"Oh hey Taylor," Charlie greeted, entering the flat.
"Oh, hi Charlie." I smiled, a bundle of nerves in my stomach.
I sat on the floor watching Emmy color her princess picture before Anna took her to school.
"Whatcha drawing there, Emmy?" Charlie asked.
Emmy ignored him, remaining silent, and I peered at her curiously.
"Emmy?" I asked softly. The door opened and Anna came walking in. She gave a berth around Charlie, although she played it cool.
"Come on Emmy, it's time for school." Anna said, and Emmy nodded, putting her picture in her room and grabbing her backpack.
"I'll walk with you," I offered.
"Actually, I was hoping to talk to you," Charlie cut in quickly before Anna could respond.
"Yeah, sure, okay." I said with a fake smile.
Anna and Emmy left, but I felt the power inside of me buzzing like a thousand bees, ready to be unleashed the second he made a threatening move.
"What is it you wanted to talk about?" I asked into the silence.
"It's Emmy." Charlie ran a hand through his hair. "She doesn't like me and I don't know why, or how to change that."
“She’s young, Charlie.” I shook my head. “And although she may act like a normal, happy child, she isn’t. She needs time.”
“You don’t like me very much either,” Charlie accused. I inwardly winced. He was onto me.
“It’s not that, Charlie. My brother is dead,” my voice cracked and Charlie looked away, unable to look in my eyes. I cleared my throat to continue speaking. “It’s nothing against you. I’m just an adult version of Emmy. I need time too. I have to go, though.”
I made to move past Charlie, but his hand locked around my arm, grabbing me tight.
“Why are you here?” Charlie asked. I froze, turning around to stare at him with shock.
“Excuse me?” I bristled, hostility in my tone. I ripped my arm out of his grasp, turning to him, my face in his. He didn’t blink.
“Why are you with my brother? The Star Alpha, the half-lycan. The man who can never comfort a crying girl. You must cry a lot. Why are you with him?”
“He’s changed.” I said rudely. My wolf was fighting, scratching at the surface. She wanted to kill him for challenging our love for our mate.
“What’s going on in here?” Evan came out of the shower in the guest bedroom, his eyes scanning the room. I could see the wheels in his brain turning, and my cold brown eyes met his. His eyes widened slightly when he took in my appearance, and his wolf probed at mine.
My wolf snarled through the link he was creating, and his wolf rumbled in response, rising to the defense of his mate. Evan, however, was silent, waiting for someone to answer his question.
“You don’t know that man he’s become. And you don’t know the hell I’ve been through. It’s none of your business.” I said firmly, my tone quiet but deadly. “Do not ever question me again.” I felt the Luna in my rising out, my tone becoming threatening, the order in it ringing clear in the room.
“Charlie,” Evan said warningly, a subtle warning in his tone. Charlie backed away from me, his hands raising in a surrendering motion.
I looked up at the clock on the wall and grabbed my phone from the counter. “If you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere I have to be.” I said politely, making my way past him and out the door.
I bumped into Anna in the halls, and stopped. “Oh! Anna, I didn’t realize you were coming back.” I said.
“Just came to get Emmy’s lunch box. She left it here.” Anna lifted up the lunch box, gesturing to it. “Walk with me?”
I was confused. “Oh yeah. Sure.”
“It’s bothering you, isn’t it?” Anna asked me, a knowing look in her maternal eyes.
“What is?” I asked.
“Charlie.”
I sighed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, into my ponytail. I glanced behind us to make sure Evan wasn’t following, but his link was silent, and he said nothing. We passed Orion and his eyes met mine.
I nodded to him, gesturing with a slight nod back to the pad. He nodded discreetly back and left, one of the guards he trusted to watch Charlie closely flanking him.
If Anna noticed the split second interaction, she said nothing.
“Seeing Evan get his brother back just makes me remember all too clearly that I’ll never see mine again,” my heart caught in my throat, and it took a lot of effort to mask my pain. “I think that’s why my wolf hates him. My temper- she’s affecting it. I can’t control myself. Until then, I can’t even look at him.”
“When you look at him, you see a family.”
“Something I’ll never have,” I said, sighing again, this time with regret and defeat.
“But you and Evan-”
“I don’t expect to make it out of this war alive, Anna. None of us do.” I admitted. She frowned.
“I see.”
