Slaves of the Night

Chapter 6: Only When I'm Breathing

   Some would say I was living out a fairy tale; so many girls strived for what I had. I was living well off in a gigantic house with extravagant accommodations, with a pack of werewolves, and most of them weren’t harsh on the eyes either. But right now I could’ve disagreed greatly, because despite all that I was hurting.

  The television was on but I wasn’t watching it. I was perched on the couch, with my legs swung above me and my head hanging upside down letting my hair tumble to the floor. Nothing made time go slower than being able to hear every single tick of the grandfather clock down the hall, or the fact that whatever show I was attempting to engage in, everything seemed to be moving at half pace. But I wasn’t in pain because of boredom, even though having something to do would have helped.

  It was my heart that was aching.

  Roughly, a week had passed since the full moon, and since then I had been sentenced to house arrest because of my injured leg. It wasn’t that bad really; Rayne had only bit me hard enough to stall me from the frenzy I had been in. If his intentions would have been to harm me, I wouldn’t be able to walk right now. This was merely a scratch. A scratch that would scar after it would be totally healed, but a scratch no less. Earlier today I had tried to demonstrate how I could walk, run, dance, or whatever perfectly fine, but Rayne would hear none of it. He hardly would look me in the eye, and during the brief seconds that I would see his eyes they would be filled with regret.

  I had stopped trying to convince him that it wasn’t his fault, but I swear it was times like these that I saw how truly a like Tristan and his older brother were; both determined to be stubborn to their last dying breath. But at breakfast I had almost tackled Rayne to prove that I was one-hundred percent fine, when his phone had gone off in his office. Instantly my fight died out of me as I heard the ringing, before I was tight on Rayne’s heels as he went to answer it.

  It didn’t take a genius to know that it was most likely Tristan calling with some news, what with most of the male shifters in the pack gone with him it left very few calls of other importance filing in. Rayne quickly picked up the phone and answered, “One moment,”

  Then quickly he commenced booting me out of the office. “What, I have every right to talk to him!” I yelled in outrage, trying to fight my way back into the room now that he had taken me by surprise enough to push me out into the hallway.

  The look he used on me was nothing short of an adult regarding a little kid, “This isn’t something you need to be in on,”

  I snarled as the door shut, cracking my fist against the wood. Back at square one, I was being treated like some kid who didn’t know what in the world I was getting myself into. “You can’t do this!” I screamed kicking the door again, but it was no use, I was locked out.

  All that had lead to me being where I was now, nurturing a slightly bruised knuckle and wanting to whimper at the throb in my heart that was caused by knowing I had come so close to being able to hear Tristan’s voice. They say there are some pains you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, and it was true. But at this point I wished for assurance that Tristan was feeling like I was so he’d come to realize how stupid he was for leaving and high tail it back home.

  They all thought I was some ignorant kid that didn’t know left from right in this new world. All their complicated explanations about the physics of a wolf and the society of our packs were dumbed down so I’d get it. What they failed to realize was I was not a kid anymore, I was eighteen, and far from stupid. If it weren’t for last fall I could be planning to go be a doctor somewhere and preparing my acceptance into pre-med. Or saying yes to the offer I got for Graphic Arts in another great college. Yes, maybe I wasn’t as well-rounded in the werewolf community as either of them, but my guess is they didn’t get the culture shock that I did.

  It’s like when the teacher’s had mistaken my schedule in freshman year and placed me into junior level math classes. At first I had been startled at all the equations that included others that had been skipped because it’s what I should have been learning. But like everything else I took it in stride, catching on to everything before they even had time to switch my classes back to normal. In the end I had stayed in the upper classes, only needing to take the final exams of the two previous year courses to get the credits. So what made me being changed into a wolf so much different than that? I got the basic mechanics of being a human down, and it only took me a little while to add in the wolf parts too.

  I am no ignorant child.

  There was an outburst from the office and I lazily twisted myself right-side-up again, desperately wanting to pound on the door to let me in again. But sadly that’d get me nowhere besides deeper into Rayne’s childlike syndrome of me. On the other hand though, I couldn’t stand it being so close and yet so far so I pushed myself up from the couch and headed to the front door. Pulling on my sneakers I left without notification, what did they care anyway?

  The outdoors felt better than I had hoped, the sun hidden behind a thick layer of clouds making the air cooler and almost bearable. My muscles rejoiced at the ability to stretch out and be used under some form of exercise. Despite my best efforts to hide it, there was still the slightest of limps in my injured leg, making me wince every time it hit the ground with a less graceful crunch than my fully operating one.

