AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dropping my arms to my sides, I rushed back into my room to change into some of the new clothes. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t spend the day trapped in this house with that shifter.
It was too early to do much of anything, but the cafe was open. I didn’t have any money, but I wondered if Luke’s credit continued here. According to Patricia, the sweet server with a round face and gray hair, it did.
As I sat at a small table in the back of the cafe, I watched as a nearly endless parade of shifters entered to grab coffee or muffins or various other breakfast items. For a Main Street that looked so small, I was surprised to see so many in and out of the tiny shop. I was also surprised that they were up so early. It was very different from the slower mornings in Copper Springs.
Everyone who entered looked at me, then quickly looked away. I could tell they all knew who I was, but none of them addressed me. Instead, it was as if they were going out of their way to avoid me. Even Patricia was closed off despite her chipper comments and sweet demeanor. She refilled my coffee and asked if I wanted other food but didn’t pry. It was a major change from the gossip mill that was constant in my bar.
Then, I realized it wasn’t that there wasn’t gossip, they just weren’t involving me. There was no way they weren’t discussing the newcomer. Feeling like even more of an outcast, I thanked Patricia and asked her to add a generous tip from my benefactor’s funds before heading out the door.
I wandered the streets, peering in shop windows and exploring some of the lands around Main Street in solitude. There was a school nestled in a neighborhood of duplexes, complete with a large, modern playground. It was oddly quiet and there weren’t any children playing any of the times I passed by. I had a feeling that there weren’t many children here. With their isolation policy, they wouldn’t get any new members of their pack, and as people aged and died, there was likely nobody to replace them. It was depressing.
As I wandered back to Luke’s house, I wondered why my father had set his sights on this place. It wasn’t anything special that I could tell. It was additional land, sure, but the pack was aging and made up of shifters who weren’t all that different from my pack. I had no idea where I was geographically or how close this pack was to us, but they had to be nearby if they got me here in a single night. Other than simple expansion, I couldn’t figure out a motive, which didn’t seem right. There had to be something more I didn’t realize.
After a long nap, I woke to a quiet, dark house once again. I crept to the kitchen and discovered another takeout box with my name on it. As I ate the sandwich, I let myself feel sorry for myself. And for the first time since I arrived, I let the tears flow. This was no way to live, but until I had a plan to fix it, this was my life. It was depressing as fuck. So while I cried on my sandwich, I let myself feel all the pain and disappointment. I let myself mourn the loss of my old life and miss Jasmine.
Then I wiped my tears and told myself to lock it down. One of the lessons my dad had taught me growing up was that if anyone knew your pain, your triggers, your grief, they knew exactly how to set you off. I wouldn’t let them know anything that hurt me.
The next several days were much of the same. I wandered town, avoiding people, hid in my room until nightfall, then ate leftovers alone. Thankfully, most people seemed to be just as eager to avoid me as I was to avoid them.
I didn’t see Zoe or Luke and I was starting to think that maybe I imagined the whole thing, but I wasn’t ready to befriend anyone anyway. Maybe this was for the best. Add in the fact that I never saw any signs of Luke during the day when I did venture out. I was pretty sure he was avoiding me just as much as I was avoiding him.
About a week after I arrived, I woke to another knock on my door. Groggy and annoyed, I glanced at the clock. It was noon. My sleep schedules were a mess. I’d taken to napping most of the day away and wandering the house and feeling sorry for myself at night.
The pounding came again, and I begrudgingly left the warmth of my covers. It was getting cooler and the windows in this room weren’t much protection from the weather outside.
Padding to the door on bare feet, I threw it open, fully expecting to see Zoe. Instead, Luke was standing there, filling most of the door frame.
His eyes lowered, then quickly met mine, and I swear I saw a touch of guilt in his expression. That’s when I remembered I was wearing my underwear and a tank top that really didn’t hide anything. Nudity wasn’t a big deal in shifter cultures, but I still didn’t need to be this exposed in front of my captor.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What?”
“You’ve been moping for a week,” he said.
“You can take me home if you’d like,” I said.
“We both know that would be insane,” he said.
I waited silently. What did he want me to say? Was I supposed to be out there making friends with the people of this pack? Was I supposed to just forget my old life and pretend I was happy here?
“The full moon is next week,” he said.
“So?”
“We usually run as a pack. I thought you might want to join,” he said the words as if they pained him.
“No, thank you,” I replied, attempting to keep my cool as my anxiety went into overdrive. How had I not thought about that sooner? I needed Jasmine’s potion to prevent me from shifting and to keep me from going into heat. There was no guarantee it would happen while I was here, but I could not let myself lose control like that.
“You haven’t shifted since you arrived,” he said.
I let the words roll over me. He was watching me. Did that mean he was awake while I was wandering the house at night?
“You must be feeling the urge,” he added.
Was this an accusation? A question? A threat? This conversation never went well with my father, and all the alarm bells were raging in my head. What was his purpose with this conversation? “I’m not sure how that’s any of your business.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and shifted his weight between his feet. All his body language was showing me he was uncomfortable. He wasn’t attacking me; he was feeling awkward and weird.
It made my pulse race as I tried to figure out his tactics. This was something new, something I hadn’t seen before.
