Chapter 4

Annabelle

I woke Thursday morning, exhausted. I'd tossed and turned all night. I was swimming alone in a sea. My dreams usually started out pleasantly like this. I relaxed and floated on my back, savoring the feel of the water. Then I heard a splashing sound. I sat up, looked around, and finally found the source of the splashing. Emma and Natalie were playing in the tide along the shore."Oh my god!" I thought. "Okay. Don't panic, you'll freak them and yourself out." I started making my way slowly towards the shore, trying not to bring attention to my presence. I didn't want the girls out this far and if they noticed me, they'd try and come straight to me.

I was about halfway back to shore when I noticed someone standing in the trees at the other side of the beach. It looked like a man in his upper fifties, not short not but not really tall either. He was skinny and balding on top. The hair he did have was bright red and wrapped around the base of his skull. He seemed to have some kind of overbite that showed through his goatee. As I got closer, he started making me more and more nervous. He just stood there, saying nothing. My southern manners required that I was polite and assumed that he was harmless.

I finally got to where I could touch bottom and once the water was to my waist, keeping quiet was almost impossible. The girls looked up at me then. "Mommy! Mommy!" They were shouting and bouncing around in the low, lapping tide. Just then, a cold breeze came from behind me that made me look up from the babies. What I saw made my blood run cold. The mysterious man had stepped out of the trees and was now standing within fifty feet of Natalie. She saw me and ran back towards the shoreline. Panic settled over me like a heavy cloak.

When I looked back to him, he raised his eyes from Nat to me right before I reached the girls, he smiled a terrifying smile and I froze. That's when I realized he wasn't a man at all. He was something other than human. His skin had a strange orange hue and his teeth were filed to points. His eyes weren't normal either, they didn't have irises. Instead they were entirely red, whites and all, with yellow pupils. I was to the girls by this point and I snatched them up and went straight to our stuff on the beach. I put the girls down long enough to pack things away, as to avoid any inkling of alarm. He just stood there, unmoving except for his face. He'd followed me with his eyes and stared with his head cocked and that horrifying smile. I packed the last toy, pulled on my shorts, and bent to wrap a towel around Em and a dress over Nat's head.

At that moment, the sun went behind the clouds and it was suddenly pretty dark. That's when he turned and started stalking towards us. I grabbed the girls and started to the car. He was suddenly right on top of me, so I did the only thing I could think of and threw myself on top of the girls to protect them as long as I could. He was hovering over me, licking his lips. I laid, paralyzed by fear, telling the girls over and over how much I loved them and then he was just gone.

I braved a peek around and then I found him. He was pinned to the ground by a giant white wolf. He reached for the wolf's throat, talons shooting out of his fingertips. I screamed, which distracted them both for a moment. A moment which he used to his advantage and got out of from under the wolf, retracted his claws, cast a glance at me and then fled. The wolf stopped, looked over to us as I sat, shocked, it yipped and ran off after the demon or whatever it was. I had woke from the dream with a start, breathing heavy and mind going crazy from what I'd seen. The demon had been terrifying but it was I saw in that wolf's eyes that had me floored.

I had dreams that I was trying to protect my kids all the time. That was the first time a wolf had come to our rescue. And when he turned to look at me, his eyes... His eyes had been big, deep and green. "Well, that was weird, but life goes on." I said to myself.

I could hear Emma giggling at something Natalie was doing. "What do you ladies want for breakfast?" I shouted as I padded into the kitchen. In response, I got "Mommy! Mommy!" in unison. They came barreling into the kitchen, Natalie climbed into her booster and I picked Emma up and put her in her high chair. While I was pouring their morning juice, Nat informed me that princesses only ate pink pancakes with sprinkles.

"How about pink pancakes with strawberries?" I asked. She wrinkled up her nose and looked like she was making a very difficult decision. "Okay." she finally decided. I just laughed, gave them their juice and cut up some strawberries. I put the strawberries in front of them before pulling down the pancake mix and red food coloring.

I was sliding Emma's pancakes on her plate and pouring on two more when I heard something at the door. I flipped the pancakes and went to investigate. Once I was in the living room, I'd found the source of the sound at the door. I dropped the spatula and squealed. "See, this is why we can't have nice things." said the woman at the door. She was my best friend, Marie. Marie Shaw was petite, with long, wavy chestnut hair, deep brown eyes, and a dark tan. Don't let Shaw fool you, she was mexican through and through. Especially when she was mad. She was generously endowed, had a 'fuck you' attitude but was fiercely loyal. I jumped and threw my arms around her neck.

"You're early and I've missed you." I exclaimed.

