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-SweetestHeart-
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Eight
Over the next few days, the relationship between Leon and me was quite rocky with a few tears, from me, and arguments spewing between us both because of me being held there against my own will. Also, that Leon didn't want me to go shopping, with the girls, because he wanted, selfishly, to take me out for the day since he had 'already organised it'. I didn't end up going with him because I was so annoyed with him and ended up locking myself in the bedroom, since I wasn't exactly going to go out with the girls in the town. However, every night, we always ended up in the same bed as each other and slept peacefully in each other's arms.
"So, what are your plans for today?" Caroline questioned as she prepared breakfast in the kitchen. I was up early, which wasn't unusual, whilst Leon was still asleep upstairs along with the majority of the household. There weren't too many people living in the household, just Leon's sixteen year-old sister, Tracie, who had been staying at her friend's house 'as she usually does' and Cassie had decided to move in until I'd got settled properly.
"I'm not sure," I shrugged, helping her make the pancakes by making more mix, "I want to see some of the town since Cassie tells me it has quite a bit of history."
"Yes, you should visit the town hall," Caroline smiled, "Leon knows a lot about it, so maybe you should take him."
As much as I didn't want to, I nodded anyway because I knew it upset her how I wasn't so 'in love' with Leon as she wanted me to be. I was about to mention that I might invite Cassie to come along when Cassie bounced in the kitchen followed by a gloomy looking Tracie. Cassie greeted us both whilst Tracie grunted and took a seat at the breakfast bar. She looked like she hadn't slept a wink and like she wanted to stay in bed longer.
"I hope you're thinking about getting dressed," Caroline spoke to Tracie, "school soon."
"Don't you think I know that?" Tracie rolled her eyes and I felt like smiling since she reminded of my little sister and a little bit like myself, when I was her age, "anyway, what's the point of school? It's not like I'm going to college or anything."
"You still need school to get by in life," Caroline rolled her eyes humorously, "I went to school-"
"-And, you're now cooking and baking for a man who is lying in bed with a headache," Tracie replied snidely, "mom, what did school do for you?"
"I'll have you know that I went to college," Caroline argued, though she didn't raise her voice and I had a feeling that Caroline was going to win the fight, like mom's mostly do.
"You dropped out second year," Tracie answered back.
"Because I fell in love with your father," Caroline told her and Tracie gave that 'I'm not that stupid' look to her before her eyes landed on me. Tracie's eyes formed into a short glare before she looked down at the table.
"I didn't go to college, y'know," I pointed out to Tracie. Cassie smiled at me, from beside her, and nodded, so I continued, "my mom and dad always wanted me to go, but I went against their wishes I decided to go travelling instead."
"Yeah?" Tracie looked up and rolled her eyes at me, "and, where did that get you, huh? Do you need school to go travelling?"
"You need school to get a job," I answered. She mumbled something under her breath causing Cassie to smack her around the back of her head. Tracie groaned, glared at Cassie and then looked at me. It made me wonder whether she had said something bad about me.
"I'm not going to get a job," she answered, "I'll marry someone rich."
Cassie mumbled something, and then spoke louder, "men like smart women, they don't want dumb bees hanging around them. You might even get rejected."
"Cassie!" Caroline scolded.
"Yeah, well, where's yours?" Tracie shouted at Cassie, standing up off her chair, "he's not turned up has he? In fact, he's probably dead." Caroline reproached Tracie for her attitude. "You're like a twenty-one year old virgin, who the hell is a virgin at your age?"
"It's called celibacy, dumb ass!" Cassie screamed. Leon decided to walk into the room at this time and he commented on the shouting, resulting in Tracie running out of the room in tears. Cassie sighed and went after her, leaving me alone with Caroline and Leon. Leon looked so sexy with his low-hung tracksuit bottoms and no shirt.
"Don't mind them," Caroline informed me. Leon went over to his mom, gave her a kiss on the forehead and proceeded to do the same to me, then took a seat at the breakfast bar. I blushed as I stirred the mixture and then wondered why I was still stirring it, when it was clearly ready. Handing over the jug to Caroline, I decided to start washing up some of the stuff. Caroline told me leave it and go sit down, so I did just that.
