“My window is down. Let’s get out of here,” Mona yelled. “Your highnesses, can you get yours down too?”
Once again, there were no answers.
“No.” Kassie grabbed me and shoved me into Mona’s arms. “Go now. They’ll come back.”
“But Mommy. Daddy.” I couldn’t leave them. She had to be out of her mind.
“Take her now, Mona.”
I didn’t understand. Kassie was looking strange. She was so pale, which didn’t make sense. Wolves in our pack had olive skin.
Mona released me and climbed out of the window. “Here, hand her to me.”
“No, Mommy.” I tried climbing over the center console, but Kassie yanked me and placed me in Mona’s hands.
“Come on, Elena.” Mona nodded toward Kassie. “She needs to help your parents.”
“Oh, okay.” She was going to help them. “Please keep them safe?” My eyes locked onto Kassie’s as a tear trailed down her cheek.
A car’s doors slammed up above, and Mona placed her hand on my head. “Remember the game you like to play with Daddy in the pool?”
“Yes.” I smiled. “Are we doing Marco Polo?”
“Kind of like that, so we need to swim a long way so it’s not easy to find us.” Mona winked at me, but her smile seemed different.
My spine prickled, but it didn’t make any sense. I mean, we were playing a game. Daddy always found me so easy. Maybe this would be the first time that I beat him. “Okay.” I smiled as I glanced back at them one more time. “But if they can’t find us super-fast, we have to let them know we’re okay. They might be scared.”
“You’ve got it.” Mona patted my cheek. “On the count of three. One, two, three.”
She submerged us in water as the car exploded and everything went dark.
Present Day
My eyes popped open, and I sat straight up in bed. That fucking dream was back. I didn’t know why my wolf wanted me to relive that memory over and over. I needed to go visit that witch again, pronto.
I glanced at the clock. Great, six in the morning. I still had an hour before the stupid alarm was supposed to go off. There was no way in hell I was going to try to go back to sleep after that nightmare.
Signs had started to show last week that the magic that hid my wolf was wearing off. I should’ve gone then, but I had college orientation that felt like it lasted forever, and a group wanted to go out for drinks afterward. So after my classes, my ass would entail going to hunt the witch down. Most of the time, I found her at her store in town, but witches were unpredictable. They usually did as they pleased.
As I scratched my nose, my hand touched wetness on my cheeks. I’d been crying again just like every other time I had my dream.
My parents died by my uncle’s hand. It was still hard to believe after all this time. You’d think that the hurt would ease over time, but it hadn’t. Right before I turned sixteen, Mona and Kassie helped me find a witch that would suppress my wolf. At first, they’d been hesitant since I told them I never wanted to be Queen. They put up a fuss. But after I pointed out that if I shifted, my asshole uncle would feel me and know I was alive, they got onboard faster. At that time, we still weren’t quite ready for that.
It still rocked me the way wolf hierarchy worked. Since my uncle was considered King, he felt every wolf shifter on North America’s continent.
Had they known my other main reason for wanting to keep my wolf contained, they probably wouldn’t have helped me. When they realized my true intent, it was too late.
I wanted to be human.
What did being a supernatural get me? Dead parents. I didn’t need karma to remind me again of why being human was what I needed to do. If my uncle being a power-hungry asshole wasn’t the wakeup call I needed, then I’d have to be an idiot.
That’s why today was so important. It was my first official day of being a freshman at the University of South Carolina. It was a decent school and not too crazy-expensive since we lived in town. It would be the first time I wasn’t homeschooling in the last several years, which unnerved me. But hell, if I was going to be a human, I had to learn how to be around them.
Forcing myself out of bed, I stood and made myself head over and turn on the lights. It was stupid since I didn’t need them, but I had to remember I was human; not half-wolf, so I needed to use them.
I learned early on, if you don’t get in the habit of doing things the ‘normal’ way, then humans looked at you strangely and pulled away. That was what happened at the last place we moved before here. I had just started third grade. I hadn’t noticed how different I was until then. I could see so much better than the others and was more connected with nature.
When I’d tell them a storm was coming, they’d laugh. However, it all blew up when I smelled death on the librarian. I had told the teacher and classmates that they needed to say their goodbyes, and they all looked at me strangely. Kassie and Mona got called in as my guardians, and the school told them I needed counseling. When the librarian died two days later, even the teachers were scared to talk to me.
It was as if they thought I caused her death or something. So, it killed my social life, and because of that, we moved away, ending up here. I quickly learned to follow the crowd and not stick out, which was everything opposite of what my parents stood for.
But, at the end of the day, they were dead, and I wasn’t, so I figured I should
