Hello again everyone! Thank you so much to all of those who reviewed! I am glad that you guys are enjoying this story so much!
All I can say for this chapter is that I'm happy to have finally written it out. We're making some awesome progress on this story :) yayy! I can't wait until you guys see all of the things still to come!
Hope you like this chapter as much as the rest!
Song for this Chapter- Rules by Jayme Dee
Chapter 27
Raised by Wolves
I spotted Noah on the other side of the backyard, staring off into the trees while he chewed on a piece of the new nicotine gum he bought for himself. My hands were curled up inside of my pockets and I could smell the fresh spring dew that was covering the ground. A twig broke beneath my foot as I got closer to him, and when I was finally beside him I could see the conflicted look on his face.
I didn't know what was going on with him lately. He had been acting so secretive, like there was something he didn't want me to know about. It was strange to say the least; he had never kept things to himself. I was usually the first to know about it.
For the past week or so Noah's kept to himself, locking himself into his room and not speaking to me. He barely even looks at me anymore and I was starting to really worry about him.
As he kicked up some of the dirt on the ground, I kept my eyes focused on only him. Something was wrong and I knew it. I would sit here until it was dark out just to comfort him in some way. It was the least I could do for him.
After a few short minutes of silence he finally talked to me, "I need you to promise me something," he said, sounding more determined than he ever has.
I nodded so he would know that I was listening, "Don't ever tell someone you love them until you know exactly who they are. If they're not honest with you then they're not worth your time."
I didn't understand why he would say something like this to me right now out of all times. It was so random and out of the blue, because it wasn't like guys were throwing themselves at me and I didn't particularly find any of the guys around here interesting either.
A bad feeling started to settle in the pit of my stomach. For the past week that he's been giving me these little spews of advice every once and a while, and I don't know why but it terrifies me. It feels like I'm losing him.
"Melody," he turned towards me and grabbed each of my arms as if he was going to force the information he was giving me to stick in my head, "You have to promise me you'll be strong, that you'll protect yourself from anyone who tries to hurt you, guys included."
I shook my head, "Noah you're not making sense."
He half smiled at me, "It's not supposed to make sense, not now anyways. One day you'll get it though, and you'll be thanking me for giving you a piece of my wisdom."
My lips twitched upward for a slight second. I couldn't find it in myself to feel better about anything he just said to me because in my gut I knew that something was wrong with him and I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.
I opened my eyes and looked into the mirror above the sink, watching as the tears ran down my cheeks. I haven't thought about that day at all since his death, the last full day of his life. If I would've realized what his words really meant then maybe I could've stopped him. I should've known that those would be some of the last things I would hear him say to me. I should've known that the reason why he was acting so out of the ordinary was because he was planning on killing himself.
I turned the knob on the sink and splashed the cool water over my face and neck, absorbing every single word he spoke to me that day. I kept his advice in my head as I got ready for what was to come today and how I ended up in here. I woke up this morning all confused and flustered after I discovered that Brady wasn't lying next to me and I was alone. I ate breakfast with his parents after his mom explained to me that he left for work early this morning. They told me embarrassing stories of him as a kid and showed me a bunch of pictures from their family photo album. It was a great distraction from how nervous I felt.
After we ate his mom told me that Brady wanted me to meet him at Sam and Emily's house at one. I assumed that was when it was all going to happen, when I would no longer be kept in the dark. I felt a pressure in my chest the whole time I fixed up my hair and changed into my clothes.
I stared off into space as I sat on Brady's bed, feeling like I was going to puke. I could smell his scent all around me, and that started to make my stomach tie in knots. It was stupid that I was acting so nervous when I didn't even know if what he was going to say to me was bad. Maybe it will be something simple, and I would've gotten all worked up over nothing. But I couldn't shake this feeling inside of me, a feeling that what would happen today would change my whole life. It was a huge assumption to make just based off of a gut feeling.
My eyes closed as I fell back onto his bed, resting my head on the pillow that he slept on last night. I repeated my brother's words of advice in my head, convincing myself that I had to be strong and that it was a good thing that he was telling me today.
For a moment I laughed at myself, because I knew that there was the possibility that it could be something like a foot fetish or a fear of heights. I really was starting to believe that I was overreacting at that point.
