A/N: WOw, I read a spicy alpha wolf story and here I am. Making the rounds, feeding my twilight obsession. This is the first story I've ever made like a legitimate chapter outline that spans for multiple pages, so finger's crossed we keep at it.

All characters, save for my oc's, belong to Stephanie Meyer.

This doesn't really follow canon, it's more my own guilty pleasure. So some thing's will be changed to make sense in my story.

This is not edited by anybody but me so all mistakes are mine. Also I need some good wolf-pack story recommendations.

Also, be prepared for a lot of Margaret Atwood quotes. And now we are aboard the pain train, with a one way ticket to angstville.

the wolf that waited at the edge

"I want everything back, the way it was. but there is no point to it, this wanting"

Margaret Atwood

In life there are these moments. These crystal clear moments where you knew without a doubt that nothing would ever be the same again. And all of that happiness you had once felt so intensely would be eclipsed by this tight darkness that wove itself around you, that pushed against you until you thought you might suffocate from the pressure. And there it would stay, a perpetual reminder of what you may never have again.

This was one of these moments.

When you stand solemnly, head bowed, maybe in prayer, as a body is lowered into the ground. And you only vaguely register the hysterical sobbing of the people that loved him. That loved him the same way you did, maybe even more.

And you'll grip your mother's hand tightly, perhaps, to reassure her because between the screaming and the tears she's definitely not breathing right, but maybe it's to make sure you can still feel things. Just to make sure that you're still rooted so irrevocably to this Earth nothing can steal you away. Not even this grief.

I hate crying in front of people, but today, I cry, and I cry, and I cry. I let the tears slide down my cheeks and I don't care who sees it. Because I will never see my dad again.

While my tears are silent, save for the sporadic breathy hiccups that force its way out of my throat, my mother's is the opposite. Nothing about her suffering is silent. She clutches at her throat like she can't breathe. She bends over lower with each wail like she can't believe the coffin is being lowered into the ground without her.

My mother wraps her arms around herself and grips the bare flesh of her forearms so tightly the little half moon crescent's left behind bleed. My aunt Emily's hands hover precariously above her shoulders.

And as I watch my mother come undone I know I will never forget this moment.

By the time my mother composes herself everyone is gone, save for my aunt, and her fiance. Emily clasps my mother's hands in her own, and Sam stands protectively behind her. Not for the first time I wonder how they ended up together, he's so much larger than her, and his face seemed forever stretched into a scowl.

I could only hear bits and pieces of their conversation.

"Come home… Eva, you know you aren't safe anymore…" Emily's usually pleasant voice came out in a harsh whisper. Her large doll-like eyes glistened with unshed tears. She was still so beautiful despite the large crooked scar that traveled from temple to chin.

Sam's voice came out in a low grumble, too quiet for me to hear, at any rate. My mother's head bobbed along to whatever they were saying lethargically. I knew what they were talking about had to be important, and that I should want to know more about it but I couldn't bring myself to care.

Instead I circled the freshly churned dirt.

Golden leaves crunched beneath my feet noisily. Parts of the soil were moist and while I was walking primarily on solid ground I couldn't fight the feeling that I was sinking.

The wind picked up and sent a swirl of red brown leaves spiraling. In the distance the horizon was an unbroken line of trees that twisted and reached unanimously for the sky. Save for a large dark mass of fur.

At first I thought it was a bear, and my heart dropped in the pit of my stomach. But on further examination it wasn't a bear at all.

It was a wolf.

However, It did very little to calm the incessant beating of my heart. My instinct was to run at first, to gather up my broken mother and finally go home, but the wolf wasn't moving. He sat there patiently, like maybe he was waiting for something.

I inched closer until I didn't have to squint to make out the details, the fur on his chest was a light brown that traveled down his back into a brown so dark it could have been black. His eyes were a burnt orange, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Its large head tilted to the side, akin to that of a dog. His ears twitched and large rounded eyes met mine.

Come closer, they begged. Come see what I'm hiding.

Without thinking I took a step, and then another. Forever inching closer to the edge. You're going the wrong way, my brain pleaded, turn around, turn around, turn around.

"Maggie!"

Like that the spell was broken, I whipped around so quickly it hurt my neck. Sam was glaring in my direction, at me or behind me, I didn't know. Emily watched cautiously; her face unreadable. Tears still fell freely down my mother's cheeks, but she was using her stern, I-am-your-mother voice.

"Don't go wandering off, you know better than that." Her words startled me, or maybe not her words but the annoyed undertone that punctuated the silence.

"I-I'm sorry… but…" the words were slow and apologetic, I pointed half-heartedly to the expanse of trees that stretched across the skyline in front of me. There's a wolf. I want to say, and I don't know why but I think he wants me to get closer. My mother's brows furrow together in confusion, and Sam raises a skeptical eyebrow as if to challenge my sanity.

When I look again the wolf is gone, trees spill across the horizon in uninterrupted waves of mossy green. Maybe grief was making me crazy.

When we get home that night nobody does much talking. Save for Emily's occasional idle chatter, Sam grunts out a response, but my mother is too heart sick to do even that, instead she picks at her food and stares blankly ahead.

"I think I'm going to head up to bed." My voice is a little hoarse from misuse, and I have to clear my throat to make the words come out clearly. Normally, I wouldn't be allowed to excuse myself, and I wait for my mother to say something, to call me back to the table. But she doesn't even flinch. I carried my uneaten plate of food to the kitchen, it was a shame I wasn't hungrier, Emily really was an amazing cook.