--------------
“Seriously?” Axel puffed, getting up from the ground. “You’re a bad liar, you shouldn’t have made up a story. He’ll go straight to him and we’ll all be in deep crap.”
“I’m sorry, I know. I just panicked!” Axel punched me but I raised my forearm, blocking him. I turned around, having my back pressed against his chest and I grabbed him by the inside of his bicep, throwing him over my shoulder.
His back hit the mat on the ground with a thud and he let out an “oof!”, groaning slightly as he got back up to his feet.
“You know, you’re intimidating when people look at you. But you rely too much on your brawn.” I pointed out.
“So are the people we fight. They’re werewolves and hunters. They think like we do.” Axel pointed out.
“And what if one day, you’re fighting vampires?” I questioned. “There’s a reason Sarge taught the others the way he did. There’s a reason Rebecca fights the way she does. You need to be prepared to be lithe, flexible. It makes you ten times more lethal.”
Axel sighed, nodding reluctantly, knowing I was right. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes settling on something in the distance. He cursed under his breath.
“We’re caught now for sure. I’ll go warn Mila.” he said, and then he was gone.
I turned around when I scented my mate in the distance, watching as Evan approached from the pack house with a stone cold look on his face. His eyes were blazing, but emotionless.
I stood still until he was inches from me. Wordlessly he grabbed my bicep and pulled me with him, deep into the woods. We would have been walking for an hour if he hadn’t used his speed to have us arrive miles away in a blur.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded, pinning me against a tree. His eyes blazed with anger.
I remained silent, looking away from him. He breathed out heavily through his nose and released me, backing away.
“Talk to me,” he said firmly. “You know you can do that right?” his voice was tinged with worry and desperation. It was unusually hard to read his emotions.
I brushed my dark hair away from my face. “You were listening to Anna and I.”
“I’m always listening,” he responded, sounding angry.
I stewed on what I could say to distract him, also debating on whether or not I should. How would he react if he caught me lying to him?
But you could say a half truth. It wouldn’t be a lie.
What if I just told him the truth?
He’d lose it.
I don’t know that.
Yes, you do.
Evan watched silently as I had an internal battle with myself, his dark blue gaze assessing me.
“It hurts,” I said suddenly. “It hurts more than you could ever imagine, and that’s the hardest part. Even if I could find some way to tell you- you would never understand. You’re blinded.”
“I am rarely one to be blinded, you know that.” Evan said, his tone cold.
“You are, Evan. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows.” I looked away from him as betrayal flashed in his eyes.
“You’ve been talking about me behind my back to my pack?” he asked me, his tone cutting and filled with accusation.
“No!” I protested. “I wouldn’t do that. And it’s supposed to be our pack, so you can drop that tone.” I added, glaring up at him.
I only angered him more.
“If this is about Charlie’s comments and questions, I’ll pull him aside and talk to him about it-”
“No!” I said loudly, and then inwardly cursed myself. Damn it! Control yourself Taylor!
“What is it Taylor?” Evan asked, desperation in his voice. I ran my hands through my hair, tugging at it.
“I can’t do this.” I muttered, shaking my head. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?!” Evan demanded.
“I don’t want anyone else to know.” I said to him, nearly choking on my lies. What I was about to say was the truth, but it had nothing to do with what he was asking. “I don’t want to see the pity in their eyes. See them watch me and wait for me to snap. Your Mother watches me like that. Like she expects me to break at any moment. I’m already broken, Evan. Shattered into a million goddamn pieces and I-” my voice caught in my throat and I looked away from him, tears burning the back of my eyes.
I forced them down, gritting my teeth, trying to get a hold of myself. “I’m tired of pretending I’m okay,” I muttered. That was true. I am tired of pretending. “I just can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.” I backed away from him and left him in a blur, heading deeper into the forest.
He was in front of me in less than a second, grabbing my shoulders and glaring daggers into my eyes, shaking me slightly.
“Tell me what this is really about.” he said firmly. Damn it.
“I did tell you I-”
“No!” he yelled. He paused for a moment, clearly wrestling with his wolf’s temper. “The truth.” he said through gritted teeth.
“The truth?” I demanded. “The truth is, you left me alone!” I shouted. I regretted my words as soon as they left my mouth and I backed away, covering my face with my hands. The echoing silence wreaked havoc on us both.