It managed to bug me throughout the whole day though. I would come up with a theory in my head and then shut it down and come up with another one. When I got into my truck at ten to one my hands were trembling on the steering wheel like I was heading towards a death trap. I was chewing on my lip like it was a piece of gum and my eyelid began to twitch on top of all of that. Needless to say, I was already late once I left the house because I was procrastinating so much.
On the way to Sam and Emily's I started hyperventilating in my seat and accidentally turned the windshield wipers on when it wasn't even raining. I didn't even attempt to turn them off, fearing that I would lose focus and crash.
After making it about halfway there I got lost for two valid reasons. One, I had only been there once and Brady left me with no directions, bad on his part. And two, I was paying more attention to my swaying windshield wipers than I was to the road, bad on my part. It took me almost an hour until I finally recognized one of the streets Brady took to get there before. I relied on my wonderful memory and somehow ended up at a place that resembled their house. Whether or not it was their small cottage looking home I didn't know. I would have to ring the doorbell to figure it out.
I took a few deep breaths before turning off the ignition, my heart pounding against my ribs like it wanted to burst out of my skin. I didn't even have time to question if I should get out of the car or not, my body just seemed to move on its own accord before my brain told it to do anything. I saw the lights on through the windows as I closed the door behind me and started heading towards the porch. My hands were in the pockets of my sweater and my lip was starting to bleed from how much I was gnawing on it.
I almost slipped as I walked up the steps because my legs were wobbling. I grabbed onto the railing for support while I went up the last step, hearing his voice in my head when I was face to face with the door.
"If they're not honest with you then they're not worth your time."
It was Brady's time to be honest with me, because I knew for a fact that he was worth every single minute of my time.
I raised my hand to knock on the door, but almost fell backwards when it opened on its own. I let my eyes graze over every inch of him, his bare chest, his cut off shorts and his disheveled hair. It was his face that I was fixated on for the longest time, and I noticed that he looked about as scared as I felt. His lips twitched upward into the ghost of a smile I had become familiar with, and before any of us could say anything he scooped me up into his arms and lifted me off of the ground. He held onto me desperately, like I was going to be gone at any moment, which was making me feel even more afraid.
I enjoyed every minute that I was in his arms, trying my best not to spoil it with words that didn't have to be said. We stayed that way on the porch for a while, letting our hearts thud against each other's chests while our uneven breaths came in and out at the same time.
He kissed my neck and sighed, "Time to be honest with you," he mumbled against my skin.
I squeezed him once more before we both let go of each other and I was firmly standing on my own two feet again. He closed the door to Sam and Emily's house before I could even see if anyone was inside.
His hand was laced through mine as we went back down the steps and started to head around the side of the house.
"Where are we going?"
He looked back at me as we walked, his eyes full of worry, "Into the woods."
I raised an eyebrow at him, "Wha-,"
"Just trust me, ok?"
I moved closer to him and nodded hesitantly, keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the time. Brady's palms began to sweat once we were out of their backyard and officially making our way through the forest. We walked for a few yards until we ended up in a tiny clearing in the trees. I was completely confused as to what his secret had to do with the woods. Maybe it was just for the privacy, or maybe he was going to tell me he was secretly raised by wolves as a kid.
I mentally slapped myself for my last thought, trying to clear my head so I could stop guessing and just listen to him.
He let go of my hand with his back facing me, and I didn't even attempt to look anywhere else, fearing that I might possibly miss something. For a couple of minutes everything was quiet and he still wouldn't face me. I waited and waited, looking firmly at him and anticipating what he was going to tell me.
My heart was pounding like mad inside of me, and I felt my breathing become ragged from how much my nerves were beginning to take over. A rush of cool air flew past us and I wrapped my arms around my torso to keep the cold out. I could barely feel the heat that always radiated from his skin over here, and just as I was about to take a step closer, he faced me.
His eyes were pleading with me, and he opened his mouth to speak. No words managed to come out of them. I shuffled forward and grabbed his hand again, trying to let him know that I was all ears.
"Do you," he stopped himself for a second, regaining his breath before trying it again, "do you remember the legends Billy told us at the bonfire?"