"Geez. We've only been apart like four days. Get off my nuts." she said, playfully shoving me back.

"Jerk." I said, laughing at her.

"What's for breakfast?"

"Pink Princess pancakes."

"That sounds like a princess Natalie demand." she said as we walked into the kitchen. "TIA!" Natalie shouted and launched herself at Marie. Marie caught her, spun her around and kissed her on the forehead, putting her back at the table. "Eat your breakfast, Mija." Emma was sitting in her high chair, reaching her sticky fingers up to Marie, opening and closing her little hands. Marie tried to pretend she wasn't affected by her pleas, but ended up holding her and with syrup in her hair.

"How am I ever gonna find a husband with these kids around?" she asked, facetiously, trying to run her fingers through the syrup in her hair.

"You'd have to want one for that to be a problem." I bantered back.

"True story." she agreed. And we finished our breakfast in an easy banter.

"So, I see you haven't hooked one for yourself yet either." she clipped while we were bringing the last of the stuff from the back of Marie's truck.

"Yeah, yeah." I rolled my eyes at her.

"Have you even left the house since you've been here?" I opened my mouth to answer her but she stopped me by holding up a finger. "Besides Wal-Mart? You've got to stop sitting at home by yourself all the time."

"Marie! I'll have you know that we were up at the local bar and grill three nights ago." I said, triumphantly. She looked at me appreciatively. "Look at you." I shook my head and laughed at her and laughed. "Did you meet anyone of interest?" she asked. I blushed when my mind went immediately to Alcide and turned my attention back to the box I was unpacking.

"No one really. Our landlord is the bartender and owner. I also met this waitress whose brother helped me get some stuff in and her grandmother is gonna watch the girls during the school day."

"I saw that. What're you not telling me?" she asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

"Nothing. Why wouldn't I tell you?"

"Because you don't want me to nag you to tell me whoever it is that you're not telling me about."

"It doesn't matter anyway."

"The hell it doesn't. You've got to stop lying around grieving over Adam at one point, Anna. Why doesn't it matter?"

"I do not 'lay' around."

"You don't actually lay around, but you're just going through the motions. It's been two years, A."

"He wouldn't want me anyway, Marie. Just drop it."

"Is that so? We'll just have to see about that." Marie said, with that look in her eye. I never liked it when she got that look.

Alcide

I wasn't thrilled that Sookie didn't want to be with me. I was even less thrilled that I'd been denied for a vamper. It did make me feel like a weight had been lifted not having to worry about ifs and buts anymore.

"This sucks." I said to myself. It didn't seem as bad as I thought it would be, though. Yes, I've lost Sookie. But you can't really lose something you never had, can you?

Get your mind on your work, Herveaux. I chided myself. "Louann, did Jones ever come by for his plans?" I asked my secretary. I had taken a long lunch yesterday to talk with Janice for a while. "Yes, Mr. Herveaux. I gave them to him yesterday while you were on lunch. He seemed very pleased." Good. That catastrophe averted.

Now, if I could just get that girl from Merlotte's off my mind. I didn't need to get wrapped up in another pretty blonde that wants a dead guy over me. I didn't get the fang-banger vibe from her but I wouldn't have made Sookie for one either. Or that Debbie would cheat on me.

Whoa now. Do not need to go down that road.

But who would be accepting of a werewolf?

Sookie had said she was more open-minded and that she 'knew' already. I'm assuming that she meant what she knew about was werewolves. But then there's that about what assuming does. Making asses out of everyone and all that.

I'd call Sookie after work and talk to her about it. I don't really want to talk to Sookie about another woman so quickly but she's the one that told me to talk to her.

Maybe I should just call this Annabelle? I don't know.

The day flew by after I finally made myself focus on my work. It may have been the incessant pile of work I'd stacked up since I'd been slacking at the beginning of the week during the full moon; or if it was my inner battle over which woman I would call and that I needed to stop talking about it. By the end, I'd settled on calling Sookie just to cover my bases. Sookie would know I was moving on and I would be able to clarify what exactly it was that Annabelle 'knew'. I called and she'd told me what she'd heard in her head.

She knew about Weres and thought that her mother had been unreasonable in keeping her and her siblings away from her dad's friends that had been friends of the family for years but had turned out to be wolves. Also, that she'd thought prejudice against Were-people was ignorant since they obviously weren't the movie monsters everyone thought they were. And they'd never hurt them when they could've gotten away with it. Why would they after her parents knew what wolves were capable of? And she'd, according to Sookie, been drooling over me. And Vamps made her uncomfortable, which Sook was not thrilled to relay. I'd smiled at that.

