Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend

by Tina Smith

  “He seems to have had a go at fighting.” I eyed the bloody cuts, which miraculously healed further in the last few moments, leaving blood where gashes had been over his skin. If they had known my real thoughts and feelings she would not have sent Sky to do the pack’s bidding. I wanted to ask him if the scars would heal as they evaporated into mist whilst I spoke.

  He glanced at the blood and coughed a sneer. “This?” He shook his head. He looked at me with his fluorescent turquoise eyes, which made me catch my breath and his tone was quieter. “That’s just him protecting himself. I’ve been brewing for some while the anger I just threw on him. He looks worse, you’ll be happy to know,” he said sticking his chin out. Was he testing me? I thought. Did this mean he never wanted me to be with Reid?

  “Well, lucky me,” I added. “Thanks for the conformation, send my love to Sam.” I laced my words in heavy sarcasm. If I had been a werewolf I may have burst into form. “You know I never pursued you all. He and Sam invited me in, I don’t need you to stand here and tell me I’m not wanted.”

  Sky looked angry then, fierce. I almost stepped back, afraid in that moment he may hurt me. I could feel his aura of heat as he moved towards me. “You are wanted, Lila. God, you are such a self-absorbed teenager, I don’t even know why I care.” He looked sad. “I just came here to tell you not to worry about this because he wasn’t worth it. If he was he wouldn’t have taken off…” We stared at each other. “Are you okay?” he added sounding concerned. The way his eyes ran up and down my body made me weak at the knees. I wondered after his tirade why he bothered to ask. Did he really just come to check I was okay?

  “Why did you attack him?” I asked softening.

  “To protect you.”

  My heart skipped a beat; I looked at his long fingers and desired them to touch me. Instead I asked, “But you said you’ve been angry…” Was it with me? I wondered.

  “He used you. Sam used you. He’s her puppet despite what I’ve told him. I didn’t want to tell you - but there.” He shrugged and his mouth pouted. He had wrongly assumed the information that Reid had used me would hurt me. Instead I was relieved.

  “Sam influenced him, but he still did it,” he admitted. I knew it was true, he had no reason to tell me other than it bothered him. I didn’t care, but I could tell he thought it hurt me. Nothing could hurt me but losing him.

  “Of course I’m fine!” I screeched in a hushed tone.“I told you it was mutual! Whatever he didn’t feel for me - I didn’t feel for him! So really, don’t waste any time being concerned for me, I’ve survived worse, I was just having fun!” I spat - the last part was a lie but it was closer to the truth than to say I loved Sky, his best friend instead. I was relieved to say it though it sounded like a cruel defence. I wanted him to know it was he whom I wanted and nothing would compare. That Reid was just second best, someone to fill the space that I needed him to fill. We stared at each other in some strange standoff in which I was pissed off and tense, though I didn’t quite know why. I guess it was easier than being desperate or vulnerable.

  “Good,” he said again and with that he turned around and disappeared into the night. Whether he was shocked or happy about my lack of feelings over the matter, I couldn’t know. He probably didn’t believe me.

  What the hell is going on? was all I could think in that moment. I knew it was over. That I would never see him again – not like that. Why had I ruined it? Why was Sky so suddenly concerned about my virtue and my feelings? Surely Sam had sent him. I was still numb, whether it was an after-effect from Sam’s gift warping my thoughts or just self-preservation; I was on autopilot, unable to clearly understand what was going on. I wondered if clearing my head would have helped at this point. I assessed the damage; in a heartbeat I had been nearly eaten by my boyfriend, broken up with him, been brain-washed into calm agreement and confronted by his best friend, whom I really loved. Who had seemingly defended my honour? I still hadn’t realized why they let me in or wanted me in the first place, let alone why they had ousted me. I wasn’t needed for the team. I felt lightheaded.There was plenty they hadn’t told me, I knew it. Since I could no longer talk to them I needed to get answers from the only other person who I knew could tell me – Cresida. I would have sought her then, but I didn’t know where to find her tonight and I knew I would have told her about Sky, and I didn’t want to risk him for any reason – not when he had come so close to me. Would I ever see him again?