That was the last place I expected him to go with this. I had to search through my head to find the right answer. All I really remember was Billy telling us something about wolves and something about Taha Aki. I was half asleep when he told them, so you can't blame me if they escaped my mind.
"Bits and pieces," I replied, waiting for him to elaborate.
He closed his eyes for a second before he continued, "There's the legend of the spirit warriors who were able to…shift into another form, and how the power of Taha Aki changed it so they would be able to shift into wolves."
All he did was stare at me to see how I was taking all of this. I was still confused so I just stood there and nodded for him to go on.
"The magic continued on for generations, and these wolves sole purpose was to protect the people of the tribe from any danger that approached. Whenever that danger would come near the reservation, more of the tribe would develop the fever, which caused them to become one of these shape shifters."
I shook my head frantically from side to side, "I don't know where you're going with this Brady. This isn't making-,"
"I'm one of those shape shifters."
And the words got caught right in my throat. My mouth was hanging open and I stood there frozen. I looked at him incredulously and began to think this was all just some sort of joke. He had to be saying this as a way to break the ice, to lead into the actual secret and relieve some of the tension that was obviously hanging in the air all around us.
"You can't be serious," I took a step backwards, letting go of his hand as I did it.
"It's true," his eyes were still begging for me to understand, and I tried to search for something in him that indicated that this was all a joke.
"Brady this isn't funny. Just tell me the truth already," I spit it out to try and get him to confess to this lie he was trying to make me believe, but the serious look on his face wouldn't falter for a second.
"That wolf you saw in the woods behind your house was me."
"How did you even know about that?" my eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
He let out a low growl before he moved closer to me until our bodies were practically touching. I couldn't move, because my whole body was shaking.
"The night you were doing your homework outside, after your father had yelled at you, I was there. You called me out of the woods, told me all about it, and I saw the bruise he gave you on your wrist."
I almost fainted from hearing all of that, "So what you were spying on me?" and that was my final attempt to try to get him to take back what he said. I wanted him to tell me he was spying on me and watching from the sidelines as I petted the wolf that couldn't possibly be him.
"I was the wolf," he ducked his head so we were eye level, "The night Connor got drunk, you saw a wolf out on the road, and then you saw me in the woods. I was out there trying to find him as a wolf."
"You don't have any proof! You can't just say something like that and then not back it up."
He stood up straight, his breath tickling my face as he sighed, "Believe me I have proof."
My hands formed into fists, and I was squeezing them so hard that my nails were now painfully digging into my skin.
"Then show m-me," my voice shook because I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to see it if he was telling me the truth. I would probably pass out.
He backed up until he was on the side of the clearing that was opposite from me, his eyes never leaving my face. As he began to undo the button on his shorts I let out a small squeak.
"What are you doing? I didn't ask you to strip for me!"
In spite of all of the weariness I knew he was feeling he chuckled at my statement.
"Just trust me Mel."
I slapped my hands over my eyes and heard him start to take his shorts off again. I adjusted my fingers so I could just see a tiny bit of him and was ready to die of embarrassment when I caught sight of his private area. My cheeks burned as I kept watching in curiosity and was just about to scream when I started to see his body shifting in unnatural ways. His bones crunched and his muscles shredded as he seemed to shed his skin. Fur began to sprout out of every part of him and my hands dropped limply to my sides when I finally saw a huge wolf standing right in front of me. The same wolf that I had confided in when there was no one else to talk to. The wolf that was always watching me. My wolf.
He had paws and a tail, and the face of a normal wolf, but his eyes were the only thing that convinced me that it was Brady. They were exactly the same shade of brown that I had always been captivated by, and I suddenly felt stupid that I hadn't realized this before.
This wolf and Brady were one in the same.
"Holy shit," I began to feel dizzy, "Brady?"
He let out some sort of barking sound and moved his head up and down happily. When he took a couple steps towards me I cringed a bit, feeling my fingers starting to tingle. I couldn't even begin to process anything that was happening right before my eyes. My brain was still slowly trying to put two and two together, that Brady was a wolf.
As soon as that thought entered my mind I went completely numb and tumbled down to the forest floor. I laid there on the ground, staring up at the sky in shock. I waited for unconsciousness to consume me or to wake up from this dream, but it wouldn't happen, because it wasn't a dream.
