Page 12
LUNA
I paced my room, my skin buzzing like I was on fire. This wasn’t my life. It wasn’t my job to be a mate, an Insta family. What even were the expectations here? On the surface, I had a choice. Underneath, it didn’t feel like one.
I opened the door to the small deck, the cool night air washing over me.
The space beyond the door was a small grassy patch enclosed by fencing.
They didn’t say it outright, but something in the way they looked at each other, shared grief wrapped around Claire’s name, made my stomach twist. It wasn’t just about losing someone.
It was about losing someone they both loved. Together.
My mind tried to fill in the blanks—what kind of together were they?
And suddenly, I felt like I had walked into a story that wasn’t mine, with a role I didn’t audition for. A role I wasn’t sure I could play, or even wanted to. The idea of being touched at all—hell, even holding hands—was still tangled up in fear. Let alone… that.
My body felt too tight on edge. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being pushed into something that wasn’t mine to choose or even mine to control. I didn’t know how to make it mine.
Then, almost without thinking, I wondered—how do I become the wolf? The thought hung in the air, and then, like a switch had flipped, it happened.
In slow motion, my body began to shift. I slipped the robe off my shoulders, and the t-shirt followed, fluttering to the floor.
I could feel the thickening of my limbs, my torso elongating.
In what could have been minutes or seconds, the glass reflected at me, slowly revealing a wolf.
A medium-sized creature with coppery fur.
So, it was true. This wasn’t a dream. I snorted, shaking my head as I patted the ground beneath me. I needed to run.
With experimental ease, I jumped onto the chair, then to the fence, and down to the ground. It was effortless. Natural. The world seemed to fall like a puzzle piece clicking into place. I looked back at the house, felt the breeze on my fur, and ran.
I ran far, too far to even feel the tug of responsibility. It was the best I’d ever felt in my life. Freedom.
I let the wind carry my thoughts away, no longer bound by the expectations that had clung to me like chains.
I was only the wolf now. I followed their scents—Ash’s and Connor’s—around, looping through the territory they kept.
The bond between Ash and me wasn’t just some myth, some fairy tale I could escape from.
It was real. I could smell it. I could feel it.
But I was the girl without a family or a home—the one who left when things got hard.
I looked after myself; it was safer that way.
And then, there it was—the unmistakable pull of the house.
Their house. This was where I would live.
With them. Ash and Connor. They were asking me to make a family with them.
They wanted me to choose it. But somehow, it still felt like it wasn’t my decision.
Something subconsciously had already been determined.
I could leave. Run away, pack my things, and drive far from here. I could. But the bond—that I couldn’t ignore. An almost physical connection with Ash, but there was something with Connor, too.
I stopped running and took a moment to collect myself. The early evening was peaceful, but my heart felt like it was eating itself.
Their fear and their scent pulled me back towards the house. I watched the front door from a short distance away. Connor saw me first, his stance protective, a hand outstretched to stall Ash. His face was fierce, as if it had already taken on the expression of his wolf.
I sat still, watching them. They waited.
I strode towards them, feeling the power in my muscles and the grace of the wolf in every step. Without looking back, I walked past them and into my room, the robe discarded just inside the door, like they had found it, dropped it, and run.
I didn’t know how to change back. But I was too exhausted to care. I moved to the corner of the room, my back pressed against the wall. I lay down, curling into the small space, and let sleep take me.
The tightness was gone when I woke, but there was a dull cramping in my body that I couldn’t shake. The soft weight of the robe had settled over me like a blanket, a faint reminder of what I had left behind when I’d shifted.
Slowly, I sat up; they’d left the t-shirt folded near me.
I pulled it on. I needed to dig into the bag that Maddie brought me.
That felt like days ago now. I looked up and saw it on the bed.
The door was pushed to, likely to give me the illusion of privacy.
I tipped the fabric bag over, and various clothes tumbled out.
I found some underpants and tights. I’d always been self-contained.
Quiet, lean. At the very least, I’d always had my damn underpants.
Carefully, I slipped my arms into the sleeves, securing the robe around me, trying to keep myself contained.
I pulled the door open. Ash and Connor were on the couch. They didn’t speak and looked at me. There was something unspoken in their eyes, something too heavy to break with words. I wasn’t sure what to do. What to say.
Ash’s eyes flickered to Connor, then to me, concern etched in every line of his face. The room was silent. I could feel them waiting for me to speak, to make some choice. But how could I think when I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel? What was I supposed to want?
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I could trust this—trust them.
But I stepped closer—one step. Just to see what would happen.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12 (Reading here)
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39