  Maybe, for a second, I thought about leaving Shade to live with dad back home, where it would be safer and simpler. I recalled a more peaceful time before werewolves and boyfriends and lust, but I didn’t want to leave, not to go back to the city, not if Sky’s unexpected tirade had meant he cared, however small. Perhaps he was pissed I hadn’t thanked him. Any reaction he gave to the situation pleased me and for him to come into my room fuelled a burning in me, that I struggled to control. My feelings defied logic. Was there any chance he was being irrational too, for me? He was older than me and if he still wanted me after all his life experience instead of Sam the alpha female, instead of any girl he had ever met

  - even Cresida, I couldn’t imagine it, but every hour of the day I did. I lay down to think of everything he had said to me, every second he spoke to me, every word and every expression. When I was supposed to be mourning Reid in floods of tears I was dreaming that Sky cared. After this night I knew he did. I think I had to believe it.

  19.Clear Cut

  Sure enough on a windy day at school Tealy and Monica talked directly to me, like they could smell I was not in the in-crowd anymore, or perhaps they were told? Everything was cool with them as long as I got the cold shoulder from the pack, the same way that they were ignored. I was an old glove that fitted and I drew them in like rats to food scraps. It was supposed to be a fresh start. I felt like Angie’s replacement. I knew what she was now though, why she was gone, and I couldn’t say it. She was either one of the wolves or dead. Back in the world of the mortal they wouldn’t have believed me nor did they hesitate to befriend me. I was sure Sam had a hand in it, she could turn them on and off like a switch. I remembered what she had said to me in the car - that Tealy and Monica would befriend me, about how I was strong-willed – and if that was true, obviously it was a talent she didn’t appreciate.

  And I was sure the opposite was true of Tealy and friends.They were under Sam’s spell and she had seemingly managed to impose her will on them and by the time they came too, I would be their new best friend.

  I knew then sadly that she must have persuaded them not to befriend me in the first place, so that she could swoop in, freely monopolizing me into her clique because it suited her then and when I didn’t suit, she could throw me back like a ball that they would catch without thinking. Reid was right, Sam didn’t blame me for Lily. But it was why she wanted me in the first place that remained a mystery. Was I an experiment to her? She didn’t seem to be fascinated with me or even to like me. I wasn’t useful like Giny, or obedient. But all their manipulation made their friendliness more false and hollow than Sam’s somehow and despite myself, I missed Giny. We had at least had our love of the wolves in common. Their terrifying beauty – I eyed them in the halls to no avail. It was as before, I was invisible and previously that would have suited me fine. It was like they didn’t exist anymore but I could see them across the lunch area. Tealy and Monica hid their stares but I wasn’t afraid of them. I knew what they were.

  I felt as though a promise had been broken. Everything I had come to expect was just not there, but at the same time just out of reach, where I could see. One minute you’re in and the next you are out. Why me, why not Tealy or Monica?

  Thoughts plagued me, was I so uncoordinated? Were they worried I’d talk or that I would be a danger to them because of some trauma they imagined I held over Lily’s death. Had I really acted so poorly that they thought it safer to ditch me? I began to think the reason the pack had collectively agreed to drop me like a hot potato was because I w
as in love with Sky. My love and need to be with him, disguised as fear, was the very thing which had cut him away. They smelt something was wrong, I knew it.

  Strangely I knew I was a danger to them, though I may not have known why. My feelings for him made me act so strangely I was convinced they felt it necessary to rid the team of me. My bruised self-esteem sank lower. I thought not even the supernatural would befriend me.

  Days passed, I concentrated on essays and exams. The experience, which had changed my life, slipped further and further away. I wished Sam would kill me, make it all fade away. Lily was shot but I was hit, too. I never really had been part of the pack, and now I fitted in school less than before. I was between their world and the human world, in a kind of dazed purgatory. I could no longer find company in those I couldn’t understand. Was it so crazy to believe Sam had done it on purpose? I needed to piece things together. I didn’t like this life I had been returned to, a cold reality, while immortality dangled in front of me on a string I couldn’t reach. Every morning I hoped it was a bad dream, and that it would be like it was.

