by JP Vasha
My heart went out for him, so much so that I felt something deep inside me breaking apart with him. And when he let me go, walked to the other side of the bed and sat down with his head in his hands, I knew I had to do something. Acknowledging him as my mate or not, he was still mine, that much I knew. Besides, I had a theory regarding why that knowledge didn't spring inside me in the first place, and I was planning on sharing it with him. It might not make the situation any better, but it certainly couldn't get worse.
Decision made, I wiped my own tears, straightened my sleeping gown, and walked toward him. His growly, "Stay away," did deter me from my path. He didn't want me to see him so-called "unmanly," with him breaking to pieces, but that was something I didn't allow to happen. If we were truly mates, he should be able to lean on me for support.
His head still in his hands, I crouched before him and placed my hands on his knees. "Hello," I said softly, and when I saw his emerald eyes, his hands falling from his face, I gave him a little teary smile. "My name is Carla Mill. I'm twenty-five from Amarillo, Texas, and I'm a human with, apparently, potential to Necromantic powers. I might also have enough power to become a Demonomancer, but that's besides the point."
My smile turned a little nostalgic. "I was born – or adopted, maybe – to Penelope and Sander Mill, both which were the most ordinary humans in the world. They worked, they raised me, and when I finished college and started my glorious career as a secretary in an accountant company, they were distantly proud of me."
I let myself sit eastern-style before him, my eyes never moving from his. "My parents weren't really loving like parents should be. They were distant, even to each other, and it suited them to be stuck in their own heads. They did care about me, though. That much I knew. I just never grew up in an overly loving environment. That was why I probably never really had any friends I was especially close to or never bothered to try a relationship."
My cheek flushed a little when his eyes widened slightly. "You see," I spoke quietly, "my first kiss had been in high-school, when I was curious as to why everyone made such a fuss out of it. Then I'd been kissed, and I realized it was nothing to call home about. That was the first and last time I'd done something so intimate with another human being until I died when I was twenty-two and spent three years in the void before meeting Khloe and stirring this mess into action."
Zack understood what I told him. I told him that he was the first since high-school who kissed me, who did something to me that I'd never felt before. Still, I wasn't finished just yet so whatever he wanted to tell me would have to wait.
"I have an idea why I can't recognize you as mine, Zack," I stared into his eyes, saw the agony in them that made my heart clench in unbearable sympathy. "It's because we met in the worst time possible. If we'd met back when I was my own person, I doubt you would've given me a second glance." That made my wince, but I wasn't ready to tell him about how unbeautiful I looked when I was just me. "But if we met after I figured everything myself out, somehow, without using your much-needed help, and already had my own body after the revival, maybe then it would've been possible for me to acknowledge you as mine and for us to continue everything we'd left at Houston." The courting, the kisses, the promised dates.
Zack was crouching in front of me now. "Why wouldn't I have given you a second glance if it was really you three years ago?" he asked, voice deep and low and unreadable.
I shrugged, feigning indifference when I felt anything but. "That's neither here nor there," I said airily and even snuck in a chuckle, which I hoped didn't sound as self-conscious as it felt.
His hand cupped my cheek and the contact made me freeze. "Carla," he said, and the sound of my name in his mouth made an uncontrollable shiver run through my spine. He saw it, and his hand tensed. "Tell me."
When he looked at me like he was looking now, his eyes luminous in the darkness of the room, the ray of moonlight hitting him through the window, making him look otherworldly, I couldn't resist anything he asked of me. "Because I was ugly," I whispered. "I was fat and unkempt and tacky. I wasn't as stunning as Khloe. I wasn't a good fit for someone like... like you."
My words seemed to piss him off. "So if we were somehow able to find your true body's remains, you would refuse have it restores just because it's so-called ugly?"
I flinched away from his words. If there was one flaw I was absolutely attuned to about myself, it was how I looked. And what Zack had just asked did cross my mind, and the answer was a selfish one, a stupid one, and not entirely rational. But what I didn't tell Zack was that I'd never been rational about my looks. It was my greatest flaw.
