A Year Later
A bird landed in front of me and I smiled at him. He blinked a few times before Hermes beside me gasped and he quickly sat up. He breathed a little heavily as he stared at the bird then he start chuckling as he looked at me. I gave him a thumbs up and he kissed me.
“I knew I was strong for being in my generation, I didn’t know I was that strong to be able to go into another creature body. I thought you had to be Fifth to be able to do that.” he said. He arched an eyebrow, “You swear you didn’t help?”
I shook my head, “No help from me, promise. You did it, you did it yourself.”
“How though?” he asked. “I’m a Third, it’s not possible.”
I pointed at his forehead, “You just need enough concentration. My dad learned it and he was able to actually send that magic to my mother. Her soul was projected into the neighbor dog.”
“You dad is crazy.” he said and I shrugged. “So now you guys are gonna have your mates turn into dogs just like yourselves?” he asked sarcastically and I hit his shoulder, making him chuckle.
“You wouldn’t survive being a wolf.” I said.
He tilt his head, “Why’s that?”
“Because you’re not that awesome.” I said, shrugging. “Even, at first it’s scary. I remember my first shift, it was intense. The moment before it happens, you see what becomes your other half of your soul. You can see your other half in the moon light and she ran over to me, jumping into my body. We became one. She just needed her mate to come back to her.”
He stared at me for a second, “You have to tell me what happened when you met Fiacre and Meline Janiver. There are like royalty, Jaycee. Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because they’re scary.” I said. “The old lady just looked at me and if I would have meet her in my wolf skin, my tail would be between my legs. You know her eyes are these crazy intense milky blue color? I felt her magic just aura off her. You know I can people aura now since that’s my gift and hers was crazy shinning this gold color, even for her old age.”
He reached over and twirled the strain of gray hair that doesn’t seem to go away. I don’t think that two inch thick of hair ever going to be dark brown again. I don’t mind it so much as I use to, it became apart of me and I think it’s pretty cool. “Why is that stopping you though? I told you. It’s not like they told us we couldn’t be together.”
“They wouldn’t have stopped us anyways. I don’t ever want anyone telling us that we can be together or not.” I said. I stared at him for a moment before sighing, breaking, “Fine. She threaten to take my family wolves away. She a Tenth, Hermes. She could do it with just a snap of her fingers. We just have to keep my kind side in line and she’ll do the same for yours.”
“That didn’t go very smoothly last time though at the last gathering.” he said, frowning.
“I shouldn’t justify James Russo’s action since I didn’t even know him, but your cousin Caider shouldn’t have provoked him.” I said.
“I know that, but James shouldn’t have gotten his brothers into it.” he said. “Ganging up on someone?”
“We’re wolves, we’re come in packs.” I said. “He called James a dirty foul dog. He kept poking at James until he snapped.”
“I know, I know.” he said. He sighed heavily, “These gathering are hard though. I mean, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy but damn. It’s hard to bring two different people together.”
“It’s harder to meet people who’s your family. I mean, if we weren’t wolves we could have just walked passed each other and never knew we were somehow related. I’ve come to learn that even though we’re all wolves, we all view differently of the world. We’re all literally different packs.” I said. “I always grew up just knowing the father of the household of the family was the Alpha, but it’s like we’re all in different groups. Grandpa is our Alpha, since he’s the oldest but after he’s gone, Uncle Skyler will become the Alpha. They all agreed to it. Things are changing.”
“You know what I noticed?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“There are allot more boy wolves than females.” he said. “And you guys like to have big families.”
I chuckled, “Who are you telling? I always knew. I want a whole litter of puppies though myself.”
“Whoa! Hold your horses.” He said, sitting up straighter. I chuckled and he nervously chuckled, “Three is the most.”
“What? You don’t wanna have a bunch of little rugrats? I know your kind kids are proper but it’ll be fun to have some evil wild brats. I grew up knowing how to handle them.” I said.
“I was bit by one of those kids! He literally ran up to my arm and bit me!” he said.
I shrugged, “I still don’t know who’s child that was.” I reached out and took his hand, “One day when we have our own kids though, they will be special. They will be both of us, unique.”
He nodded, grinning, “I know.” He arched his eyebrow, “Hey, where are my glasses?”
I bit my lower lip and I reached behind me to pull his glass out. The right lenses were cracked and he scoffed. Hermes used magic to fixed his eye but that only lasted a couple of month. I told him to go back to wearing his glasses because he looked nerdy and adorable in them. He was still very handsome in them though. I didn’t want him to change who he is and don’t need magic to change himself.
