*Vanessa*I’m running faster than I’ve ever run before. My feet pound into the ground beneath me with every step, right into the forest floor, sinking half an inch into the hardened mud before shooting out and propelling me forward once more. My lungs feel like they’re going to burst and sweat drips down my neck and back, cooling rapidly in the frosty air. Behind me, I hear the shouts coming up in the familiar voices of my pack. They scream obscenities at me as they chase me, the promise of bloodshed thick in their tone. As though I’m prey or a foreign threat they’re driving out of their territory and not one of their own. Tears are falling down my face, wetting my cheeks, and dripping into my mouth until it's filled with salt. There’s no moon above. The only light comes from the glowing yellow eyes of my pursuers, incomprehensibly bright enough to dimly light the path ahead of me, which terrifies me because it means they’re drawing closer.
*Vanessa*“Alright, listen up. I want you all to pair off in groups of two, with one shifter being the medic and the other the patient. I’ll go through the medical protocol for various hunting-related injuries and I want you guys to simulate how you’ll go about addressing the wounds with the kits I provided.” Amara’s voice is laced with authority, and when I take a look at the dozen shifters before us, I can see the deference in their faces. It gives me an odd sense of pride. Amara and I had spent the rest of the night going through ways to improve Ashborne’s medical system. She listened to me, asking questions, making notes of the answers, and even offering some suggestions of her own. It was strangely validating, to be taken seriously. Like Aaron, she let me introduce all of the new ideas to the shifters first before she went into detail implementing them. I could tell that they couldn’t see the point behind the small first-aid sessions I’d suggested and
*Vanessa*“I told you it would take around two months. I got it almost to the day,” Amara says triumphantly, removing the last stitch from my arm. “This isn’t permission to lose your mind and go cliff-diving or anything like that though, got it?”I flutter my eyelashes at her innocently. “Why not? You’re such an excellent medic, I feel fully confident that I could do anything and know that you’ll patch me up.”“Ha, ha,” Amara adds sarcastically. “I can promise you that if you waltz in here with any stupidity-induced injuries I will not raise so much as a finger. You’ll have to find another medic.”“And I thought we were becoming friends,” I note, hopping off the bed and stretching.“I have standards even for my friends,” Amara replies, packing the equipment she’d been using back into the kit and beginning to tidy up. I smile, enjoying the feelings of comfort and familiarity her friendship brings me. The two months since the attack flew past in the blink o
*Shawn*She looked nervous when I asked her to dinner, like she still wasn’t sure whether or not she could trust me. I guess I can’t blame her. It may have been two months since she first came here, but I know that even without any of the details, whatever reasons she has for not being able to return to her old pack must’ve wrecked her faith in people. It pains me to think that she has a reason to feel that way, and even more so when she downplays her skills. Over the past few weeks, she’s dismissed most of the compliments she’s been given by me, or the other occasional shifters. But I’ve watched her grow exponentially even in this last month alone. I’ve memorized the look on her face when she’s really concentrating on something, the way she wrinkles her nose slightly and constantly tucks her hair behind her ear, even when it’s perfectly neat. Or the way she lights up when she finally manages to come up with a solution to a problem that’s been i
*Vanessa*I don’t register anything as I rush through the compound and toward my apartment.I just screamed at Ashborne’s Alpha without any sense of self-preservation or logic. I was so overwrought with the emotions the confession had wrung out of me that I didn’t stop to think about the consequences of my actions. Shawn would certainly kick me out now. There was no doubt about it. I knew enough about pack politics and the dynamics of the hierarchies within to understand that I just broke one of the most cardinal rules: never disregard your Alpha. It didn’t matter that we were alone and there wasn’t anyone around to hear me do it. I essentially spat on his title. Any other Alpha might have punished me on the spot. I don’t even want to think about how Trent would’ve reacted. Whatever kindness I thought Shawn was displaying toward me would never be able to save me from what I know I deserve. If he was genuine in his treatment of me, I might be lucky enou
*Vanessa*The next morning, I’m well-rested but my face is still blotchy and swollen from crying the night before. I get ready, taking a shower and choosing my clothes while wondering what I can do to fill the day seeing as I have no meetings planned and no rounds to do. I know that Amara has a full schedule with her patients and the first aid classes, so I decide to just go for a walk around the compound for some fresh air and exercise. I opt to wear a pair of shorts and a casual shirt, a cool enough outfit in the heat already beginning to build outside.I’m about to leave and open the door when I come face to face with none other than Shawn. His fist is raised, as though he were mere seconds away from knocking before I opened it anyway. Neither of us says anything at first, both evidently too surprised and unprepared to know how to proceed. But then, he lowers his hand and inclines his head in greeting.“Good morning, Vanessa. I was hoping to get a chance t
*Vanessa*“Hey, Vanessa, over here!” Amara waves me over to the group of eating shifters and I freeze, my plate still in my hands. The group is seated around a table and most of them aren’t really paying attention to her invitation. The few that do notice give me reassuring looks. I swallow hard, reminding myself about what Elder Luka said.If I want to learn how to open myself up to others and really have a place here, then there’s nothing to do but try. Despite it going against every fiber in my being, I return their smiles and head over to join them, my stomach in knots but my mind determined. “Hey,” I say to everyone at the table.“It’s about time you joined us,” Amara says, absentmindedly digging into her lunch. “They’ve been asking me to introduce them to you for a while now.”“Really?” I ask in surprise and a few of the shifters murmur their confirmation. “Yeah.” A boy who can’t be older than twenty pipes up from a couple of seats to my left
*Vanessa*It takes me ages to fall asleep. After the ceremony concluded, Shawn walked me back to my apartment. We just carried on talking, like we did on the roof. We spoke about everything and nothing at the same time, our conversation drifting in and out of seriousness until dawn broke.As I lay there, my heartbeat refusing to settle down, questions began to break through the fog of tipsiness. He’d been so sweet with me, patient and willing to share something personal that he by no means had to. I like him. There’s no doubt about that now. I really, really like him. But what did I want to do with that information? Shawn said we would go as slow as I needed to, and that he would wait for me. He’d been true to his word, but now I find myself at a crossroads. Do I move on and take the chance to have a relationship with him despite my fears, or do I do the safe thing and deny my feelings?We went from being wary strangers to allies to friends, but a