  Gritting my teeth I walked on, further into the pack area instead of the wild, I needed a distraction not more time to think. It was a fairly large pack by most standards, almost a hundred people living back here where no one noticed them. You had to admit it was impressive to say the least, sure most of them had jobs somewhere in town but to be able to skirt around forming relationships with humans was not an easy feat. Over half of the men had left with Tristan and that left the normally bustling foundation of the pack grounds calmer. A group of little kids raced past me as I reached the first of the houses back here; a boy and a girl trying to chase another boy. I was too busy watching them flit off into the trees to notice that there was another tag-along lagging behind them, “Wait!”

  I turned around to see a familiar looking girl with dark auburn hair, her thin elegant frame gasping for breath as she finally stopped near where I had ceased walking. “Those kids are going to be the death of me,” Alex said with a puff, blowing a few strands of her hair out of her eyes.

 “Why bother chasing them?” I asked her, remembering how she had been so fierce and determined during the raid Redwood has placed on us over the winter. She had been the one to help me go out to save Tristan, her going to help her older sister. Now she was a ton more relaxed, her silver eyes warm even.

  She shrugged with a sigh, “Halden—the little girl—has asthma and I’m supposed to keep her from running around while her mom’s at work. But mix her and those two boys, and there’s bound to be trouble,”

  I felt like asking, you’ve already had your first shift, why can’t you be able to catch a bunch of five year olds? But I kept my mouth shut; I was still a rocky subject among most of the pack and didn’t want to be causing unneeded problems. “You need some help?”

  She subtly looked me up and down, lingering on the gauze that wrapped tightly in a bandage around my leg. “I’m good, I wouldn’t want to cause the Beta’s mate any trouble—“

  Her sentence wasn’t finished most likely because of the cold look my eyes had taken on that probably looked more intimidating than meant. It's just no one really knew how truly sick I was of being treated special, like they needed to tiptoe on eggshells around me. But instead of taking out my yelling on Alex, it was worth a try to go at a different angle.

  "Please, I'm really sick of being cooped up in the house all the time?" I pleaded, not needing much acting skills to look desperate.

  She smirked but relented, "Fine. But I better not get any heat from the higher ups about this," she warned, pointing a finger in my direction. I just eagerly nodded and fell into stride beside her as we headed off after the little kids. It wasn't that hard to know which direction they headed, their little peals of laughter echoed off the trees to pinpoint their location with ease.

  "Why is it whenever I run into you, you're always sick or injured of some sort?" Alex asked bluntly when we had gotten close enough to the kids to witness a whisk of blonde hair trailing behind them.

  I cracked a grin, "That I don't know, really. I'll have to work on that for next time."

  She let a small smile come from her lips, seeming a little apprehensive about me but I just brushed it off, at least I was getting to do something. There wasn't much time to say anything anyway because no sooner had she opened her mouth to speak was there a shriek from up ahead. Quickly she sped up to catch up to the trio of rambunctious little kids, me not far behind as I heard the shriek escalate into hiccupped crying.

  Coming around the corner of a tree bend the first thing we saw was a little boy with dark brown hair looking at the ground in front of him with a scared expression, another boy with his arms crossed glaring at the same spot. On the ground was the blonde girl sitting, her hands behind her like she had fallen backwards. Tears were streaming down her face as she tried to get the sound of actual despair out but kept on getting caught with gasping breaths. Alex bee-lined it in her direction pulling something small out of her pocket as she kneeled in front of the girl.

  While she was doing whatever I looked fords the two boys, the dark haired one looking up at me, still frightened. "I didn't meaned to scare her," he said with a quivering voice.

  "What happened here?" I asked with a soft voice, kneeling down to his eye level. His eyes were welling up with tears as he looked behind me towards Alex and the girl before resting back on myself. Before he could answer the other boy grumbled.

  "Haldens just being a cry baby. She not really hurt," he said as he huffed. His blonde hair and blue eyes made me think he was the little girl’s brother at the very least.

  "Honey, I need you to breath this in so the hiccups will stop," Alex soother Halden, holding out a breathalyzer towards her. She and I knew that she wasn't suffering from hiccups; more so asthma attack.