“You left me alone to care for myself, this pack, the other pack, Emmy… all by myself.” tears spilled over my eyes as I looked up at him, running down my cheeks. “And I can’t even be angry at you because you were looking for your brother. You brought a stranger into our home, Evan!” he took a step back, shocked beyond belief. “A stranger that my wolf wants to rip apart and I’m terrified every time you say you’re going to be alone with him, because I’m scared you won’t come back! I agreed with the others that we should stay silent until we were sure because you are blinded, but I can’t sit here with a fake smile while that… man is sleeping down the hall from Emmy! From my kid!”
“That’s why you had guards with us. They weren’t watching over us. They were monitoring him.” Evan did look betrayed.
“Only one. Orion only trusted one not to tell you.” I was honest.
“My Beta was in on this?” Evan demanded, quivering with anger.
“Axel looked wrong. When you came home. Something was wrong with him.” I explained. “He said that there were holes in Charlie’s story. Things that didn’t add up. Lies that he could easily prove. His gut was wrong. And my wolf… the second she saw him, she knew. Even Emmy won’t talk to him!”
“Who else was in on this?” Evan demanded. “Who else was conspiring behind my back based off of your gut?” there was a sneer in his voice and I visibly recoiled away from him, stung by his words. He realized this and softened slightly. “Taylor I-”
“We’re doing this, just like we planned. He’s weaker than we thought he was. The mate won’t be an issue.” I said in a monotone voice.
Evan froze. “What?” he demanded, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I dreamed he killed you.” I said, my tone still dead. “You held me while I cried. You fell back asleep but I couldn’t shake it. I went for a walk, to clear my head. I found your brother outside, and overheard him say those exact words on the phone. As soon as he heard Axel coming he hung up and took off. When I got home I lied to you. I came straight home to tell you what I heard, but you were happy. I couldn’t ruin it. I couldn’t ruin it on the off chance of us being wrong. So I lied, and had you take guards.”
“You lied to me?” he looked so hurt, and my heart shattered into a million pieces, the guilt consuming me.
“I’m sorry, Evan. But your brother is planning something with someone on the outside, and he was probably going to kill me to stop me from warning you. He was catching onto my mistrust.”
Evan whirled around and his fist went straight through a large tree behind him, creating a hole in the oak.
“Evan-” I took a step forward, attempting to stop him before he destroyed the tree.
“Don’t,” he snarled, jerking away from me. I recoiled, his actions burning me. I looked down at the ground, avoiding his tormented blue eyes.
He backed away, shaking his head in denial. Suddenly, with the slight whoosh of the wind, he was gone.
-------------
“Damn,” Lance mused, pausing to mull over everything I told him before taking another sip of bourbon. “That’s… wow.”
“I know,” I said, my face covered with dried tears.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Camila shrugged, pouring herself another glass of bourbon. “I think keeping it from him was the best you could do.”
“What?” Lance demanded. “No way.” he shook his head. “That was definitely a mistake. Now there’s no reason for Charlie to kill her. What if he had, before she could warn Evan?”
“The others knew,” Jake pointed out.
“Okay, but look at his reaction. This went bad because you lied.” Sapphire was on Lance’s side.
“I don’t know,” Ben said hesitantly. We were surprised he was even with us. He wasn’t a social type of guy. “I think that his reaction is more based on shock, rather than betrayal. If anything, he’ll feel betrayed by his brother, not his people.”
“They went behind his back.” Sapphire argued.
“What else could they do?” Camila asked. “Look at the way he reacted after they gathered evidence- imagine if they’d said; “oh hey, by the way, your brother- yes, the one you just got back after being missing for half of your life- is a traitor because we don’t feel right when we’re around him”? That wouldn’t have worked out. It would have warned Charlie of their suspicions. Now, they have the phone call. Without that, they wouldn’t have known about an outside enemy.”
“I agree with Camila on this one.” Jake nodded.
“Okay, that's fair, sure. But after the phone call, you should’ve told him.” Lance said to me. I sighed, downing the bourbon and holding out my glass to Camila.
She filled me up again and I worked on downing more.
Suddenly, the alarm system Isabella and Ben had hooked up throughout Haven started going off. That meant there was a mission.
We all clambered to our feet and rushed up to the mission room, where Isabella was already coordinating another mission.
