“Congratulations.” Adrik says walking into the kitchen. I smile at him and hop off the counter. I had to help clean the dishes up and my hands felt all wrinkly. Adrik leans against the counter across from me.
“Well thank you. At least your polite about it.” I say. I know that Adrik wasn’t the happiest about this marriage thing, but at least he was being supportive, unlike Nick who was supposed to be my best friend. Adrik sighs and crosses his arms.
“Ah, you are talking about Nick.” I nod. Adrik and I stare at each other in silence.
“He said he loves me and that he wants to be with me.” I say. Adrik sighs—again.
“I know. He really thought you were the one for him. He told me and I know that he is seriously crushed by this.” Adrik says. That just makes me feel worse. I really hope that I could get pass this with Nick. I needed him.
“I don’t know what to do.” I say putting my head down in defeat. I can feel Adrik stepping closer. He brings me in for a hug.
“He’ll get over it—he just needs time.” Adrik says quietly. I guess that Adrik was right. I hope he is right.
“Thanks.” I tell him. He smiles at me. I say goodnight to Adrik and head into the living room. Will was probably already sleeping, but I was nowhere near tired. My mind had to many thoughts in it to even rest.
I turn on the television and plop down on the couch. I take a blanket and wrap it around me. The fire was on, but I still felt cold. I stay up and watch television. My mind lingers over Nick and our problem. I should talk to him, but what would I say? It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t love him the way I loved Will…
“Hey.” A voice. I nearly jump up in the air. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to sneak up on me these days with my werewolf senses and all. When I turn my head, I see Nick.
“You scared me.” I say. He smiles sadly and takes a seat on the couch to the left of me. I turn down the television and look at Nick. We sit in silence for a few minutes before I sum up the courage to say something to him.
“I don’t want you to be mad at me Nick. I do love you, just not in the way you want.” I say with my voice fading in and out. It always happened when I was about to cry.
“I know Estelle. I can’t find a way to be friends with you because I don’t know how to go back to being friends again.” Nick admits. I don’t say anything. He was sort of right. After him kissing me, everything just feels awkward with him.
“It is going to take me a while to accept the fact that you will never be mine.” He says. This was a step in the right direction for us. Once he came to terms, we would be okay. Everything would be okay.
“I’m so sorry Nick.” I say. He has lost everything and I felt so bad for him. I look down at the ground. He didn’t have a family left. All he really had was me and I rejected him. Nick doesn’t say anything and I look up to see that he just left. I sit back, deep in the couch and lay down. I fall asleep eventually.
“What happens now?” A man says. He is muscular and tall, but a little wide. Another man that is standing next to him radiates so much power. They both have the oddest looking eyes I have ever seen.
“We must acquire the Jewel of Equinox. It holds the power to the universe.” He says. He is smaller than the other man, but twice as powerful and his eyes are extra black. The bigger man smiles evilly.
“Yes, yes. We won’t be the only ones after it. The guardians will also be protecting it with their lives.” He says.
“Of course my lord.” The bigger man says.
“Yes, but now is the perfect time to steal it. I hear they guardians are going through a—transition in leaders.” The leader says with an evil smile.
“Very smart my lord.” The bigger guy says. The leader turns to the bigger guy and points to the door.
“Now, go get Garth and the others. We must plan.” He says calmly. The leader walks back to his chair and sits down on the lavish velvet cushion.
“Yes my lord.” The bigger one then exits the room and everything goes black.
I wake up breathing normally, but I have a huge headache right now. I am not on the couch anymore, but in bed and Will’s arm and left leg are draped over me. What kind of dream was that? It couldn’t have been a vision. Those men didn’t even look natural and I never wanted to dream of them again. I wipe my eyes and sit up with difficulty because of Will. He pulls me back down and I cannot help but smile. As much as I was troubled by this dream, Will made me smile. What was the Jewel of Equinox? Did my mind make this up? Or was it real? I wasn’t really sure. I guess I would have to wait, but I wasn’t going to alarm anyone at the present moment. Things finally became normal and good again.
“Will, I have to go to the bathroom.” I say. He pretends like he doesn’t hear me and keeps holding me tight. I roll my eyes. I try my best pushing against him, but it does no good. He was stronger than me.