"Sleep okay?" Leon questioned when I'd taken the seat next to him.
"Yes, thanks," I smiled up at him before staring down at my thumbs. We'd had quite a few moments together when we could just have a normal conversation, but most of them ended up being a little bit awkward from all the arguing we'd done.
"Coral would like to go to the town hall," Caroline spoke, "I suggested she goes with you."
"Yeah, that's cool," Leon replied and I felt his gaze on me, whilst mine remained on my thumbs, "you're interested in history, huh?"
"Some," I answered and looked up to him, confirming it with a nod, "I heard your stuff is good."
"It's alright," he answered, "like most towns history, mostly about the wolves who used to run here and started up the town."
"How does a pack start up a town?" I raised my eyebrows at him, "they don't exactly have an ability to use hands to build things."
"Werewolves," he answered witfully, "how else do you think?"
"And, when were these werewolves around?"
"Legend has it that they never died out," he informed me. Two plates of pancakes were put in front of us both along with some maple and golden syrup in little glass jugs. I poured golden syrup on mine whilst Leon took the option of maple. I was intrigued to hear about these 'werewolves', so I gave him the 'go on' look, "apparently this town is still full of werewolves, but that's a secret between werewolves only. In folklore, it speaks of wolves that turned to men to build houses for all the women that they would fall in love with and the houses were big enough for their many children. To protect their many women and children, the alpha created a border and had men stand there to keep out the attackers, or to keep them all trapped in."
"But, I thought wolves had mates," I pondered.
"They do," Leon nodded, "most animals have mates, and even humans have mates. As the centuries went by, werewolves began to die out and their packs grew smaller and the werewolves would fall in love with one wolf, their mate. In fact, in our history, it says that there have been a few alpha's from different packs that have come to take over this land and have succeeded in doing so, but the town still remained to be closed off to others surrounding it. Hence the reason, we're so bordered up by forests. You never know, maybe I'm a werewolf."
I snorted laughter and Leon chuckled too. "And, if you are a werewolf, how does that make you feel?"
"I run this town, I'm the alpha, bitch," he shouted pretty loudly and we fell into laughter again. I heard Caroline laugh too and then Cassie and Tracie decided to join us again. Tracie seemed to look annoyed that she'd missed the joke whilst Cassie just smiled, grabbing a seat on the breakfast bar. The conversation continued slowly before I retreated to get ready to go out into the town.
I was ready less than an hour later (I'd taken quite a long time in the shower) and I waited downstairs for Leon. Instead of driving, Leon decided that we'd take a walk into the town and 'have some fun'. Yeah, like 'fun' comes into the word 'walking'. In fact, my feet were aching, even though I was wearing sneakers, by the time we'd even crossed over the line of 'road surrounded by forest' into the start of the road of houses. Leon told me about all his childhood memories as we walked and that his mom used to have a rule of 'not going passed Adam's house' when he was little and how he used to defy that rule. We were both greeted by some people walking by us and others in their cute little front yards. After listening to Leon's story about the werewolves, I couldn't have imagined wolves turning into men and building homes for all their women. It kind of made me feel disgusted that women would be used like that; I don't think I could've lived in a day and age when society wasn't equal. Sure, I'd live with it, but it'd be crap, right?
"So, this is the best road to view the town," Leon informed me as we stood near the top of a road that went down to the town. The town hall stood out the most with its towering clock that made it look more like a church, from where we were. "But, the towns pretty average, like most small towns. What's yours like?"
"The same," I replied, "average. A lot hotter and less greenery, what you could imagine in Arizona, I suppose."
"I've been there a couple of times," he informed me, "well, Phoenix anyway. I have some family nearby, maybe you know them."
"Yeah, of course," I rolled my eyes at him, "isn't that like saying you know someone who moved to Australia and asking a person whether they know them?"
"Alright, miss smarty pants," he replied and put an arm around my shoulders. "I was thinking of taking you shopping this weekend, what do you think?"
"Is there anywhere to shop here?" I asked him.
