Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 36656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 147(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 147(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Dan captured their daughter around the waist, and Marcel had Landon, both of whom were struggling within their hold.
“I hate you. I fucking hate you!” Alexa yelled.
“And I hate you, you fucking bitch!”
****
“I didn’t take her clothes,” Landon said.
“I know that, but your friends are saying you wanted them to.”
“No, I didn’t. I … I wouldn’t do that.”
“Landon, you and Alexa haven’t ever gotten along.”
His son snorted, but Marcel wasn’t interested. “Enough. If I find out you did take them—”
“Dad, I wouldn’t do that, okay? I wouldn’t.” Landon shoved his hands beneath his legs and stared down at the ground.
The redness on his neck was another telltale sign of something else.
Marcel gripped the back of his neck. This shit between Landon and Alexa was exhausting.
Seeing the way Alexa confronted him though, Marcel knew deep in his soul that she would make one hell of an alpha’s mate. She was strong, full of confidence and compassion. Unless it had something to do with Landon, she was a kind-hearted soul.
“Talk to me, Landon. What is going on with you?” He took a seat beside his son and waited.
Landon sighed. “A couple of the guys at school, they have an issue with her … weight. They call her names. I don’t like it, and I tell them to stop.”
“Do you have a problem with her weight?”
“No, I don’t.” The redness on the back of his neck deepened.
“Are you … attracted to her?” Marcel asked.
“Hell, no.”
That was the first lie his son had ever told him.
“Okay.” He put his hands on his knees.
“She is … she is … I hate her, and she hates me. I don’t know why you all keep thinking that we’re going to be mates. We’re never going to be mates. Not ever.”
“Where does this hatred come from?” Marcel asked.
Landon opened his mouth, closed it, and then shrugged. “I don’t know. It has been so long, I can’t remember. I just wished people would stop treating us like we’re soul mates or whatever.”
Marcel was aware of his son’s girlfriend, or whatever she was, as Landon never said if she was his girlfriend or not. Cheryl wasn’t a nice girl. She was cruel and weak but stunningly beautiful.
“Okay, fine, but whoever took her clothes, they’ll pay for it.”
“It wasn’t me.”
Marcel nodded and left the bedroom, but he kept the door ajar. Then he watched and listened to his son.
The drawer beside his bed slid open, and Landon sat on his bed, staring at something, but Marcel wasn’t sure what.
Landon went to screw up the picture but then tossed it back into his drawer and got up.
Marcel heard the shower running, and with his son distracted, he stepped into his son’s room and went to the drawer. Sure enough, the picture Landon had been looking at was one of Alexa.
It had to have been taken a few months ago, as she looked roughly the same age as she did now. In this picture, she was laughing. It looked like someone had zoomed in the camera to get a good shot of her.
If his son hated her so much, why did he have this picture of her, which was clearly taken without her being aware of it?
****
Three years later
Graduating high school was a lot easier than this. The transition was never sugarcoated. The experience was going to be painful. Since their seventeenth birthday, they had been preparing for this. As per pack Alpha Marcel’s training, for the moons leading up to their transition, they had to be present with the pack. They had to witness their fellow wolves, as well as their seasoned wolves, turn into a wolf.
New wolves screamed, fought, and struggled, and the experience was pure pain. For older wolves, it was like being a second skin. No pain, just acceptance of what was going to happen.
Alexa closed her eyes as another wave of pain came, and she didn’t want to fight it. Her mother had said the biggest problem new wolves faced was being afraid. She closed her eyes and breathed through the pain, trying to contain the screams as her body broke, shattering the bones and then melding them together.
Curling up into a ball, she panted. Not too far from where she lay was Landon. They were the only two to have their birthday this past month. Shared as so many others were, and she heard him scream. An odd, unmistakable need to go to him, to help him, started to overwhelm her.
The feeling lessened as more pain erupted throughout her body.
She wasn’t going to fight it. Not ever.
I’m at one with my wolf.
She kept on chanting it, picturing her wolf. Her parents had told her a wolf’s coloring was normally down to their natural hair color, and she imagined a dark-brown wolf, trying to picture what her wolf looked like.