  The brunette boy finally said something, pulling my attention to him. "I just wanted to have fun. I was just going to surprised her by jumping from behind the tree,"

  I wasn't much use around children, never really had been able to totally see from their level. But the scared expression on his face had a little tugging appear on my heart, making me reach out to touch his arm in a poor attempt at trying to comfort him. He seemed to disregard that though and accepted it anyway, surprising me. I had been half expecting him to look at me like I was crazy, but instead he just took a step forward to rest his head on my shoulder as he finally started crying. My other arm wrapped around him awkwardly as I tried looking back towards Alex for some sort of help here. But she had just finally gotten Halden to take a breath in of the breathalyzer. "Crybaby," her brother muttered again from his spot, with his arms crossed defiantly in front of his tiny chest, this time looking at the boy in my arms also.

  "Is she gonna be alright?" the crying boy muffled through my shirt.

  "Yeah, she's... she's fine," I said slowly, anything to get him to stop crying.

  "Feel better?" Alex asked Halden, who nodded her head slowly, the last of her tears fading out as she sniffled. With her answer positive, Alex pocketed the breathalyzer, before hefting Halden up on her hip as she stood up.

 "Are you alright, Brandon." she said looking back at the three of us. The boy in my arms finally pulled away, allowing me to quickly stand up to avoid being a shoulder to cry on if he started up again. That probably made me sound cruel, but I truly wasn't used to children. Maybe I really shouldn't have asked to shadow Alex today...

  "Yeah, I is sorry, Halden," he said to her as she peered down from the safety of Alex's hold. With another sniffle she barely lifted her heard from Alex's shoulder to nod.

  "That is alright," she said quietly.

  That had to have been one of the cutest exchanges I had ever seen between two people in my whole life. It made my heart thud n my chest at how adorable these kids were, even if there had been a lot of crying involved.

  Alex smiled softly before turning two the other little boy; "I think you should really apologize about the name calling, Kyle."

  Immediately he shook his head adamantly, "No, they really are crybabies, it ain't name calling if it is true."

  "What would you do if someone scared you?" she asked him.

  "I'm not scared of anything, Alex, I'm a big boy," Kyle said as if it was obvious. I covered my mouth with my hand so he wouldn't see my amused smile when he supposed to be being reprimanded. I could definitely imagine Tristan acting the exact same way when he was five, what with the stubborn attitude.

  Alex sighed, "Just say sorry to your sister and Brandon,"

  He scowled for a moment before dramatically sighing, which made me bite my lip to keep back the snickering. "I'm sorry," he didn't even look at either of the two other children but Alex begrudgingly accepted it anyway.

  "Now that that's settled, we are going to get you to Chelsea to make sure you won't have any after affects from your hiccups," she said bouncing Halden a little to make her giggle.

  "Will she give me a lollipop?" she asked, the last traces of her crying disappearing with her hopeful eyes,

  "Maybe if you're good," she teased with a relieved smile, before looking up towards me.

  "You still up to tagging along with us cool kids?" she asked with a little bit more of her teasing tone, probably because she had noticed my apprehensiveness towards the boys. Heck, a blind man could see that I was a little uncomfortable, but thank goodness I was stubborn because I just straightened my back and nodded like it was the most obvious question in the world.

  "Well come along then, the crazy train is heading out of here!" she chirped waving for Kyle and Brandon to follow her as we went back from where we had come from.

  Brandon had stopped sniffling along with Halden after seeing she was okay, and now he fell in step beside me with Kyle walking between me and Alex. I don't know whether or not offering a hug to the kid was worth adoration, but he still followed along with me anyway. I hardly remember being a little kid, all but some stray memories of me and my parents and the park, but I knew I never really had any older kids to really look up to, until high school when I finally met Quinn's older brother. But let's face it; he's not the best of influences. I for one knew that I was probably tipping along to his side of the scale of influentials, and didn't really take liking to the fact that this little boy was following me around...

  Shaking my head I sighed, I was thinking way too much into this. All he was doing was walking beside me, how much influence could he get from me by walking, maybe a girlish stride if he paid too much attention? But that was the maximum of rubbing off that could come from this.

  We found Chelsea at what was supposedly to be her house. I had always noted it strange that the best doctor in the whole oak was a sixteen year old girl who was still in high school. But it was hard to doubt her skill once she started working on someone. Within five minutes she was examining Halden's lungs to make sure that she could breathe properly now that she had had a hit of her medicine. Many times she had been there to help take care of all the injuries I had sustained over the winter and Rayne's bite mark on my leg which she had looked at me disapprovingly over when we had come in. I didn't need to hear it out loud, because her thoughts were always crystal clear across her face. I shouldn't be walking around when my leg still needed healing, but I wished she'd hear without me speaking to her directly, that I really didn't give a crap.