"Oh, sleep good Maggie." Emily gave me a sympathetic smile as I rounded the corner back into the dining room, my mother nodded numbly along with her. I couldn't blame her. I had never seen two people more in love than my mother and father. I lost a dad, but she lost something so much more.

My room was a mess, usually I keep it very clean, but the past few weeks had been a frenzy of crying and screaming and breaking things. As a result, my favorite belongings lay strewn across the floorboards. My latest sketchbook lay motionless face down underneath a few of my old stuffed animals and t-shirts.

I shrug off the black dress I'd been wearing previously and change into pajamas, I don't bother picking it up. I leave it on the floor and I let it rot. Hot tears prick at the back of my eyes but I force them down. I don't look at that dress, the dress that meant my dad was gone for good now.

I curl up on my bed and wrap the covers around myself, and for the first time since I heard the news I pick up my sketchbook and I draw. I've been drawing for what feels like forever. Since I could hold a pencil I was doodling. My father always doodled along with me. My fondest memories are of us painting together.. He bought me every single sketchbook I've ever owned.

"Don't know where you get that talent from girlie," He'd say, but he'd pick up his brush and he'd try anyways. His colors would be muddy and he liked to flick paint on me but every time without fail he'd set his canvas up to mine and asked what we were painting. "I sure as hell can't draw, and don't ever tell her I said this but neither can your mother. We're the same in that way."

"And how are we the same, Daddy?" I would ask, and even then I wanted so desperately to have something in common with him.

"Well, Maggie," He'd humm softly and glob a disgusting brown on his pure white canvas, he'd scratch his cheek and his lips would quirk up. His eyes crinkled at the edge and he'd make his voice soft for me, "we're cave dwellers you and I."

I didn't realize I was crying until the tear stained paper ripped. I pressed the eraser into the paper hard. And for a moment I have an insane urge to rip every single piece of paper out of my sketchbook. But this is the last thing my dad ever gave me; did I really want to destroy it?

Yes, a part of me screamed. A part of me wanted to split the book in two, I wanted to feel the resistance of something held together by more than glue break beneath my fingertips.

Instead I snap the book shut and toss it to the floor, out of sight, out of mind, right? I don't want to do something I'm going to regret.

I flick the bedroom light off and I put on my headphones, I press play and I turn it up to full volume. I let the music scream at me, at first it hurts my ears but slowly I become desensitized to it. The vibrations travel down my spine in ripples of magnetic shock waves. I let myself get lost in the music, in the loud screaming, in the rasp of the lead singer's voice. And for a moment I can almost pretend everything's okay.

I'm at the cemetery again, it takes a long time to register that maybe I shouldn't be here. It's dark out now and the tombstones are bathed in shadow and moonlight, birds dance across the stone. A devastating tango.

I search for my father's grave; the stones stretch upwards for miles. A sense of urgency abruptly fills my bones, away, get away, my brain screams. I take a step forward, the mud gripping my shoes makes it hard for me to move. It's like wadding through water, but I force myself to take the next step. And then another.

I don't know how many steps I take until I finally crest the hill, but I make it to the top, sobbing and breathing and muddy but at the top all the same. And there at the end of all things was the dense wood. Shrouded in darkness, the watery moon shone directly on a dark mass of fur. A spotlight made of bone and blood.

The wolf took a tentative step forward, my heart hammered dangerously in my chest. I could feel every angry beat. The wolf took another step, and then another. Gradually his soft padding turned into a break-neck run.

I tried to take a step backwards, but the mud was working and winding itself up my exposed legs pulling my down. Angry music screamed in the background.

This is chaos.

Still the wolf angrily charges forward, not deterred by the music or the sinking even though the mud tries to take him too. He's so close now I can see every little detail I'd missed earlier.

Finally, he stops in front of me. Nose to nose we stand. He's so much bigger than I thought he'd be, and even if I wasn't sinking, he'd still tower over me. His wet nose presses against my cheek.

And it's enough. It calms the thump, thump, thump of my heart.

I bolt upright, the headphones are slightly askew and my head hurts from crying. I push them down until they rest around my neck and I press a firm hand to my chest. Be still, I pleaded. Each inhale is sharp, and it takes a long time for me to calm down.

My free hand twitches at my side, asks, no begs for me to draw the wolf. To try and capture him, even if it's only a small part of him. It doesn't have to be whole, nothing's ever whole at first.

My hand twitches again, and again until it's almost painful. I don't bother turning on the light, I rummage hap hazardously for my sketchbook, but for some reason I can't find a pen. I have more pens than I know what to do with.

I rummage through drawer after drawer slamming each one closed when I can't find what I'm so desperately looking for. I slam my fist against my desk in unfiltered anger and let out a cry.

Slowly, so slowly, a single pen rolls across the flat mahogany surface of my desk and I cry even harder in relief.

I snatch the pen up, and I clutch it to my chest tightly. My fingers tips turn white from the pressure, but I have to know it's still here, that it won't disappear at any moment. I plop on my bed and I get to sketching, they're scratchy outlines at first. But that's what every drawing starts off as. A line.

Slowly I chisel away at the details, I get it wrong multiple times. The leg is a little too large, the head's too small. I keep chipping away though, I think of my father's unfailing determination. Slowly it becomes the wolf that had waited patiently at the edge. For what, I would probably never know.