When I didn't answer his question, Zack's eyes turned stone-cold. "So you would do anything but give up this body because it's so pretty?" his face shut down and it felt like a slap. "I didn't think you were so vain, Carla, or so selfish. You just proved me what an unlucky guy I am that someone like you is my mate, the situation be damned."
He stood up, turned his back to me, and walked out of the room, saying nothing more. There was nothing he needed to say, however. He was right. So effing right. Yet I felt like crawling into a hole and never get out.
I settled for a fetus position instead, and all night I just cried until there were no more tears left. It was just one flaw, just one thing that I allowed myself to be selfish about. All my life, my deepest secret was to look good, to be neat and beautiful and someone who turned heads no matter where she went. I wanted to have werewolves begging me to be theirs for the Season, I wanted dozens of offers from human men, but none came. I'd been just Carla, with brown hair, murky eyes, and overweight figure with a belly pouch.
And, what Zack refused to understand when I told him everything, I knew with an innermost knowledge that, had I been the true Carla Mill, with my true, fugly body, he wouldn't have recognized me and my mate and even if he did, he would've called himself unlucky still.
In real life, the ugly duckling doesn't get to turn into a beautiful swan. And just like in movies, all the ugly can never be the true protagonist; they're either bad or dead. I'd already experienced the latter, and maybe now I would be regarded as the former.
It was the first time in the past five months that I wanted to return to the void, for in the void, you're numb, you don't feel much, your roam the darkness in silence, searching for the next soul to speak to, and everything just stops.
I wanted to be numb again. I wanted the time to just stop.
And suddenly, I was looking into an unfamiliar man's face. He was in his mid-twenties, wearing a gangster's clothes of low jeans, basketball team tee, sneakers and flipped baseball hat. His looks, however, were far from boyish; unstably wild hazel eyes, dark blonde hair, and his figure, muscular and sturdy.
Then I realized he'd just appeared in the room out of nowhere, and fear gripped me tightly. Crawling backwards, my back hit the wall, and the man just smiled. "Heya, Carla," he said in a childish voice that was so unfitting to his looks beneath his teenage clothe, "I can see your despair and it's the best show I've seen in a while."
"H-How do you know my name?" my voice was a little shaky. A wacko had just practically teleported into my room and was behaving as though we were old buddies.
"Of course I know your name," he pouted, which again made him appear so weird. "I know everything there is to know about you, Carla Von Logia."
My heart stopped. "How did you just call me?"
He didn't seem to hear my questions. "I'm here to tell you something," he crouched and his face was suddenly in my face, so close it was that our noses touched. His expressions vanished, and the look he gave me was blank. "You're a threat. You don't belong on this Earth. You cannot go to Logia to search for the Necro that revived you and your little werewolf friend. Because if you go, you'll unknowingly unleash one of the greatest forces this universe has ever known."
He smiled now, a cold smile that made it feel frostbitten. "You're a menace, girl. There's a reason I sent my Hunters after you back in Texas." H
is eyes turned wild again. "I wanted you dead, and here you're alive now. I could kill you now, but you know what they say about killing a Necromancer who's been brought back to life; bad luck and all that. So I just want you to listen to my warning," he chuckled almost evilly. "You go to Logia, I will find you, and I will make sure you get killed, bad luck or not. Capiche?"
"Michelangelo!"
Kimberly was suddenly in the room hand raised and pointed at the man before me. His face was serious
The man – Michelangelo? – rose and smirked at the Deity. "Long time no see, Kim," he said, winking, "and please do call me Damon. I don't go by that old name anymore."
"Leave Carla alone," he said, voice soft but threaded with warning.
"I just told her," the man said, "something that I think you should know too." He gave Kimberly such a big smile, as though he'd won a candy or something. "If she goes to Logia, the prophecy will take another step forward to its fulfillment. That I cannot allow."
From Kimberly's frozen state, I guessed the other man's words penetrated. "Get lost," he said then, and I saw his hand shaking a little.