“I swear that I will pee all over you if you don’t let go.” Will finally opens his eyes and laughs. He let’s go and I sprint to the bathroom. I really did have to go.
Back in the bedroom, Will is just relaxing on the bed. I want to join him, but we had work to do today. We had presents to wrap. I pounce on the bed—on Will and he is momentarily startled. I double over laughing, wishing that I could gotten a picture of his face.
“You have to help me wrap presents.” I order. Will gives me a look saying “hell no”. I lean over him and kiss his lips as slow as possible. He growls and places his hands on my bottom to pull me closer. He bites on my lip and I smile just before pulling away.
“Help me.” I whisper against his ear.
“Okay.” He says. I smile to myself and pull out everything. I wanted to get this stuff done now so I wasn’t doing it Christmas eve.
“Why didn’t you come to bed last night? I had to carry you up from the living room.” Will states.
“I just wasn’t tired and then an hour later I just passed out.” I give him an assuring smile. I’m not sure if he buys it but Will doesn’t say anything more on the subject.
We spend the rest of the morning wrapping all the presents and I have to say that I am pleased with myself. I was always pretty good at wrapping. I go to leave the room, but Will pulls me back.
“We don’t have to go down just yet.” He says with a naughty smile. He pulls my hips into his and I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him possessively.
“Eww gross!” I pull my head away from Will and find little Skye with a crazy look on her face. My face turns beat red.
“Skye!” I push Will away and he even looks embarrassed. Skye giggles and she start running away.
“I am going to tell mommy and daddy!” She screams as she runs. Will and I look at each other for a few seconds before running after her. Skye couldn’t say anything because we would both get in trouble. Sokolav, Owen and Anne put us in a room together because they thought we were responsible enough for it. Well, we sort of were…
“Get back here Skye.” Will yells. Ronnie pops her head out the door and I run past her. She look annoyed by all the ruckus. Skye laughs and then turns into a wolf and she runs faster. We couldn’t turn because we were larger and would wreck the house. We run all the way down to the main floor. Skye runs towards the study.
“We aren’t going to stop her.” I tell Will as we run side by side. He pushes harder but I know that Skye is already in the room. I ran right into the room long enough to hear Skye tell on us.
“Mommy, Daddy! I saw Willy and Stelly do the grown up stuff that you and Daddy do.” She says speaking to Anne. My eyes go wide and Will stops breathing. I can feel the absence of his heartbeat. Anne raises a brow at the two of us and Owen grits his teeth. I look down at the ground. I was completely embarrassed and ashamed.
“Oh. Thank you for telling Mommy. Go outside with grandpa, okay?” She nods and sticks her tongue out at me. How would she even know what grownups do? She walked in on my parents. Will sends the message and jaw drops. Damn. Owen shuts the door. They both look livid.
“I trusted you two to be responsible. I thought you could handle sleeping in the same room without the temptation.”Anne says. Oh, we were way past the temptation. Anne and Owen didn’t need to know that though.
“Mother, please. We were only kissing. That is it.” He says coldly. Behind the two of us, he holds my hand tight. We are such liars and I hate it.
“I do not care. I don’t want your five year old sister seeing that. She has seen enough.” Anne says. Owen smiles slightly and I try my best not to laugh.
“It is highly inappropriate for her age.” Owen pipes in. I nod and mutter an apology before we scoot out. Will and I head straight for the kitchen. I grab something to eat and Will does as well. Ronnie comes in and she asks us what that was all about. We just tell her the truth and she grins.
“Oolala. Sounds delicious.” Ronnie says with a wink that was directed at me. I sigh and shake my head at her. She needed to stop talking about that night. Will smiles at me and I shake my head at him too. That whole ordeal was embarrassing.
“We will be more careful next time.” Will says in my ear. His breath is hot on my skin and I shiver. Yes, we would be very careful next time. Deadbolt on the door careful. Skye didn’t really seem at all scarred by what she saw. She actually didn’t really care after she told on us. Skye was such a tattle.
An hour later, I order Will, Adrik and Colton to take all the wrapped presents down to the massive Christmas tree in the living room. It looked beautiful the way it was all lit up. Adrik wipes his hands on his pants and looks at his handy work.
“Just wait until the Eve of Christmas. The church will look beautiful.” Will and Colton nod in agreement. I look at them with a confused expression. Church?