  "Looks good, seems to be only a minor attack." she noted after taking the stethoscope away from Halden's chest, "but I think you guys should take it easy for a little while so your hiccups don't come back again." With a delicate poke to the arm Halden giggled, her long blonde hair bobbing with the movement.

  I had sat through and watched all of this, from the running children, fight, to this and all throughout everything I couldn't get rid of the thoughts and sadness that missing Tristan brought out in me. But for some reason the peal of this little girl’s laughter brought it out more, like a shock to the chest, that made me think of a little girl that would sound just like that.

  But of course she'd have dark hair just like her father; and a defiant glint in her eyes like both of us.

  Thinking about me and Tristan having a kid was a little foreign, I mean I had never really pictured having kids before. And for some reason my fiancé didn't really seem like the guy who would particularly me enamored by the idea of being a father. But the fact was that he was my fiancé, which meant we'd get married, and what was realistically after that. Children. It's like a big piece of unknown space would be created if the idea of having kids was extracted from the future plans.

  I frowned, I guess I could have kids, they were cute and all, and I'm sure that any child replicated with Tristan's features would be one of the most adorable things alive; but was that really enough to base having them on?

  My internal debate was interrupted when I realized that Chelsea's lips were moving, her face expectant for an answer.

  "Wait, what?" I asked dumbly, coming back to reality.

  She smirked, "I asked how you were doing with Tristan gone?" she asked. The kids had disappeared down the hall towards a play room where Chelsea's little sister apparently played in. That left me, her, and Alex left in the room.

  "Oh, I guess it's alright...?" I managed out, even though it hurt to bring up the distance factor between me and him.

  Her face softened, "I'm sorry that he had to go, I might not be mated to someone but I've heard gossip about the bond between the two mates causing distress."

  "Yeah, I guess," I said, running a hand through my hair. Distress was the understatement of the year; I wanted to crawl up the walls with pure anxiety. I had no way of knowing what he was doing and if it was putting him in dangers way just to prove his manliness. In the end that's what it really was, because there was no need to go after Ian, if we waited long enough he'd come to us. But Tristan wanted a personal chance to tear his throat out because of what he had done to me, and I didn't blame him, but couldn't we just handle this without risking so much?

  "What's it like exactly?" Alex piped in from her seat on the couch, her long legs tucked under her neatly.

  "What's what like?" I asked.

  "Having a mate; I mean I've heard about it from my parents, but they're so deeply in love it's creepy. At least with you and Tristan, it seems real, I mean you guys fight all the time, and yet you I stick by each other."

  "Oh...uh," I paused, trying to the think of the right words, "I guess it's frustrating. But my opinion is hardly reliable, I still think of this mostly as a normal relationship, the whole 'mating' concept confuses me."

  "Well, normal sounds pretty nice about now," she muttered, glancing out window and leaving me wondering what she was getting on to about. The silence lasted a bit longer before the two girls got into a conversation I knew nothing about. With another sigh I knew I was back to where I started today, sitting around doing nothing and letting my muscles grow weary.

  It didn't help that all they really and truly wanted to do was wrap around Tristan and never let him go. Stupid man he was for leaving like this. And stupid Rayne for laying me up like this so I would have to be treated with care around my injured leg.

  I snorted in my head thinking that with some proper training he probably wouldn’t have been able to close his jaws around my leg when I had been running, at least not without difficulty. Being able to fight back could’ve probably prevents a number of scars on my body that I had, especially the ones that Ian had branded me with.

  Suddenly it hit me. Why had I not though of this before? It seemed so obvious now.

  Quickly I said goodbye to the two girls and took off back towards the main cabin in search of Rayne. If I really wanted people to stop seeing me as the equivalent of a child who had fallen back in the dirt, I needed to prove that I was willing to fight back. Anyone would see someone who didn't know how to crack a punch as weak.

  My mouth was set in a determined smirk the more I thought about it, and by the time I made it back I was fully prepared to not take no for an answer. There was no hesitation when I burst into his office, now that the doors were unlocked to see him look up suddenly from his desk, a momentary look of weariness crossing his face when he saw the way mine was so hopeful.

  "I want you to train me."