The days before the full moon go by in a blur, my mind is occupied by thoughts of turning for the first time, at night I have frightening dreams, the dreams always jolt me awake. In these dreams I start to turn, all my bones are breaking, I end being stuck between the turn, my bones are stuck breaking repeatedly, left in this endless loop, I scream in pain for hours, the pain finally forcing me awake, with sweat covering my body, my heart racing, fear sinking in. As the night comes closer and closer, the nightmares seem to last longer and longer, my aunt begins to worry about me and calls Damien to come over, whenever I start screaming. Shortly after Damien arrives, screams from my room echo throughout the house. As my door swings open Damien finds me curled up on my bed rocking back and forth, with tears trickling down my face, fear written on my face. Each night Damien runs to my side, pulls me into his arms and tries to comfort me. And each nigh as I sit crying in the arms of the man I love, relief floods my body as I realise, he will be there for me when I turn, I snuggle my head into his chest and my mind starts to settle, I fight my eyes to try to stay awake but exhaustion takes over, its not long before I fall asleep.
The day of the full moon arrives, I find my friends sitting on the couch as I walk downstairs with Damien,
"There's breakfast on the kitchen table, I thought you might be hungry", Rose states,
"Oh, thank you Rose, I'm guessing you made it?", I question,
"Of course, I'm practically the only one that knows how to cook", Rose snorts,
I walk into the kitchen as everyone follows, as I open the door the aroma of sweets, and salty food flood my nose, an assortment of pancakes, fresh fruit, toast, bacon, eggs, and more line my kitchen benches and tables, I look at Rose in shock,
"How hungry do you think I am?", I snort,
"it's the full moon tonight, your first turn, you're going to be extra hungry as your body heat is going to be heightened today and as part of the wolf community, I'm sure I can speak for the rest of us as I say, I'm starving", she laughs.
We all sit down at the table as we devour the food made by Rose, as it comes time to leave for school I run upstairs, quickly hop in the shower, put on some clothes, and run downstairs.
In the car to school music plays in the background as the car is filled with chatter and laughter, I sit in silence as my mind continues to race back and forth to the nightmares, I try to force the thoughts from my mind as I still have hours until I turn. It's not long before we arrive at school, the halls are lined with students, teachers, and friends, as we walk down the halls doubt fills my mind,
"Maybe I should be at home?", I question,
"You'll be fine, we are all here for you", Damien assures,
"If anything happens, we will be here and we can always leave early", Rose suggests,
The doubt soothes as my friends reassure me, we separate and head to our classes, Damien and I walk hand in hand to our English class.
We sit at the back of the class quietly talking as the teacher begins to play a movie, the door suddenly swings open, an unfamiliar figure walks in, I follow Damien's eyes towards this figure, concern and anger pervades the atmosphere surrounding him. A man dressed in white, ripped skinny jeans, grey and white shirt, a white denim jacket, white sneakers, walks in, this man had distinct jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes, his eyes are cold, dead cold, a distinct smell radiates off his body, forcing me to coil in disgust. I can feel heat radiate off Damien's body, the unfamiliar look on his face concerns me. I grab Damien's hand squeezing it to provide comfort and seek questions, he looks at me his gaze striking my inner core with freight.
I the feeling of unfamiliarity overwhelms me as the figure now overshadows me, I turn around and look up surprise and confusion covering my face,
"Amaris?? Are you Amaris?", this man in white asks, his eyes piercing my soul, the feeling of death flooding my body.
"That's none of your business is it", Damien growls.
The room is filled with indistinct chatter as everybody wonders who this man is and how am I related to him, what's the relationship between us two, many are saying I must know him from somewhere, many are on their phones talking to their friends in different classes.
"Who are you?", I ask nervously, "How do you know my name?".
"Everybody of my kind knows the name Amaris, we have been waiting for this day", he smirks.
"Well, that doesn't help me, as I don't know who you are", I grunt.
"You'll come to know me soon enough", his presence is overwhelming my senses.
As I begin to ask him another question, as curiosity is taking over, Damien stands up from his chair, his chair flying backwards and smashing into the wall,
"YOU NEED TO LEAVE", he shouts
Damien grabs this unknown man by the neck as he pulls him out of the classroom, everybody stands up in shock as they've never seen Damien act this way, I sit unable to move, shock and disbelief has taken over my body, its not long before I realise what has just happen, I jump from my sit and run after Damien. I follow Damien as he pulls this man by his arm down the school hallway. I can hear him talking but can not make out what he is saying, I pick up the pace and try to catch up to the two of them, a THUD follows as Damien is thrown against the wall, my eyes widen in shock. It's not long before this unknown man is invading my space and pushed me up against the wall. He brings his head close to mine and slowly moves closer to my neck,
"Hmmm, you smell great Amaris, to bad that smell will change after tonight, however, that won't last long", He grimaces, "I thought you would want to know, but your mum's accident, was no accident, I'm sorry for your lose", these words burn into my brain, I try to respond but in that brief moment he disappeared.
