“I swear baby you’ll thank me for this later.” Allyn rambled along as she fluffed the new pillows on her sons couch, he’d been in his apartment for over two weeks and still hadn’t arranged it as he should have. She pushed the long flap of red hair hanging in her face behind her right ear and patted the pillow a few more times before standing up, “There’s plenty of girls out there Blaise. Trust me, what about Stephanie? Are you two well?”
Blaise sank deeper into the misplaced computer chair and groaned, Allyn knew well enough that the pair had been broken up for months, and that she had did the breaking up. Besides, she hadn’t liked Stephanie to begin with for more reasons than one; the girl was too preppy, her enthusiasm for the dark arts went to far and as far as Allyn knew, she was a whore and deserved to be treated as such. She was trying her best to ease his rapidly growing irritation at not being able to see Mara.
Sure she was a sweet girl on the occasion that Allyn had spoken to her, she was rather quiet and nice all around but she was spoken for. She’d been spoken for the minute her mother gave birth to her in that cold alley behind Chez. If anything it was Mara Blaise should feel sorry for and not himself, Allyn noted with a slight frown.
He bit the tip of his thumb, sunk his square teeth into the soft flesh as he bluntly ignored the ill help of his mother.
“If you’re going to sit there and mope over a girl you barely know at least give me a reason why she was so special that you chose to disobey me.”
“Her heart, its pretty.”
With all seriousness he said the words, bit into his thumb and eyed the wall across from him as if it had committed a great wrong. He said a lot of unintelligible things lately, it came with being told for the first time in your life that someone was off limits for good.
The room lightened as Allyn chuckled and settled into the couch she had fixed just before. The setting sun threw a few more lines of orange and yellow light as she reached over to her left to turn the lamp on for more light, “That doesn’t make any sense Son. Explain to me how you could possibly describe her using words fit for a five year old?”
A tightness filled his chest, he rubbed a hand across the stubble on his face and sighed, “I can’t explain it. How did you feel when you first met Dad?”
Instead of answering Allyn shook her head and rose from the couch, “Snap out of it Blaise. It doesn’t look good for our community to have you mourning over a girl that was never yours to begin with. I warned you didn’t I? Didn’t Alec show you what he would do if you ever attempted to get that close to her again. He’s not one to underestimate.”
He squeezed his eyes and took a deep breath, “I know.”
He just wished that he had listened to begin with.
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It had been awhile since she had felt this loathsome and distraught. No amount of pep talks from Andrea or cookies and cream ice-cream could change the fact that she felt like she had been tossed away.
Mara pressed her forehead against the cool window in her bedroom and sighed heavily. She took her hands and pressed the light things against the cool glass as the wintry sun cast its light over the dim blue hue that clothed the day. She loved moments like those, watching the color change as the seasons slipped from one to the other, sometimes even meshing themselves into one if only for a day.
And she also hated them, because those were the times she felt the most alone. Melancholy happiness, that’s what she called it as she smiled through the pain tearing at her chest and the blurry film of liquid forming over her eyes. Outside her window the evergreens swayed from a gust of wind whipping through the woods, just as the birds, black and brown swirled in the air like a hurricane until they flew off, arrow style.
This sucks, Mara thought as she allowed her curtains to slip from her hands and fall back into place, covering the entire window and taking with it what little light the room had. Her hair encompassed her head like a makeshift pillow and her eyes peered around the room aimlessly. She had nothing to do but wait, and wait and wait.
For what?
What exactly was she waiting for?
Surely not her aunt, she was at the grocery store, not for Andrea, she was somewhere ‘bonding’ with her little sister.
And what was she doing? Nothing….
Grrrrrrrr
Her fingers swept against her pudgy middle in rhythm with the growl being emitted from her belly like a warning, “Ugh, why am I so fat?”
She wanted to lose weight, hell she would love to lose a good twenty pounds if that would help her out, but supposedly she was ‘just right’ and ‘fine’. It wasn’t fair being the only black and chubby girl in the community. Mara blamed her fathers genes for her Turkey leg thighs and round hips, if it wasn’t for him then she would have come out slender and taller like her aunty.
“Even so…”
A strange scent drifted up her nostrils, something piney, wolfy. Her aunt? She pushed the blankets aside that she’d wrapped around her body and made her way through the dark room, feeling around for objects to keep from falling over. It would have been simpler to turn the light on, but she didn’t feel like getting out of her dark mood just yet, she’d have to let it marinate for a while before she got over it completely. With these thoughts in mind and a hand caressing a switchblade in the bottom of her jeans pocket she opened the door as quietly as she could.
Squeak.