  I missed the school dance, even though I suspected they wouldn’t go, and spent all my nights in. A few days apart felt like weeks, such was my infatuation with the wolves. I let Tealy and co involve me in idle school gossip, petty arguments and even went to the movies on two occasions, but when I was there I looked around for Reid or Cres, who was also lying low. Reid had been, and remained, missing from school. They were all as good as gone. I knew he was still in town somewhere. I would have liked an explanation from him, but really I didn’t care enough to find Reid either, only to confront him so that I could feel like I was still involved with them and not some disposable thing they had used and deemed faulty. If I did see him alone I would have only inquired about Sky, to see if he really did care. To know that was why he visited me, though I was grasping at straws, for evidence that he could feel something for me too. I imagined it would make everything like it was, but better. Despite the quiet sting, I was in a hole but it was different from the depression I’d been in before. This was something I had the will to climb out of. There had to be an escape. Sky had been right about Reid. He didn’t care enough about me to explain in person or otherwise and I didn’t feel strongly enough to find him either for an explanation. And if he thought he broke my heart he was very misguided. Reid had never glimpsed my heart let alone held it. And Sky was sure he didn’t feel much for me, but that didn’t explain the fight. I would have willingly ripped my heart from my chest for Sky and I wanted to believe he fought for me, but I knew it was more likely Reid had been fighting for me. At least Sky was still there where I could see him. If he were to have disappeared I would have crumpled. His existence had become more powerful in my life than I cared to admit. At nights I dreamt of him, and if I heard their devil calls through the hills in my bed at night I wanted them to be his calls for me. I left the window open, the latch always unlocked.

  Occasionally I saw Cresida, though she seemed to be incognito, like a ghost in the halls disappearing from my sight around corners through doorways, but not even she came to call. When I found my mother had locked my window twice in a row I took a hammer from the shed toolbox and pulled the latch from the wood.

  At school Monica said she’d seen Cres in the library before lunch, working in an exercise book.

  “God, I wish I didn’t have to go to any classes,” she exclaimed in a hoity tone.

  “Yeah, and still graduate!” Tealy replied.

  “Guys, her parents are dead,” Danny chimed in. He was a boy in twelfth grade who was currently dating Monica.

  I liked him; he didn’t seem to like to bitch. “If my parents were dead, I wouldn’t even make it to school,” he added with a touching hint of admiration or empathy.

  “Well, I think it’s a cop out.”

  Following a scolding look from me, Tealy then argued, “What? They’ve been dead ages.”

  Monica giggled, uncomfortably, I thought.

  I felt less and less there every time they opened their mouths, but it wasn’t just the wolves that had changed me, it was something else pulling at me. I only felt like I could breathe when I was out alone in the open. I walked through the grass and stood behind our house past curfew in the dark facing the trees. I challenged them.

  20. They Were a Feeling

  That night after a frustrating day of predictable life in the teenage world, I longed to be free again like I used to be with them, near him. Why I kept at it I don’t know, I tried forgetting, but nothing was as it had once been. Cresida was rumoured to be doing most of her work at home. After losing two parents and two friends she was shown leniency. She had avoided classes, she came in to collect books, I imagined at those times she also checked on me, though I never caught her. I had to find a way to speak with her. She was avoiding me the way I had avoided her, only now I knew she wasn’t insane, but I understood why she didn’t bother to even try to integrate.

  That night I dreamt of Cresida. The scene flickered before me. She was in an empty room; olive green paint peeled off the walls, she sat on a crate, partly covered with a thick grey blanket, underneath which she was naked, and it fell about her exposing her breasts and torso. Tattoos were sketched all over her body, spaced evenly in different shapes covering most of her, from her shoulders down, intricate stories of places she’d been and kills she had acquired. A cigarette spilled a thin strain of smoke, which trailed up in the breezeless room. She looked at me, expressionless, her face hardened further from the life mapped out on her skin in scars and ink.