I heard a low whimper come from the animal….Brady….animal. I don't know.
I stayed that way on the ground and soon heard the ripping and shredding noise again. When I finally started to hear footsteps coming towards me I let out the breath I had been holding in for the past ten minutes.
"Melody…are you alright?" he hovered above me on all fours, his voice sounding broken.
I examined him all over and questioned how he could ever turn into that thing and then just return back to his normal self without a scratch on him. I daringly looked up at his face, meeting his eyes.
"You just," I couldn't spit it out, "You were just a…a…"
"Wolf," he finished.
I rose up onto my elbows and he was still hovering close to me, "How?"
"We phase to protect the tribe from danger," he examined me before continuing, "meaning vampires. Once one of the bloodsuckers comes into town it triggers the fever."
Vampires? What the fuck?
I laid back down onto my back and closed my eyes tight, pinching myself and opening them, repeating the process a bunch of times.
"What are you doing?" he asked, choosing to sit beside me instead of practically pinning me down to the ground.
"Trying to wake up," I admitted.
He let out a deep breath, "Look, I know it's a lot to take in and you're probably thinking that something like vampires and werewolves could never exist," I nodded in agreement, "but they do exist, even though it all sounds so fucked up," I nodded again, "Look, I know that I should've told you sooner, so you could run if you wanted to. Well, I guess if you wanted to run now you could do that too."
I sat up again, trying to calm myself down enough to actually speak proper English, "How do you become one though? Do you get bit or something?"
He shook his head, making sure to keep his eyes off of me, "It's genetic, so I can't really help it."
I frowned a little bit then, wondering how he felt about that, "Do you like being a…a w-wolf?"
It was so difficult to try to talk about it nonchalantly, like it was a part of normal everyday life. Then that would mean that those fairytales and horror stories I heard about as a kid were fact instead of fiction. There really were shape shifters and people that wanted to suck your blood straight out of your veins.
Brady shrugged, "I couldn't picture myself not being one," our eyes connected and my muscles relaxed a bit, "It's a part of who I am, and I've learned to accept that. It led me to you."
I pursed my lips, hanging onto his last words, "What do you mean it led you to me?"
His breath hitched after I asked that and his face began to turn red. I didn't know why he would even react that way, did I say something wrong? Was that a touchy subject for him? God I don't understand any of this.
"It's another part of the whole wolf thing," he mumbled.
He stayed quiet with a frustrated look on his face, it was like he didn't want to get into this, like it was meant for another time.
"What is it?" I pushed on.
He grumbled and muttered something under his breath before turning his body so we were now facing each other. I was calm for the moment, and I only thought about Brady as being purely human to keep myself under control.
"That day you jumped off of the cliffs. Do you remember when you were in the woods heading up to the top?"
My eyebrow arched in suspicion and I brought myself back to that day even though I really didn't want to. I remember parking my car in the lot by the beach, and then I started to make my way through the trees. It became more and more difficult to walk as I got higher up. I was almost out of breath and my eyes were full of tears that I had no chance of stopping. Just as I started to hear the crashing of the waves against the side of the cliffs, I also heard rustling to my left. And when I turned to see what it was I suddenly met the eyes of a wolf. A dark brown wolf.
"Oh God, you were there in the woods."
I felt so stupid for not being able to remember that until right now. I guess I couldn't blame myself for erasing most of that day from my memory, it was the worst day of my entire life. Who would want to remember the day your brother killed himself? Better yet who would want to remember all of the details leading up to your attempt at suicide?
He nodded, "And do you remember feeling something when you saw me?"
I rummaged through my brain to find the answer to that. I closed my eyes so I could picture it better. The whole scene played out once more and it felt as if I was actually there, experiencing it all again. When I heard the rustling again and looked at the wolf I connected eyes with it immediately. I stopped dead in my tracks and kept gaping at the creature right beside me, feeling some sort of fired ignite inside of me as I looked at it. It was just this one tiny spark that caused the fire, and it made me doubt what I was going to do for a second. One look at this animal and I was ready to spend all day with it instead of leaving this world for good.
"I wanted to stop," my eyes fluttered open, meeting his gaze, "it felt like…like I should go to you. I was being drawn towards you."