“What church?” I ask. Adrik points behind him.
“It’s on the other side of the castle by the south beach. It is pretty big and we only use it for special occasions.” I smile. I can picture my wedding being there and knowing Sokolav, it probably would be there.
“I didn’t know that.” I say with a smile. Will nods and pulls me towards him. I don’t like it when he does this with Adrik around. He only does it because it gets under Adrik’s skin. I give Will a dirty look and Adrik an apologetic one. He half smiles and leaves the room.
“You really shouldn’t do that. One day, he may just kick your ass.” I say jokingly. Will leans in towards my neck and inhales my scent. He kisses my neck ever so gently.
“I doubt it.” He says. I push Will away even though I don’t want to.
“Really? We just got in trouble for doing that.” I tell him. Will doesn’t really care and he keeps going that is until he hears a cough behind him. Colton was still in the room. Oh yeah…
“You should really get a room. Don’t want me telling on you too.” Colton says with a laugh. Will turns around and I can see his mean expression. They exchanged silent words and I wish I knew what was going on. Colton turns serious and he leaves the living room.
“What was that all about, huh?” I say poking Will. He shakes his head and plops down on the couch.
“Nothing. Sit down with me.” I don’t believe him, but I don’t pry farther. I kept things from him and I wouldn’t expect anything different from him.
I spend the rest of my afternoon with Will lying on the couch. I try to watch the movie with him, but my mind drifts off to the dream I had. There was something about it that I didn’t like. The men were scary and unnatural looking and they held so much power. It also scared me that they wanted something and I somehow knew they would do anything to get it. Even if it meant killing.
Christmas Eve came rolling around sooner than I thought. We all crowded into the church and it was so beautiful. The stained glass look fantastic and the large candle chandeliers hung from the large vaulted ceilings. I sat in between Will and Nick which was incredibly awkward. Nick and I were on small talk terms. We would have conversations when we ran into each other, but never made the effort to actually hang out. It was sad, but we were gradually getting back to being friends.
Sokolav not so surprisingly ran the service. We sung the usual songs and everything, but the communion was a little different. We drank the blood of Sokolav mixed with wine because he was our leader. It tasted just as nasty the first time I had it. After the service we went back to the castle and went to sleep. Skye was told if she didn’t sleep, Santa would not come. I laughed.
Will and I go to sleep and the next morning Skye is bouncing up and down on our bed. She is yelling for us to get up. I yawn and pull the pillow over my face. Will snuggles closer to me. Skye yells and jumps on the both of us. I finally get up and I let her and Will drag me downstairs. It turns out that we were late. Both packs were all ready to open up presents. I don’t think I have ever seen so many gifts around and under a tree. Hundreds and hundreds of gifts. It was amazing.
Everyone got at least five gifts and there were personal family gifts to open back at their own homes on the island. I got a lot of clothing and the cutest necklace that was from Nick. Will got me a deadbolt lock as an inside joke that was between us. I was cracking up. No one else got it of course. When my mother opened up the present that was a picture of her and James, she started tearing.
“It is the best present ever honey. I love it so much.” She kisses my cheek and I smile at her. After the presents, everyone just hangs around and at three, we head in for the big early Christmas dinner. Afterwards, Will takes me into the study. He shuts the door and takes something out of his pocket.
“You didn’t really think that deadbolt was your present, did you?” I shake my head and smile at him. Will opens up the box and it reveals a bracelet encrusted with diamonds. On the inner part of the bracelet is an inscription that say. With Love Forever and Ever. I smile and wipe my eyes. It was so beautiful and the inscription was simply amazing.
“Oh Will, it is just wonderful! I love it so much.” I say as he helps me put it on. I kiss Will’s lips and he kisses me back in the way that I love.
“Only the best for you. Merry Christmas Estelle.” He says. I hug Will.
“Merry Christmas Will.”
I KNOW THAT I SORT OF SPED THROUGH CHRISTMAS, BUT I NEED TO GET TO THE GOOD PARTS IN THE NEXT CHAPTER BECUASE THE END IS NEAR...BUT, I AM THINKING OF CREATING A SECOND INSTALEMET TO "THE BOY FROM THE BASEMENT" SO LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THAT... THANKS :D