The door groaned slightly as her long fingers wrapped around the handle, turned it slightly and pulled gently. A thin streak of light from the skylight in the hallway drifted in, cascaded over her mess of curls and tired face. Her nerves rattled and her composure shook with the possibility of an intruder being in her house. Who else could it be? One of the pack members? Rarely did any of them come to her home, it had to be someone else.
But who would be stupid enough to trek through the woods to steal from their Hubble?
Her right hand wrapped around the smooth wood of the switch blade and she tiptoed quietly, lifting one foot gently at a time against the old floorboard.
Cool breath blew against her neck, “Hey there.”
She screeched, turned, jumped and flicked out the blade as if she didn’t have a deadly weapon hidden somewhere inside of her body. The boy, tall and blonde haired with green eyes smirked and leaned against the banister, “Jax?”
He shrugged and dug his too skinny hands into the cool depths of his pocket as she eyeballed him with the utmost curiosity. Mara took the blade, flicked it closed with a lethal display of technique and pocketed it in the back of her jeans.
Shit, what does he want?
She knew Jax, otherwise known as one of Alecs goons. The boy didn’t have a life of his own worth much, he spent most of his time hopping to do Alec’s bidding, whatever Alec wanted and when Alec wanted it done. At twenty one he looked more like a sixteen year old in need ofa haircut and some serious manscaping, and a life supply of sandwiches to put meat on his uber skinny bones. Of course he didn’t care too much for her either, she was a mutt to him, what respect did she deserve?
Mara could recall the various tricks that Jax and his friends would play on her as a little girl, petty things like filling her mickey mouse purse with mustard, smearing her hair with marshmallow cream and calling her ‘mixed breed’. Alec had been in on it too, in fact he had been the ring leader, which was one of the many reasons why Mara didn’t want anything to do with him. With that being said, there was only one reason why Jax would be in her house, on the second floor, intruding.
“What do you want?” she tapped her bare foot against the floorboard, cold air nipped at the callusing flesh, just as another one tore through the cracks in the house and covered her body like an ice blanket. It was like an icebox in the house, and yet Jax looked so very comfortable with noting but a white t-shirt one size too big for his small frame and tall body.
Jax remained unfazed by her indignant pose, instead he answered with a flourish as if the news was too important for even Mara, “Mason sent me to let you know about the ceremony tonight.”
She blew over the last part and focused on the first, “I have a cell phone you know? There’s no need to barge into my house just because your Alec’s lackey.”
He continued on, rolling his eyes before speaking, “Mason is naming his successor tonight and everyone muyst be in attendance to witness the occasion.”
Oh this is rich.
It really wasn’t that serious! Mara had heard of cases like that before, but wasn’t the successor supposed to be the Alphas son? Isn’t that how it went?
Then she thought it over, bit her thumb as her eyes blindly bore into Jax’s unbecoming pimple. Even if Mason did have a son, what if he died before the boy became of age? Someone would have to be there to run the pack until then. But Mason was young! Ok…not really young, but young enough to produce a team of children. She wondered why he hadn’t been able to produce boys at all, it was frowned upon in their community, but then again with someone as strong and determined as Mason it didn’t matter much.
“Why am I just now getting this news? Isn’t there like a dress code or some shit like that?”
She had a good point too, Jax shrugged it off, it wasn’t his problem so why should he try to sugar coat it or fix it?
“I’m just the messenger, no one told me about dress code. You can walk around naked swinging off ropes and shit for all I care.”
Mara thanked him kindly with a nice bird thrown in his direction.
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Alec looked past the makeshift Coliseum towards the crowd of growing wolves. His whole ‘ceremony’ was nothing but a dud, it was a show, a pretty little thing to make the girls coo in awe and make the men bristle in anger. His eyes flicked over again, past the leaping flame of the torches to the girl with the flaming red hair.
From where she stood she could see Alec watching her and in an effort to appear innocent Seraphina hooked her arm into Taylors, the blonde barely noticed. Taylor cringed as Alec’s eyes penetrated hers and his smile spoke of all the evil and sinful things he planned on doing to her as soon as the ‘ceremony’ was over. She’d had enough of him using her, wrapping her hair around his fist as he breathed into her neck and nipped at the soft flesh until she cried in both pain and ecstasy. Her eyes averted to Seraphina and she caught her red-headed friend twirling a lock or hair around her finger and casting a quick but discerning eye at Alec.
Bitch.
She almost spat the word out as the anger flared in her like a growing volcano until it spilled over. In her anger and frustration she yanked her arm out of Seraphina’s and pushed through the crow of people chattering about the ‘Ceremony’.
“Taylor, where are you going?! Its about to start!” Seraphina called in worry.
Had she’d known that Taylor had seen everything she’d been trying to hide she would have shut up and pretended to be merely one of Alec’s admirers. But Taylor knew, and she wasn’t happy about it. But what could she do? Not a damn thing.