Michelangelo sighed. "You became such a tight-ass human, Kim. A shame, really." He then turned to give me a scalding look that made me freeze in my place. "Remember my words, Carla Von Logia."
Then he was gone and Kimberly was onto me in a second. "I'm sorry, Carla," he whispered before his hand touched my forehead and everything went dark.
Chapter Twelve
When I woke up after a restless night, I wanted to see Zack, to talk to him about our fight last night, but I was too weary to do so. Instead, like a coward, I let Khloe take charge of the body, much to her delight.
As Khloe was using the facilities, washing her face, and putting on make up (first thing in the morning), I couldn't help but feel that something was amiss. Thankfully, being in the backseat of Khloe's body gave me time to ponder everything without people reading me as if I was transparent.
After Zack left, I had a nagging feeling something else occurred. However, when I delved into my memories, I could recall nothing else. After the Beta left I simply crawled into bed, cried my heart out, and fell asleep. However, I still felt like something wasn't right with my mind, but for the time being, since I had no proof, I decided to leave it alone.
"You're being awfully quiet today, Carla," Khloe mumbled as she put on some cherry-red lipstick. She looked fresh, fresher than she looked when I was in charge. "Did something happen last night?"
You were asleep, I told her, and Zack visited me. We fought. He called me vain and selfish for being scared of returning to my original body and left before I could even explain.
"That's an ass move," Khloe scowled at the mirror as she applied mascara, "but there again, this man is really weird. Usually, strong werewolves don't get to self-pity themselves or their life. I'm thinking this man carries some serious baggage that made him act like a jackass to you."
I've considered it, I murmured, and it seems plausible that he might've been through something in life that made him extremely touchy about this whole weird mate situation.
"Well, whatever Grey thinks it's none of my business," Khloe finished with make up and went back to the bedroom. "I'm suggesting you stop thinking about your fight before you turn into a teenage girl and begin plucking rose petals, thinkin 'Does he like me? Does he not?'"
Khloe was right, for a change. I'll try not to weep in the corner and mourn my suckish love life, I said with a psychic smile. Now what are you going to do?
She put on jeans and pretty blouse and said, "I'm going to hunt down my own mate. It's time we actually talked."
I was in full agreement with Khloe's determined resolve. We were both in an uncomfortable situation that required us to get out of our comfort zone, and that meant that we needed to be the active ones in our pursuit of our respective mates. Besides, being the glass-half-full person I almost forgot I was and forced myself to be again, I believed that it'd pay off in the end. I would get another body – mine or another's, it didn't matter – and I would be able to make Zack happy, like he deserved, and like I deserved. And Khloe... Khloe would get to have hers back.
While Khloe was on her way through the maze-like Pack House to the kitchens, I asked, How's your wolf?
I felt her face grimace at that question. "I feel her," she said quietly, "and when I'm in charge I can almost taste the transformation, but she's still detached from my own soul, for whatever reason."
That was a bummer. It's better than when I'm holding the reins, I commented softly, but apparently this was the end of this topic, because as Khloe strode into the kitchen, she found a teenage girl, around the age of seventeen, who was holding too much snacks for her to carry. She was a pretty girl, I couldn't help but notice, with cat-like green eyes, a Shell brighter than Zack's, and dark chestnut curls pulled into a long ponytail. She had some freckles marring her alabaster skin, and with her tall, slender body, she looked like a would-be supermodel.
When the girl looked at us, Khloe gave the girl a grin. "Boy, you're cute," she said, and then sniffed the air. "My nose might not be working at its best, but I'm pretty sure you're not a wolf."
The girl scrutinized Khloe with suspicious eyes. "I'm not," she said cautiously, her voice a little low for a girl, "I'm human."
That made Khloe narrow her eyes as she scanned the girl from head to toe. "I didn't know there were humans in the Wolf City."
Startled, the girl went to say something when a male voice said, "Don't worry about Khloe, Reichelle. She's new in Lumen."