I sink to the floor, as tears fall from my eyes as his words are on repeat in my brain. It's not long before Damien's arms entrap me, his warmth enveloping me, my body sinks into his as my mind races to the thought of my mothers accident not being an accident. 'What does that mean?, was she murdered?, did someone murder her?, why?'. The hallway began to fill with people as everyone was curious as to what happened, I cling onto Damien as he picks me up from the floor and leaves to find a quiet secluded place within the school.
We sit in silence as time slowly goes by, Damien holds me unable to speak,
"M-m-m-my m-m-mum wasn't in a car accident", I finally choke out through silent sobs.
Damien looks at me puzzled, "why would you say that?", he asks,
"T-t-that man s-said, that the accident wasn't an accident",
"Why would you believe him?", he questions,
I look at Damien my eyes filled with tears as I try to stop myself from reliving the accident, "I-I-I I was there Damien, in the car and I don't think it was an accident either, I just didn't know what would've happened, why would someone want to hurt my mum, I couldn't think of a reason but at that time, I didn't know what we really were".
"You think, someone murdered your mum because of what we are?",
I look of into the distance and realise how low the sun is, on reflex I check my phone for the time.
"We should get going, its going to start to get dark soon", I say, dismissing his question.
We decided to leave our car at school and walk home through the woods, the air in the woods was essentially nice, almost sweet it was as if we could taste the sap from the trees, the smell of salt from the ocean sunk into our senses as we neared closer to the beach with each step. I unconsciously walked off the path and began to head to the ocean, as if it was calling me, Damien decided not to stop me. After a while of walking in complete silence I come to a stop, I realised I walked to the edge of the cliff just above the ocean.
"Many people have jumped from and unfortunately died or ended up extremely injured", Damien states. His sudden outburst amongst the silence shocks me, I wonder why he would tell me that out of the blue.
For a relaxing few minutes we sit and look out at the ocean, the waves hitting against the rocks beneath us is surprisingly refreshing, "do you think mermaids exist?", I ask out of nowhere.
"Maybe, although I've never seen one, but maybe a vampire who's been around long enough would know. It wouldn't surprise me if they've gone extinct though, our kind is almost extinct. Out of the twelve royal families, your blood line is the last existing." He explains.
As the sun continues to set, and the sky starts to darken, we get up from where we sit and continue to walk to my house. It's not long before we reach the street my house is on, greeting us out the front, stands our group of friends, "are you ok Amaris? We heard what happened at school", Rose asks with a raised voice, as we still haven't reached the front of my house. We both ignore her question until we come to stand in front of her. Her arms reach out and hug me tight , she exhales as she lets go. We walk into the my house as the sun has completely gone down, they all escort me down to the basement, where I am supposed to spend my first transformation. As I get down there my anxiety starts to overtake my body, hands shaking, heartbeats quickening, breathing gets heavier. Damien and Rose grab my hands, reassuring me ill be ok.
They chain my hands and legs up to the reinforced walls, and lock the door behind them as they leave to transform in the woods, my Aunt stays by the intercom to talk to me and keep me calm. As the night goes on I feel my blood begins to get warmer, I begin to hear things I couldn't before, my eye sight darkens and I begin to see out side of the house, I am in awe my new abilities. It's not long before that awe disappears my bones begin to break individually, one by one, I scream in pain as one bone in my body breaks at a time, I try to fight the pain, which brings me more pain.
'Do not fight the transformation, it will make it worse, just embrace it', I remember what Damien told me.
Embracing the pain, I know that in a short amount of time I will be in my wolf form, I stop screaming and allow my bones to break with ease. I growl as I complete my transformation, Damien walks in after completing his transformation and turning back, a look of shock spreads across his face, I fight against my chains as I want to run wild and free. Cracks form in the walls as I continue to fight against the chains, Damien try's to calm me down, as a newly turned werewolf can be reckless and dangerous the first few times they turn as we don't have complete control over our wolf forms yet, most don't remember everything that happens the first few times. I continue to relentlessly fight, pulling stronger and stronger each time, its not long before the chain snaps free, Damien stands in utter shock at the strength I show as non of them have broken these chains before, I pounce on him snarling my teeth at him, I snap my jaw and run at the door smashing into it as I forgot it was locked.