"Yeah, but I was talking about out-of-town," he answered.
"Okay," I shrugged. I didn't really need anything, but I knew that he'd insist on getting me clothes or jewellery since he was just that kind of guy. He was also the kind of guy who would say no to me paying for my things, but it wasn't like I had any money anyway. Most girls will be flattered at the idea of her man spending his money on her, and I was, but I also felt like I was being bought love rather than giving it. Then again, I didn't really have much intention to fall in love with him since he was keeping me there when I wanted to move on. Though, sometimes I wondered whether I was really just battling against my own feelings and that I did want to stay with him forever.
After five more minutes of walking, we walked into the town hall and Leon was greeted by an older woman who sat behind a desk to the right of the big door, then a man greeted us and I knew he would've been the man to run the town hall and look after it. Leon took me around the museum, telling me about the history, repeating some of the things he'd told me at breakfast, and showing me old artefacts that had been recovered when the town was set on fire back in the eighteen hundreds.
"When the town was set on fire," he told me, "very few people survived and most families were destroyed. Along with that, a few who did survive left town in search of a new place to live and it was about three families, who lived, that decided to build it up again."
It was interesting to hear about the history of his town, since mine didn't have much history itself, but it was sad to hear about them having to build up the town from scratch. He'd informed me that it was a great town, bringing in a lot of money before the fire, but they struggled after that from the lack of people to receive tax from and they had to use other methods, more illegal methods. It wasn't until the 1950's that the families grew bigger and the law within the pack changed. Celibacy was one thing that was part of the law of the town and another was that nothing illegal was to be sold within the town. And, so the town became bigger and more pure than it was before.
The last things I saw, in the town hall, was a picture of Leon and his family, but he must've been around fourteen years old. Leon explained that they were meaning to put a picture of him up, as the new 'alpha' (he'd said it like he was joking, adding a flex of his muscle to indicate that he was the meaning of alpha male), but since he'd been away for so long, he hadn't had the chance to get one done. Plus, he said that he really wanted to wait until he started his own family before he got a photograph.
After we finished up at the town hall, we walked back to the house through the woods. I didn't know if it would be safe, after the last time, but he promised me that we'd be fine and he'd look after me in case we did end up getting attacked or something. We walked in silence and I was afraid that maybe I'd end up starting up an argument or something, that's why I hadn't really spoke all day. Leon informed me that he wanted to show me something and we ended up walking for a good half an hour until we came to a beautiful waterfall that had no river or stream flowing from the pool of water beneath it.
"There's a tunnel under the water that leads all the water to the main river west from here," he enlightened me, "pretty cool, huh? If you can hold your breath long enough, under the water, you can come up in a cave and it's a really amazing place to hang out if you want peace and quiet. It's a little secret between Adam and me, but I know that others know it's here. I'll take you there one day, if you want."
I nodded. "Sure, that sounds cool."
"Let's sit down over here," he waved his hand towards a tree that was the closest to the water and we both sat down there. We were silent for a long moment and I couldn't decipher whether it was an awkward silence or a nice comfortable silence. It was leaning more towards the comfortable silence as I gazed around at the beautiful scenery of the forest and the waterfall. "I never asked you how the rest of your trip went."
I smiled. "It was good; I met lots of people and have a lot of new friends now. I spent the majority of my time working and partying, my sleeping pattern changed a lot with different jobs. The hardest bit was learning the languages."
"And, what language are you best at?"
I shrugged and blushed. "I forgot a lot of things. My mind likes to take in certain information and then replace them with other things. I still remember a lot of French and German, but I don't really remember Bulgarian and stuff like that."
"I went to Bulgaria last year," he informed me, "couldn't understand a word, but that's because I hadn't bothered to learn the language."
"Maybe you should in future," I looked over at him and stuck my tongue out at him. He was looking at me and we both gazed at each other for a long moment before I looked away, feeling a little embarrassed. Leon's hand found my own and I didn't move my own away from it because it just felt so right.