A reasonable mother accepting of wolves? Interesting.

Maybe I should call her. The worst she could do is say no. Maybe I'd found a woman who wouldn't prefer vampires or another wolf. I'd love to have a family and a good woman to come home to, kids to teach things to, I never imagined I could have any of those things. But I guess I should ask out the girl before I started planning a life with her. I stood up from my desk, went to my truck, drove home and parked in the parking lot. I just sat there for a full five minutes trying to coax up the courage to call. Finally, I pulled out my cell phone and stared at it. I pulled the number Sookie'd given me from my wallet and typed it in. I put it up to my ear and by the time it rang a second time I almost lost my nerve and hung up.

I took the phone away from my ear to close it and at that moment, the phone clicked and a woman answered, "Hello?" "Annabelle? This is Alcide Herveaux. We met at Merlotte's on Monday night?"

Sam

"Great. I hate demons." Dean said, kicking the dirt outside knowing there was no reason to preserve the crime scene. I felt his pain. Demons always gave us the most trouble short of would-be Gods. They're a pain in the ass and virtually unkillable. We had a total of two weapons to kill demons, Ruby had one and Bela had the other. Bobby had been turning over every leaf and pulling every string he could to find them both and hadn't had any luck.

So, we had to fall back on rock salt, devil's traps, and exorcism rituals. And that method meant a temporary banishment and that they could and probably would, claw their wat back out of hell more pissed than they were when we sent them there. And a pissed off demon was never a good thing. It's even worse when you're the one they're after. You never want on the short end of a vengeance stick belonging to a demon.

Hopefully, we were dealing with one of the lower grades. I really didn't want to deal with a bigger bad than we could handle. We left the scene after asking if the victims had been from Bon Temps originally. Which, of course, they had been. We were in the car on the way back to the hotel when I asked aloud, "What does this demon have against people born in this Podunk town? You'd think he'd have better prospects than this."

"I don't know, man. Maybe he's owed something? I don't have a clue what all these people could owe the same demon. Especially when they were living all over the south when they died." I wasn't sure either.

"I don't know either, Dean. Maybe we need to delve deeper into the town's and the victims' histories.

The next morning we had our coffee, Dean had his pie and we were driving around trying to find the town library. It being late August in Louisiana, we'd ditched the jackets that day and opted for rolling the sleeves of our button ups to our shoulders. Plus, it gave Dean an excuse to wear his boots. He thought it would make people more receptive of him. I thought it would probably just piss off the locals. "There it is on your right." I said, pointing to a small, white brick building to our right. He switched lanes and turned into the humble parking lot.

We'd gotten out of the car and were almost to the door when we slammed into a blonde woman, who strangely held up even though our combined weight should've knocked her down. I filed that away for later consideration. It was the waitress from the bar. What was her name? Dean put his hands on her shoulders and said, "Whoa, Sookie! Going somewhere in a hurry?" Sometimes I was really grateful for Dean's womanizer's roll-a-dex. I'd completely blanked on her name.

"As a matter of fact, Dean -" she said, smiling up at him, placing her hands on his forearms. God, she reminds me of Jessica when she smiles, I thought to myself. Dean looked down at their arms with that look he refused to talk about on his face. A look of concern crossed her face then she moved her hands to either side of Dean's face. She closed her eyes and whispered, "You poor things, bless your heart." Then she stood on her toes and laid a feather-light kiss on his cheek, reached over to me, patted my cheek and gave me a half-hearted smile and dropped her hands to her sides.

She shook herself, stepped away from us, smiled brightly and finished her sentence. "As a matter of fact, Dean, I'm gonna be late for my shift, so I'll talk to you boys later. Come see us at Merlotte's if you find the time." She walked the rest of the way to her car and drove off.

I turned to Dean and said, "What the hell was that all about?"

He just shook his head and said, "I don't know, little brother. But let's get in here and do some research before I make up mind."

"Make your mind up about what?"

"About having two things to hunt in this town."

With that, he walked into the library and I followed him hoping he wasn't right.

I know I've been slacking a bit on my writing. But a one year old little girl and a house to keep can be distracting, not to mention my Alpha and Omega story. And this story requires SO much detail and free time. But I do love writing it and I know where I'm going with it, I should be caught up and get some free time today, so look for Chapter 5 in the next couple of days. I promise it will be worth your wait. There's going to be some pretty lemony parts in this next chapter for Alcide, Annabelle and maybe even Dean. And if you're a fan of strong female characters, you will fall in love with Marie in the next few chapters. Thank you for your patience and as always, love the reviews! Much love.