Khloe glanced sideways to see Mike walking into the kitchen, looking casual with jeans and tee, his hand tucked in the pockets of his pants, his dark blonde hair mussed and his electric blue eyes twinkling with barely hidden mirth. "Now, Reichelle, why don't you go give the snacks for Snow, then say goodbye to Judd?"
The teenager evidently paled, her eyes turning wide. "Say goodbye?" she asked, voice a barely audible whisper.
Mike shrugged, feigning nonchalant, his eyes contemplative. "Since Zack had to come back from Texas because of dear Khloe here," Mike sent Khloe a wink, "that means another Biwole Wolf need to fill in the position of being in charge there. Since Shell is also needed here in Lumen, Judd, being the Delta, is it."
Reichelle didn't wait to hear much else. Giving Mike a curt nod, she practically jogged out of the room, not looking back.
Khloe put her hands on her hips and turned to Mike. "You have an evil streak," she told him, thoughtful as she looked at him.
Mike shrugged. "The girl needs a little push regarding her little 'friendship' with the Delta," he smirked then, eyes meaningful. "If the need arises, I can be as evil as one can be to make sure those around me get a chance at happiness."
Leaning against the counter, Khloe folded her arms. She checked the man out seriously for the first time since our arrival. "You're actually a decent man, then," she said, cocking her head. "But I'm guessing you could be the devil if, as you put it, the need arises, being the personal advisor to West Coast Pack alpha."
Mike steppes forward. "You've done some homework, Daniels. I'm proud."
Khloe smirked back, noting the fact he was closing the gap between them. She didn't mind it much, though. "You should be," she murmured, her voice turning a little seductive. When Mike's eyes flashed, I knew he noticed it, too. "I'm not just good looks and no brains, you know."
"Obviously," he muttered, and then he was in her face, his hands caging her between himself and the counter, his face only an inch away from hers. I felt suddenly ill. I knew what was going to happen and I didn't want to see it. I really, really didn't.
"So, Mr Fox," Khloe said in that same hauntingly mesmerizing voice, "what are you going to do now? Are you going to kiss me? Mark me? Fuck my brains out, knowing that doing so will ruin both Zack and Carla?" For my surprise, her voice sounded a taunting now, like she was testing Mike, and whatever he did now would settle whatever Khloe wanted to do with him.
When Mike's eyes turned a dangerous wolf-blue, Khloe had to stiffle her urge to yield, because Mike, while not showing it most of the time, was a dominant in his prime, one who had just found his mate, and that mate was one fucked-up mess. He was in the same situation as Zack, and so to expect rationality from him would be either suicidal or just utterly stupid.
I was proved right when he leaned in, grabbed Khloe's lower lips between his teeth, and bit her.
Sucking in a breath, Khloe raised her hands and planted them on Mike's chest, intending to push him away – apparently, he failed whatever test she gave him – but Mike wouldn't have any of it; with an arm around her waist, pasting her front to his, and a hand holding the nape of her neck possessively, he murmured, "Carla, would you mind giving us a little privacy?"
He didn't need to ask, Shutting my figurative eyes, I let the blackness of my surroundings swallow me whole, swallow every sound and every noise, and so when I felt Khloe's body turning molten, probably from being kissed, I tried not to cry out in despair.
This was wrong. Everything was too wrong to be true. Khloe, Zack and Mike deserved to be happy. They could've been happy, had I not clung to Khloe in the void and followed her back to the living again. But I was selfish, just like Zack accused me of being, and I wanted to be alive again, anything else be damned.
But what good this selfishness brought me? I was stuck in Khloe's body, aimless and lost. I'd just found out I was probably a Necromancer, and that I might not even be from this world but from another mysterious land called Logia or something. And most of all, there might've been a chance that the public massacre that killed me was actually on purpose...
An epiphany glowed upon me and, as Mike and Khloe were turning their make-out session hotter and heavier, I ignored it and thought deeply about that last tidbit I just found out. The Divine Hunters, according to Zack, used guerrila was technics on werewolves only. I'd been, and still was, human. The public massacre was, well, public. Why would these Hunter want to do something like that? That made zero sense.