will happen. I know it will."
She threw her arms into the air exasperated and stomped her feet like a little child rather than an 18 year old girl, "I can't just shift on will, and he expects ALL of us to do it. I can't do it auntie, I can't do it. Can't I just stay home? Please?"
Clarisse crossed the threshold into Maras room and rubbed her shoulder. She knew how the girl felt, and wished that she could've been of more help to her. She did however curse the girl's mother for making her that way, for making her into this divided creature that could do nothing but wail and rebel.
"Keep trying, please for me?"
Mara sighed and sunk onto her soft mattress with the yellow shooting stars and blue clouds. She couldn't understand why she still had the sheets; they mocked her, "Why am I here? Where's my father?"
Clarisse visibly froze, but Mara didn't notice, by then she had her head in her hands sobbing for the parents she never knew. It wasn't the first time she had uttered those words, but Clarisse was wary of them all the same, "I don't know."
And she didn't know, nobody knew where he was, but they knew that he had left Delilah just moments after lying with her. She blamed her sister, for being so free, for being so loving of the human race that cursed them. Had the man even known who she was? What she was? Or did she simply push it out of her mind and lay with him?
"Isn't there something the witches could give me? Just for tonight?"
Her eyes pierced into Clarisse's and she could only look away and search for something else to lay her eyes on. They were convenient, the wizards that is, but Clarisse had a certain foreboding feeling about them, as they did about the Loup Garoux as well. They weren't the friendliest pair, the Lou Garoux and the Wizards but they were amicable by all means. They simply had boundaries; ones that they didn't dare cross in case a war began to brew between the two communities.
"Just for tonight." Clarisse was desperate; she knew that if Mara didn't shift that night that she would forever be shunned. If she couldn't run among her own kind then what use was she to the tribe? She was better off among the humans doing mundane tasks like any other person.
Mara understood as well, but she wasn't sure if she was opposed to the idea of living away from her tribe. She could learn to be normal, it would be simple. But Clarisse had other things in mind, "I will be right back."
Within moments she was gone, gathering nothing but a shawl to protect her arms from the branches and trees and she trekked down from the houses her tribes habited to the ones below, right at the foot beside the lone street. She blinked her eyes to summon vision for the night as it was dark, a very dark eight o clock. After nearly twenty or so minutes of walking she spotted the house she had been looking for, an old friend of hers Allyn resided there with her own son, and she was known to be a woman mastered in the arts of sorcery. After another five minutes she stopped in front of the house and took a deep breath, it would have been quicker if she had shifted, but she knew she couldn't risk that so close to the open.
Tentatively she knocked against the wooden door, worn with age and magic. Footsteps hurried to the door and then a woman, with short red hair curled neatly under her chin and youth freckles spaced around her cheeks gave her room to pass in, "Clarissa, so good to see you."
"Allyn." She nodded with a smile and made her way into the warm room. The interior of the house looked nothing like the outside. Whereas the outside looked worn and old, the inside was refreshingly modern with a pinch of antique artifacts here and there. Allyn's son, Blaise sat on the cream colored couch playing a game of OPS.
"Blaise, we have a visitor." Allyn chided her son, who should have been somewhere studying for Quantitative and Chemical Analysis rather than playing a game.
He nodded, hardly giving her look as he moved his arms from side to side and yelled excitedly at the Flat screen television.
"Blaise..." Allyn warned.
Clarissa waved it away and smiled, "Its ok, I really came here to ask you a favor."
"Of course, follow me." She took the lead, flicking her finger at Blaise to release a small cloud that issued a light dose of snow as she passed by. They reached her room, to the end of the hall and as she flicked her hand it opened slowly, "I'm a bit lazy." She apologized to Clarisse.
She did the same once the two women were in the room and she had settled into her seat under her desk, "What can I do for you Clarisse?"
"I don't ask of much, but tonight. Its an important night and Mara hasn't been able to change on her own."
Allyn nodded in understanding, her friend had told her of another incident just like that, "And you need help?"
Clarisse smiled apologetically, "Anything you have for tonight? Just for tonight? I know its in there, but it needs coaxing, a little bit of pushing if you will."
A charm is what she needs Allyn thought to herself.
She snapped her fingers, "Blaise." She said softly to the air.
His feet bounded down the hall and then he was there in her room, "Do you have to do that?"
"You don't listen to me any other way."
He sighed and ran ahand through his rough red curls, "Yes mother, how can I help you mother?"
She pointing at the thin black fabric encircling his neck, "I need to borrow that for a moment."
"Don't you have more?" He scowled.
"Yes, but that one retains some of your magic, I need it, only for tonight."
Blaise groaned within himself before unclasping the choker and handing it to his mother, "There, there dear." She smiled at him and shooed him away with her hand.
When he was gone she held the choker up and smiled at Clarisse, "This is just what Mara needs. With a spell it will be just right for her."
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A/N: Bonjour My Loves :-)
I never thought that I would even consider writing a Werewolf book because, well, I thought that it was cliche and so many people on this site made it into something as superficial as mate this, mate that, and omg thats my mate! mate, mate, mate. At first I said, no way, i'm not going to write about wolves,but I won't lie, i love wolves and vampires, just not the fluffy ones, and the sparkly ones. So anyway, I read the first line of this werewolf book on wattpad and I was so disgusted I decided 'Hey! I'm going to write one' And so here lies my brainchild 'Mara'
For one thing I was sick of the cliches, and the painless transformations and all of the 'good' qualities of a werewolf. Where are the traditional qualities? I mean the bloodlust, the uncontrollable rage, the black outs, the quality and the need to be something other than animal? Where is that? I hope that you find that 'Mara' is not a book of cliches, but a girl struggling to figure out who she is regardless of her heritage.
Over and Out..
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The big shabang if your not into cliches!
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A/N#2 This book is HEAVILY flawed people. The plot is off, the ending is confusing and there are bits if inappropriate sexiness in here that may or may not have you saying WTF. It's a warning to all...eventually I will edit this bad boy.bur not today!