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Meanwhile Lauren curled an arm around the Heir’s neck and whispered in his ear, “Cousin, control your women.”
Women, which did she mean? The one’s within the community, or the meat girls he banged on each occasion he got? It was so simple to get them to unbuckle their jeans for him, all he had to do was lean over and promise to pleasure them first and then voila, they were like puddy in his hands after that. The Were girls on the other hand, it took a little more convincing to get them out of their panties.
Alec shrugged, his curls moved with him in an indication that it was way past time for a good haircut, “I know not what you speak of Cousin.”
The Alpha’s bastard caressed the flesh at his neck, took hold of it between her index and thumb and pinched with a hiss, “Save that bullshit for someone else. I know what you’re trying to do and as soon as I have proof, your ass is grass. I don’t know what Daddy was thinking about when he decided to make you his successor,”she leaned in closer, smiled at the crowd, some were watching and others were waiting, but she continued, “If anyone should be the next in line it should be me! There are no concrete rules that states the Alpha should be a man. You may have everyone else fooled, but trust me, I’m just as cunning as you are, if not more so.”
She left off with another quick pinch and pressed an endearing kiss to her cousins cheek. Inside he roared as she walked away, her thin figure lithely moving like a rippon in the dark sky, black hair swaying in the ocassasional breeze as she made her way next to her father and her stepmother.
The little bastard had some nerve walking over to him and degrading him before the entired community. She would learn soon enough that he wasn’t the man to play with, family or not he didn’t take crap from anyone and he certainly wouldn’t take it from her. He balled his fists up in his lap, nodded at everyone and smiled as heat filled his fists and his mind went into over drive.
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Andrea jittered in her spot as another wave of cold wind encircled her body. She pulled her leather coat closer and prayed for dear life that the ceremony didn’t call for shifting. A few spaces away she could hear Clarissa grumbling as Rafe attempted to calm her down.
“No! She should be here! Do you know how long it took me to search for her? And still I couldn’t find her. If she wasn’t my niece I would have torn her to pieces.”
Rafe cast her a look of disapproval, “Mom, calm down please. This ceremony is in no way legit, if she missed it so what?”
She knew who they were talking about, Mara had apparently gone AWOL within the last few hours. She couldn’t be reached by phone or car, she had suddenly disappeared into thin air. The ceremony was a fake to her too, who gave out last minute messages like that to begin with. She was beginning to suspect like Mara that Alec was one big pile of shit that needed to be handled accordingly, hadn’t she given up a potential date with Nick?
And where was she now? Awaiting some bullshit ceremony while her ex-boyfriend argued with his overprotective mother a couple steps away. Hell, Mara should have filled her in! She would have ditched too. But as her nose filled with the familiar scent of Rafe, she almost felt….happy that she had come.
He’d seen her too, in fact his heart felt like it would rip out of his chest at the sight of her standing with her arms crossed and head cocked to the side in boredom. If his mother hadn’t been there then he would have went to her side, caressed her and held her close with weeks’ worth of apologies spilling out of his mouth like sweet honey.
But when he met her eyes, those sweet browns hardened quickly and focused on something more sinister than Rafe could ever be, Alec.
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She would’ve gone, if she had wanted to, but the truth was that she really didn’t give two fucks what the hell was happening. As she pushed through the underbrush in the deep of the woods and prayed that her aunt wouldn’t find her and beat her for running away just an hour before she left, she tripped on a root and fell on her face.
Dry leaves and pebbled doesn’t feel very good pressed against your face and she certainly knew that well. Still she laid there though it was cold and dark and a few hours past her designated bed time, she’d been hiding down at the bar in hopes that no one would find her and luckily it had work. The only problem was that she would eventually have to go back home and face the music.
Yes, she had done a great wrong, but who gives last minute news like that? For all she knew the whole pack had probably dressed up from head to toe in fancy wear, or maybe they had worn nothing at all! Whatever was going on with them, they needed to find a decent way of communicating without sending some dingy boy who badly needed some ProActive. There had been talk of initiating a mind link again between all the members but she would be damned if she’d have to open up her whole life to people who could care less about her. Like hell she would!
Soft cold fingers caressed the fabric of her jeans as she breathed into the dirt. She took up bits of soil and dry leaves as she opened her mouth to scream when another hand pressed against her lips, “Where were you Dear?”
Alec…damnit.
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A/N: Comment/ Vote/ Like
Pleaseeeee let me know how you're liking this story and what you want to see in it. I'm open to ideas, I pretty much have the story outlined in my head but a couple of scenarios would be fine. Let me know if you want to seem something different, how much you like the story, if I suck occassionally, anything really lol. Just to let you guys know, I'm really falling in love with this story...my day is not complete until I've written at least one page for 'Mara'. smh, strange right?