“You guys gotta run, and you gotta run fast. Travel as light as you can, be expected to fight in wolf form. Rogues are attacking this town.” Isabella said quickly before returning back to her screens.
“S.I.D is on the way, just hold on!” Isabella shouted through her headset. She turned to us. Our eyes were on the screens, watching through the body cams as a slaughter was happening in front of us.
“Go!” she yelled to us. Quickly I took charge, grabbing the comms and throwing them in my go bag, zipping it up tight.
“Let’s go.” I said, and the others nodded, each of them grabbing a go bag and following close behind me. I shifted as soon as my feet hit the front porch, grabbing my go bag between my teeth and taking off into the forest like a bullet.
---------
“Take cover!” Lance shouted. We all ducked behind the debris on the bridge, my back against the underbelly of a flipped car.
Lance’s bomb went off, and I watched through the broken axle as it sent pieces of a rogue wolf falling over the destroyed bridge.
Sapphire shot to her feet, using the distraction to use her powers, bright light emitting from her hands, causing the rogues to be momentarily blinded.
Lance and I used that to open fire on the wolves. The only thing that was helping was the fact that Lance and I had great aim and silver bullets- but the rogues were in wolf form, and there were almost two dozen of them. Even with our powers and our skills, we were sorely outnumbered.
“How do they get this many in a pack?” Jake asked. “There’s no way this many rogues are running around America!”
“They’re not all American rogues! Mexico, South America and Canada have joined the fight!” Ben yelled back.
“Ben!” Camila launched herself forward, tackling a rogue who had snuck up behind the two of them. The rogue locked it’s jaws on Camila’s shoulder and bit down. Camila let out an ear piercing scream of pain, and Ben was quick to shoot the wolf in the forehead.
Camila collapsed outside of the cover, right into the line of fire. Jake was quick to raise a shield, bullets from the human rogues clattering uselessly off of the blue energy.
Ben was quick to grab Camila and drag her back under cover. She cried out in pain, and I heard Ben apologizing profusely and repeatedly as he got her behind cover. Jake was at their side quickly, helping tie her wound until it could heal.
We needed a miracle.
My eyes met Lance’s, and he read my thoughts. He nodded. “We’ll cover you!” he shouted.
||Evan’s P.O.V||
“Honey, you must have terrified her,” My Mom said through the bluetooth in my car. My foot was pressed down on the gas, the paranoia in me rising. “She probably thinks you’re angry with her.”
“I’m not!” I shouted. I took a moment to calm myself. I don’t understand why Charlie would say something like that. I don’t understand why my pack would go around behind my back. Why my mate would. “She ran away, and I have to get her back before Emmy finds out we fought again. She’s fragile enough as is- she’s latched onto Taylor and they live in codependence. I can’t let my emotions hurt Emmy.”
Liar. That’s not why you’re chasing after her.
I couldn’t help but feel betrayed by both of them- and I hated not knowing who I could trust. My wolf knew, he’d known since the day my brother returned home. But my wolf was biased.
But he also knows better. My subconscious apparently sided with my wolf.
“She didn’t run away, Evan. She would never run away from you, or her pack. She’s a Mother now, she wouldn’t leave her child. Even Emmy knows that.” my Mother reprimanded me.
“I’m almost to Haven.” I cut off the phone and drove quickly through the gates, rushing inside Haven, noticing the absence of her scent.
It was still fresh, as if I’d just missed her. I scented Isabella in the mission room and ran in there. “Where?” I demanded. I could see chaos and a slaughter happening on Isabella’s screens, but of all the shouting voices, I couldn’t hear my mate’s. I didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing yet.
“She’s fine, Evan-”
“WHERE?!” I almost screamed. The slaughter on the screens terrified me, and my attention was brought to a separate screen, one that was watching a bridge, not whatever place Ariel was in.
“-we’re pinned down! We’re outnumbered!” I heard Taylor shout through Isabella’s headset.
“Send backup now! I’m setting off a bomb!” a male shouted.
I was out of Haven’s front door within seconds, shifting into my wolf, my clothes shredded in piles of fabric behind me.
------------
When I came upon the city, it wasn’t hard to find where they were. I found debris on the street underneath a bridge, smelling the smoke and spilled gas above me. I passed a pile of fur and a splatter of blood on the concrete and nearly gagged at the putrid smell of burned flesh.