  I woke up in the morning with the image of the dream fastened in my mind. I saw she was melancholy and covered in ink and healed scratches, her cheekbones more sunken. It was a strangely erotic vision. I felt she was damaged from war, that she had nothing but memories etched on her body of the kills, the wolves, and the adventures that had left their mark. She was a reject too, only worse with no family and no home.

  I wanted to find her then. If I couldn’t be part of their gang, I would beat them. I would join forces with Cresida. I had tried the straight and narrow, returning to things more or less as they had been before. I had even made friends, but I had tasted something more and now it was taken from me I desperately wanted it back. If I had to choose between a life of monsters and adrenalin or relative dullness, I knew the choice I was making, although perhaps I wanted to make it too hastily. Even then, I knew I had no choice. I would still choose the same and the reason is still the same: never settle for anything less, because you’ll live with regret.

  I had had a taste, however brief, of excitement and I liked it too much to return to the goldfish state. I had woken up and I wanted in.

  If I joined Cres somehow I believed I could close the void - even though both lives were filled with pain for me, because they were absent of him, one more so than the other. At least if I was with her I would be part of his world and there would be a chance I would be in danger at least, more so than if I stayed at home safe inside the four walls. Maybe I would be lucky and get bitten. The venom would course through me and I would be part of it. If that didn’t grab his attention – that I hung around with the hunter, and then the fact that I could be bitten which was even more thrilling – then I would be like him, closer to him with hundreds of years to make him mine.

  But I couldn’t wait. I dressed early and ate my breakfast. I would need strength to keep up with my new life. Calisthenics training had toned me, given me strength. I wasn’t as weak as before, I was leaner. My arms had some muscle where there had been none before. I didn’t care if Cresida wasn’t there, or if she pushed me away, I was not going to take no for an answer. I was strong-willed - Sam had said that herself, that’s partly why she had cut me from the clique. I would have been a threat if I was initiated into the pack – yes I wanted to believe that.This was the only reason I could fathom, in my state with limited knowledge. They kept Giny because she was controllable, placid. I was not.

  A
t school the halls were absent of him. Giny, Jackson, Sam and Bianca hovered at a distance seemingly ignoring my presence on the edge of their world, but Sky was missing for days. In his absence I feared the worst. Weeks passed.

  Cresida had mentioned that I should take them down, on the day the fire alarm went off. I was going to offer her the chance to use me now and see if this was enough for her to take me under her wing. I needed bait and I wouldn’t be just pushed away. Reid had let it slip she was gifted and I wondered if she had seen me coming – if in some way they all had.

  Crazy as it was, I couldn’t return to the girl I was. I knew too much, I wanted to be free and untamed again. Maybe I wanted a purpose - something bigger than myself. Even then I had an instinct I could not realize until he touched me. He was my trigger and my Achilles heel and my sole motivation to breathe.

  I liked that new world which I had tasted and I needed to struggle to be near him, no matter how, as I hadn’t cared when using Reid. Anything to get his attention. I told myself once I had him, that I would be fixed then – cured of it, this unnatural desire. The alternative was too painful. I was part of this now. But I was changing more than I knew.

  21. Rogue Cresida

  She wasn’t there in the library. My heart sank a little, but on the positive side this gave me more time to strategize my argument, plan my ambush. But if I couldn’t find her that was a new problem, she had a sense for things. Reid had told me that, and given what I had learnt in my time with the pack as a human toy, these small morsels of information were not to be overlooked. Maybe Cresida knew I was coming. She seemed to know when things would happen. Was this gift of sight limited to attacks on life for her to be present? Maybe ambushing Cres would be difficult if she could predict my move, if she knew what I was up to and wanted to avoid me. I found out where she lived, which wasn’t hard in a small town. I walked over to the two-storey white wooden house, in a bare yard with a Hills Hoist washing line out the back, on the other side of the river, where she had lived since her parents had perished. A pale round grey-haired woman answered the front door. She looked me up and down.