He reached out and touched my cheek for a moment before he focused on the ground, "I imprinted on you."
I blinked a few times and tried to come up with some sort of idea of what imprinting was. I've heard of it in biology, about newborn animals imprinting on their mothers, but how the hell could something like that apply to us? It didn't seem too logical to me.
"What do you mean you imprinted on me?" I asked so he could clarify it for me.
"It's this thing where," he paused, grinding his teeth and trying to come up with the right thing to say, "where you see her and everything shifts so that the only thing keeping you firmly on the ground is that girl. Everything you have ever done or will ever do changes…and she becomes the center of your whole world. She's the reason why you wake up in the morning, and nothing is more important than protecting her and loving her. You would rather die than be without her, because she's your soul mate."
I narrowed my eyes at him as I absorbed what he was telling me. My stomach began to churn again which made me want to vomit, and I could feel my head starting to pound.
"So…we're soul mates?"
And all it took was a nod from him to confirm it. That day when I had wanted to die, the day I lost my brother was the day he saw me for the first time. It was the day that he finally noticed me after all the years we had gone to school together. The day that he imprinted on me.
"So you saved me not because you wanted to, but because of some…thing that made me your soul mate?"
He sighed and rubbed his face with his palms, obviously expecting me to say something like this, "It didn't force me to do anything. I chose to save you out of my own free will."
"But if you hadn't seen me then you would've never imprinted. And if you never imprinted, then you never would have even known I existed."
I was ready to leave, to be rid of all of these things that I didn't understand. It was hard to accept the fact that just one look had changed everything for him. He went from not knowing I existed to putting me at the center of his world. I was alive because of something that shouldn't even exist, some sort of magical force.
I stood up and put some distance between us, running my hands through my hair a couple of times to try to soothe the ache in my head.
"We're soul mates Melody. Whether I noticed you right then or noticed you a year after that I would've fallen in love with you."
I denied it, "No, you wouldn't have, because I would be dead."
He shuddered and took a moment to think that through before he stood up and casted a dark shadow over me, showing off just how much taller he was than me, "It wasn't your time to go. Why can't you just accept that?"
"I did accept it! That was before you brought imprinting into the mix, before you were a wolf man and before the supernatural existed!" I stopped to take a breath, "Now I know the truth. I know why you decided to start talking to me, and I know why you think you love me. It's because of imprinting. It chained you to me."
He growled, "No, it didn't. We belong together, and it opened my eyes to see that. It was me this whole time; I chose to be with you. I could've walked away, but I didn't."
"You said that you saw me and I became the center of your world, nothing else mattered but me. That wouldn't have happened if you didn't see me…imprint on me or whatever you call it."
He didn't say anything and I knew that my words were finally starting to stick with him. He couldn't deny what was true, what was laid out right in front of him. I wanted to stop this, to go back to yesterday and take back what I did, because it would be better to be blind to the truth. And the truth was that I had been fooling myself all along, fooling myself to believe that someone as great as him could ever fall in love with someone like me. What a cruel thing fate was. He didn't deserve to be dragged down by me because of some stupid thing called imprinting. He deserved the right to choose what he wanted on his own.
"Tell me this," my voice cracked because of the tears that were starting to swell up in my eyes and cascade down the sides of my face, "if you never changed and were the same person you were before you became a werewolf, would you have talked to me? Do you really think we would be standing here right now?"
"That doesn't matter. We would've been brought together some way or another at some point in our lives."
I shook my head, "Answer the question!" I hissed.
He seemed to be set back by my harsh tone, and he suddenly looked like he was going to fall to pieces right before my eyes. And I could only think that it was because of what the answer would be. He knew that he couldn't convince me to like imprinting and everything that went along with it. He kept his mouth shut tight though, not wanting to speak the words that would only make this whole thing worse.
I should've known that there was something behind all of this, because there is no possible way to go from completely ignoring someone to loving everything about them. Love isn't supposed to work that way. Being human we have the freedom to fall in love with whoever we want, and Brady didn't get that choice. He was forced to be stuck with me, and there was no way he could resist.
"Melody, I love you," he placed his hands on my cheeks and the heat burned me. I closed my eyes and told my heart to stop speeding up, because I couldn't hear him say that when imprinting was the first thing that came to my mind.