"We should head back," he spoke, after a good five minutes, and pulled me up as he stood to his feet. We slowly made our way back towards the house. Sometime, whilst we were still in the forest, Leon stopped still and sighed loudly, "I can't; I can't keep this from you any longer. You know about my town, you know about my family and that I want to keep you here, yet I haven't told you everything about me. Well, not the most important part." He stepped away from me and I looked at him as he stepped backwards a couple of times. "What I told you this morning about the werewolves is true, about me being a werewolf. It's all true and I'll show you."
Before I could say anything, he was stripping off in front of me and, soon, was naked. I blushed, but didn't look away as I felt like I wanted to see him naked, even if that is a little perverted. Then again, wasn't I allowed to look at him? Leon asked me if I trusted him and I replied with a shrug because I didn't know what I was about to 'trust' him with. A sound that was so unfamiliar to my ears, that made me cringe, came from Leon's body as he seemed to morph and sprout hair from his body. Then, he was on four legs, or paws, in front of me in the shape of a wolf. Not just the shape, he was a wolf.
My heart beat wildly and my legs stumbled back before my brain could apprehend it. I shook my head at the impossibility of what was in front of me, of what Leon had become. Then, I'd whipped around and started to run as fast as possible. Leon was behind me and I was getting so scared that he'd pounce on me and I'd end up on the floor, hurt, but all the noise stopped from behind me.
"Coral, stop!" Leon shouted and I knew he'd turned back to his human form. Against my own will, my legs stopped and I whisked around to face him. Still naked, but with a hand over his balls, he looked defeated. "That's the reason, Coral, that's the reason why I have kept you here." He looked around and sighed before he headed back in the direction we'd come from.
"Where are you going?" I yelled, not wanting to be alone.
"To put something on," he answered. And, I followed him, wanting to question him even though I could've easily run off further.
"Leon, h-how?"
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. He sounded really pissed off when he spoke to me, "It's the way I was born; I don't know how. It's all a part of science and I'm guessing that once some man fucked a wolf and we were born. Or, it was all a part of a successful science experiment. Or, like humans, we were born and that's how we came about." He walked onwards and so did I. "How do you think, Coral? I'm not a know-it-all, I don't know. And... God, I just wished you'd except the fact that I'm different to you and completely in love with you and want to be with you. Don't you understand? I have these feelings for you because I'm a werewolf and you're my mate, Coral. I've never fallen for any other human or were in my life and I never intended to. I was looking for my mate and I found you and you went away, leaving me alone for two whole fucking years." Suddenly, he punched a tree really hard and splintered it, then he walked on. "You turn up on my doorstep and don't want me, then you're all friendly to my people except for me. Always me, Coral, always me. I've tried everything to make you happy here and I can see that even the truth, what you have wanted to know, makes you want to be away from me."
"Why are you angry, Leon?" I cried, "I didn't do anything wrong; maybe you shouldn't have done whatever with me in Paris and you wouldn't be like this."
He turned around in a fury and his hands went into the air as he screamed, "is that what you want, Coral? If that's what you fucking wanted, you shouldn't have done it in the first place. Was I an easy lay, huh? Is that all you wanted before you went and fucked other men around the world like a God-damn whore. If you were-"
"-Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I held my hands up at him, "don't you ever call me a whore, Mr. I am not a whore nor will I ever be. There were like two other guys after you and none of them satisfied me the way that you did or made..." I trailed off, feeling like an idiot for revealing that to him. "I can't believe you'd accuse me of being a whore."
His face softened. "I'm sorry, I was angry. That was out of line. Look, if you want to leave, I'll get Adam to take you home, okay? He'll take you tomorrow, if you wish."
"Why should Adam go out of his way and do that?" I asked, aggravated. "Just because he's your... whatever doesn't mean he's your little lapdog. If you want something doing, you'll do it yourself."
"Fine, I'll take you home," he growled, then continued his trek back to the clothes that were still lay on the forest floor, "I just pray that you'll give me a chance to make things right between us."
I was silent and it wasn't until we'd got back to his home that I told him that I didn't want to go home just yet, that I wanted things to be made right between us, even if it was just to become good friends with each other. Even though, I wanted a lot more than just being friends and he knew that too.