The blackness that surrounds me begins to fade, I flutter my eyes as the light begins to shine through the curtains, I wake up in my bed the next morning after my transformation, confusion filling my mind. I roll on my side to find Damien calmly sleeping next to me, I lay my head on his shoulder, pulling him into my embrace as I release my stress and worry no fall back to sleep. Some time goes by before we are startled awake by the noise in the kitchen,
"WwWhat was that?", I question,
"It's probably just the others, coming into grab food after running around all night, they'll eat and crash all day, don't worry about it", he stutters tiredly, He pulls me in tight as he quickly falls back to sleep, I lay in his arms snaking my hand around his muscular torso.
We wake up two days later, briefly getting up to eat and shower, Damien loosens his grasp as he yawns stretching out his arms, he gently kisses me on the forehead, and pulls me into a tight hug,
"We need to get up, there's something I need to tell you and the rest of the group", he says quietly,
"Hmm, ok", I reply through a yawn,
As we stumble out of bed and pull some decent clothes on, we wonder down stairs, food and drinks lay all around, with limbs hanging in the air, my mouth gawks open as I stand looking at the mess,
"GET UP!!", Damien yells out of no where, everyone begins jumping to their feet in exasperated surprise
"What! What is it?", Rose exclaims tiredly through her yawn,
"We need to talk", he states, wondering off into the basement.
In unison we all follow, stumbling behind down into the basement, he closes the door after Dimitri stumbles in, they stand in a line gawking at the wall, I follow their line of sight to see the chains lying on the floor broken, cracks spreading up the walls, I look at Damien, and then at the others, Amelia, Rose, and Dimitri expressing pure shock,
"Bbbbbut how?", Amelia questions, "Not even Dimitri cracked the walls, let alone broke the chain, and his the strongest of us all?",
"I'm not an Alpha, let alone a Royal Alpha, we all heard the stories of there strength", Dimitri exclaims, "This shouldn't be that much of a surprise", he wraps his arm around my shoulder, showing he is proud to be in this pack.
"That's not what we need to talk about", Damien states,
We turn simultaneously looking at him, puzzled expressions on our faces,
"What is it then?", Rose asked,
"Amaris' transformation", Damien states,
"Huh? What about it?", I question,
"You, you uh, your wolf form, it uh", he stutters,
"Spit it out!!", I shout frustratedly,
"Your wolf form is half black and half white", he spurts out, "Straight through the middle, exactly through the middle, beautiful, unique, but strange and unsettling",
"Strange and unsettling?", confusion shoots through my body, reminding me of the bone cracking pain from transformation, "why is strange and unsettling?", I question,
"Uhhh my little puppy, well uh the transformation your wolf takes reflects the abilities you have, Dimitri's wolf is quite a bit larger than the rest of ours due to his ability to wield strength to protect those in his pack, as he is a protector", he explains, "Rose is a healer, she not only has the power to heal wounds in her human form, but her wolf form is considerably smaller as she is expected to stay behind and care for the pack members who may be hurt in a battle",
"But I thought you were the strongest member", I question while looking at Damien,
"Oh, I am but, I've also been the leader of the pack, and as a leader I've got to be able to run ahead and scout the terrains and be quick when in a battle, so my wolf took a smaller shape then Dimitri's but with more strength",
"So, what do you think my wolf form means that has you so unsettled?", I question,
He starts pacing around the living room, frustration builds in my stomach, bile threatens to fill my throat, 'what do I tell her? I can't tell her about her father, can I? It's not really my place and it's not like I'm sure about it', some unknown words and feelings fill my brain,
"What about my father?", I blurt out in my moment of frustration, he turns around, his mouth gaped open, I can feel the pure confusion filling his eyes, as the bore straight into me, anger fills my body as the realisation that he is hiding things from me boils my skin, "tell me what you know", I shout.
"Your father? I don't know what you are talking about?", he states, confidence radiates from his body, 'How does she know I was thinking about her father? She can't know, I need to protect her',
"You're lying to me", the anger builds in me, more then I've ever felt before, my skin begins to boil and my heart faces in my chest, I feel this intense need to leave the house and run.
My feet move before I can complete my thoughts, Damien grabs my hand as I try to walk past him, my arm instantly cools as he interlaces his fingers into my hands, I instinctively snap my head in his direction with a growl, "let go", Damien's face goes white, he hesitates to remove his hand from mine, my eyes grow darker the longer he holds on to me. He removes his hand, and looks at me apologetically, in that moment as I look into his normally cold blue eyes, the hint of sadness that filled them, almost cooled me instantly, but the wolf in me, the anger in me I couldn't control. "You're lying to me Damien, I don't know why, but I know you are and I know it has to do with my father", I state and continue to walk away. "If you're not going to be open with me and trust me, I don't think this will work", I comment as I leave the house through the back door.