He kissed me on the lips and the spark that always ran its course through my veins made me feel even worse. I knew he was trying to win me over again, to make me understand, but I couldn't, not until I was one hundred percent sure that it was him saying it to me and not some magical force.
When he realized I wasn't kissing him back he opened his eyes and watched the tears fall off my jaw. He let go of me and took a step back, waiting for me to say what I needed to.
"I don't know if I can believe you, not until you can finally choose what you really want. And the only way that can happen is if we stay away from each other."
His eyebrows casted down onto his eyes, "I want you."
It was a stab right to the chest and I put my hands back into my pockets to restrain myself from going to him, "Stop it," I whispered, "you need to forget about us, clear your head and think through everything. You need to start over and realize that you can have someone so much better than me. I know you're strong enough to resist this imprinting stuff."
"I don't want to forget about it, and I'm not going to go looking for anyone else. You're it for me."
I resisted the pull that was tugging me towards him and started to walk my way out of the clearing, not wanting to hear anything else he was going to say. Brady followed me without any hesitation. I thought that once we had gotten out of the woods that he would let me go on my own, but he didn't stop.
"Brady," I turned around, "don't make this harder than it has to be."
"It doesn't have to be this way though. We can be together," one look at his pained face and I wanted to get into the fetal position and await my death. It was so hard to just stand here and not take his words into consideration. It took everything in me to resist the urge to take back all of the things that I said, but I knew I couldn't. I couldn't be selfish, he needed his free will back. Imprinting had taken it away from him the moment he laid eyes on me.
"I don't want to be with you if it's something that's forced. I want it to be real, and the only way for that to happen is if we stay away from each other," I felt myself starting to crumble, "You need to make your own choices for once Brady, and it's never going to happen if I'm around you. So," I paused, hoping that I was doing the right thing, "so I'm ending this…you and me."
It looked like I had just physically punched him in the gut. I tried not to let him see my tears as I headed in the direction of my truck. When I finally managed to get my keys out of my sweater I unlocked the door and began to open it. His hand immediately forced it shut again.
"I can't stay away from you," his hot breath caused goose bumps to appear over every inch of my body, "It'll kill me to be away from you."
I closed my eyes, "You have to try," I firmly grabbed the door handle and waited for his hand to move away, "just promise me you'll try."
I could see his arm starting to shake and I instantly knew that he was done trying to fight me, "I promise," I almost didn't hear it because he said it so softly.
When I pried the door open again he didn't try to stop me from getting into the truck, and I found it tremendously difficult to even start it in the first place. I glanced at him one more time, seeing his head hanging low and his whole body quivering, and then I pulled out of the driveway as fast as I possibly could.
The whole time that I drove I felt like I was in some state of shock. Knowing that just this morning I was completely comfortable with where I stood with Brady had me wishing that I didn't push him to be honest with me yesterday. I knew from the beginning that being in love with someone like him had its risks, and it wasn't until now that I realized I was stupid for ever thinking that there wasn't some sort of catch to it. I could have Brady, but only through imprinting.
Imprinting. The word even sounded horrible. I wish it didn't exist, that he would've met me years from now in his own way like it should be. Maybe we would've been introduced by friends or accidentally bumped into each other, something that would make a great story for our kids someday. It would be nice if things worked out perfectly in that way, because then I wouldn't be here crying my eyes out.
Brady needed to have a choice though. He needed to know that I wasn't the only girl out there and that imprinting didn't have to rule his life. If he wanted someone else, someone better, than I can accept that. At least I could go on knowing that he's happy, whatever his choice may be.
So I know a lot of you wanted her to just accept the wolf/imprint thing, but I think that just being totally ok with something that out of the ordinary would be too weird. I know if I heard something like that I would freak out too...but I hope you liked it despite what you might have been hoping to read. You may not like what she has done, but it's the direction I wanted to go in.
AND RANDOM QUESTION! I'm obsessed with The Walking Dead and it's coming back on Sunday (DARYL DIXON MUST NOT DIE!) and I was just wondering if there were any TWD fans out there reading this? If you are out there then leave a review or PM me cause I want to know what you think of the show! :)
And if you don't watch it then you should start because it's the best...
My work is done here.
~KK