I heard sounds of fighting and glass breaking up ahead, and a car alarm starting to echo throughout the dead streets of the human city.
I took off, my bare feet soon crushing on bare glass littering the street. I followed the sounds of gunshots cracking through the air, rounding a corner.
I found nearly twenty rogues gathered in a circle in the street. I spotted figures running away from the scene, one of the male figures carrying a female in his arms.
But I found my mate exactly where I knew- but had been praying she wouldn’t- be. “TAYLOR!!” I screamed at my mate, who was staring at the wolves surrounding her with a determined look on her face.
Her head shot up, her eyes growing wide, a wild panic in her eyes. “Lance!” she screamed.
Lance? Did she hit her head? I’m not Lance!
I started towards her, but was hit full on by the force of a wolf’s body, sending us crashing through the glass wall of a shop. The wolf pinned me down, his paw at my throat, snarling warningly.
The wolf shifted right before my eyes before I could kill him, which I was just about to do. I was suddenly staring into the brown eyes of one of the Gifted boys, Lance.
“Lance?! What the hell are you doing, Taylor-”
“Knows what she’s doing!” Lance snarled, using unbelievable strength to force me back down when I tried to rise. “Stop her and she may accidentally kill you- do you want her to have to live with that guilt?”
I was silent, stewing on his words, trying to find out what she was about to do. It finally clicked in my head, realization dawning upon me.
“No,” I breathed, and this time Lance could not keep me down. “TAYLOR NO!!” I rose to my feet in time to feel the ground underneath me begin to tremble.
I looked around, my eyes widening, my heart beginning to race as toys and other objects began to fall off of shelves, the shelves tipping over and coming crashing down around us.
I turned to see my mate standing in the middle of the rogue wolves, who were frozen still, her fists clenched. She was bent over, her knuckles buried deep into the craters they formed in the asphalt. A look of pure pain and rage came over her, her teeth were gritted in concentration, her eyes flashing in a dangerous way. Blood started pouring in what seemed like an endless stream out of her eyes and her nose, and I collapsed to the ground, feeling the pain through the link nearly crippling me.
“Taylor,” I gasped out, still able to see my mate as she shakingly rose to her feet. A piercing scream of pure rage nearly blew out my eardrum, and then… it was like the entire world blew up.
Everything around us shattered, and despite the pain I was in, I shifted into my lycan form and covered Lance as cement pieces of the building began raining down on us. I was barely able to see a large chunk of the cement building above us before it hit me, nearly crushing me onto Lance, who curled up underneath me.
I dug my feet into the ground, my claws ripping up the carpet and carving into the stone floor, setting myself in place as I propped up nearly the entire building on my back.
I could barely see through the raining dust as every bone in the rogues’ bodies were shattered, their bodies blown into a million pieces from the inside out, Taylor at the center of mass destruction all around her.
When the shaking finally stopped as the force from her body blew over us, I gritted my teeth and let out a determined growl, setting my feet deeper into the stone and heaving, pushing the building off of my back.
Lance scrambled out from underneath me to safety, running through the debris over to my mate, who was swaying on her feet, her blood dripping onto the ground.
My strength diminished, the pain shooting through the link and my legs gave way. Perhaps if Taylor wasn’t in such a horrible state, my lycan could have held the building up. But the tons of weight from the five story building crushed me, and I crumbled beneath it.
The dust stung my eyes and I could barely shift my head, my eyes desperate to see Taylor. Debris surrounded me, and I was encased in darkness, the only light shining in coming from a gap between two pieces of the wall.
I could see onto the street as Taylor’s legs gave out from underneath her and she crumpled to the floor like dead weight. I heard the sound of her heartbeat stutter and falter for a moment before picking back up again, a weak patter coming through my ears.
The rubble shifted and I could no longer see my mate. I let my head fall to the ground in defeat, listening to that weak patter, praying it never stopped.
There was only one other sound coming from her body that was loud enough for me to hear.
It was the sound of her blood hitting the asphalt, slowly falling, over, and over, and over. The sound tormented me, nearly crushing my soul.
Drip… drip… drip…
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A/N: Y'all, their relationship is bipolar as heck, I know. I did it on purpose.
I still have editing to do for both books and have been catching up with editing, making sure the books are saved on a drive, and school.
For all of you kids out there in school, kudos to you. That crap's hard this year.
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Love you guys🥰