“When you left your body, you fell and I caught you. But your glasses fell off and they hit a rock.” I said. “Don’t you have an extra pair?”
He took them, sighing, “No, but I know there’s a spell that should fix them. I just can’t remember right now.” He leaned over and pecked me hard on the mouth, “You’re a weird girl, Jaycee. Never change.”
“Don’t plan on it.” I said, chuckling. “I’m hungry though, lets go get something to eat.”
He nodded and we both got up. We took a step forward but he stopped and blinked a few times. He groaned, holding his glasses up, “I hate my vision.”
*
I hugged some distant relative since it wasn’t a thing to shake hands in our family. Some people shook hands and some people kissed each other cheeks. My family, we hug. And apparently the same goes for distant relative.
The gathering happened like it did for the last three. In the privet part of the woods, lot of food, a bunch of wolves, and a bunch of witches and warlocks. Of course, my kind all got along quickly. It was weird meeting family you never knew you had, but I was getting use to it. I just know we have two things in common. We share the same blood as Juan Russo and we’re all wolves.
The witches and warlocks who were either family with Hermes or just here because to check out if we’re really different from their stories they told about each other. Of course, allot of us took it as offense as if we were side freaks. It was hard to make the witches and warlocks understand we’re not much different from them.
My kind is allot wilder than Hermes.
We actually knew how to have a fun party.
The humans were just kind of in the middle. I knew my mother felt awkward around both kind but she put on a brave smile. Same goes for my aunts and my Uncle Darien.
I don’t know how many people were here. Three hundred? Maybe a little bit over.
After awhile of everyone trying to get to know each other, Grandma and the other elders of each kind called everyone attention. I smiled as I took Hermes hand and we went to go join them at the front.
I said hello to a man name Clayton Blackstone and Shannon Goodworth, but her maiden surname was Russo. They both the oldest of their families—AKA pack as we start calling it—and my grandpa was the oldest in ours. I welcomed the two oldest in Hermes kind name Arica Bolder, Hector Faye, and Clifton Brett.
Clayton cleared his throat and spoke loudly, “I have many to many, many family gatherings but this one is actually the most interesting one yet.”
“Yeah.” Shannon said. “How much things can change with one pair.” she said, looking at Hermes and I. “For over three hundred years, we had a tradition almost you can say. Past down the story of Juan Russo to our children and learn to love yourself for who you are. And to love your mate, no matter who she or he is.”
“We all gotta remember, we’re all family.” Grandpa said. “We have to trust each other, respect each other. So trust me when I say, we don’t know the witches and warlocks as much as we thought we did. I was the same as all of you—I thought since they did this to our family we should hate them but if they hadn’t, we all wouldn’t be here this day. We have our mates who were made for us. We were all paired together for a reason.”
“We wouldn’t be able to say we’re different, but a good different.” Clayton said. “We’re all special.”
“Did you’re ancestor Juan killed people like us for a living?” A witch asked, leaning against the tree with a hard look on his face.
“Yes.” Shannon said. “And he got what he deserved.”
“That’s history.” Hector Faye spoke up. “We all have to learn from history. This isn’t the first time I met these people, this is the second gathering I been to. They’re not like what he was.”
“That’s because they can do what we can.” Another spoke up. “They have magic, like us because our kind stupidly put it in them.”
“Chris,” Arica said coldly, giving him a look. She sighed heavily, pushing her glasses further up the bride of her nose, “Look, it’s hard for me to believe to. But we’re talking about black magic that did this to this family. The witches that did this? They weren’t very strong witches, they were first and second generationers who used dark magic to turn Juan Russo into a werewolves. We don’t use magic to get revenge on people. The Spirits clearly had to have a reason to gift them with the same abilities as us. They’re peaceful people, unlike what we all grow up to thought.”
“Juan Russo changed after he became a wolf.” Grandpa said. “He became to regret what he did, he was remorseful.”
We called continued to discuss about my ancestor actions and how we’re all different. It was always like this, we had to make each other believe we’re both not dangerous to each other. It took awhile, it was always an argument before we all agreed to respect each other. There was always a fight and my father and Uncle Jamie had to pull Uncle Skyler off a warlock who said about how the poor humans had to be stuck with us, but he had said it while looking at Aunt Haley. Apparently the Warlock had been flirting with her earlier. Aunt Haley was embarrassed.
The gathering lasted most of the night until three am. We all had agreed to either stay away from each other or respect each other, giving it a chance to learn about each other and become friends. I know it wasn’t just going to happen over night. Nothing just changes over night just like that. It’s going to take time before we all could live in peace.