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Standing toe-to-toe with my father, I spoke firmly. “If it’s a mistake, it’s mine to make.”
Chapter 7
Liza
My day certainly hadn’t turned out as I had hoped. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to come from my first conversation with Ty, but any preconceived notions I’d had certainly did not involve him insulting me. He was my mate, for fuck’s sake. Of course, an insult had never occurred to me.
I was exhausted when I got home. I showered off the day, then changed into pajamas. By the time my head hit the pillow, I was asleep within seconds. For the past twenty-four hours, I’d been overstimulated, running on adrenaline and coffee. It had finally worn me down, so I drifted quickly into a deep sleep.
Suddenly, I was very small. Looking down, I noticed my hands and feet were small. In my mind, I was an adult, but my body was that of a child. I couldn’t tell exactly how old I was, but there was a woman in front of me with hair just like mine. Her eyes were brimming with tears that made them all the more blue. “Hide,” she said. “Don’t let anyone find you.”
I cried and pleaded with her. I didn’t want to leave her side. I wanted to cling to her. Sadness and despair colored her face as she bent to kiss the top of my head.
Before I could cling to her waist, a little boy took my hand, and we ran into the trees. He stumbled over a fallen branch that I managed to hurtle over and hurt his leg. He waved me on. “Go. Go. Keep running. Don’t turn around. Don’t stop.”
I had never known such fear and was scared to be alone, but I sprinted forward, anyway. I kept running until I thought I’d gone miles away and found a bush to hide in. When I turned to look, I could see the woman’s face through the bushes, moving farther and farther away as she was dragged, fighting and struggling against whoever was taking her.
I woke up with tears streaming down my cheeks and a heartache I couldn’t explain. I didn’t recognize the woman, didn’t know who she was, but losing her had felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know who she was. The pain was real.
I sat up and turned on my bedside lamp, then wiped my tearstained cheeks on my white comforter. My wolf whined, and I tried to slow my breathing to calm us both.
The dream wasn’t new, even though every time I awoke, the pain was as fresh as the first time I had dreamed it. I’d experienced it many times in my life ever since I was a young girl.
When I was a child, I would run to my parents’ bedroom and climb between them, snuggling deep under their covers. Mom would smooth my hair and tell me everything would be all right while Dad tried to explain that it was only a bad dream, nothing to be scared of.
Yet, even after all these years, the dream felt different to a regular dream. This one was more like a memory, almost as if it had really happened.
There was no rhyme or reason to the dream. Although, I’d noticed I had the nightmare when I was more stressed or sleep deprived. Today had certainly caused a lot of stress, and I hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep.
But what did it mean? Who was the woman? She could’ve been someone I knew back then. Maybe a relative, but I didn’t know, and I’d never asked. Now, though, my mind raced with unanswered questions.
After several moments of quiet contemplation, I shakily pushed off the bed and got dressed. There was no way I would be able to get back to sleep now. My wolf was too uneasy. The best option for me was to shift, so I left my small, stone, cottage-style house and went into the woods.
The night was still and quiet. The only sounds were the crickets chirping and the frogs croaking. There was little other movement, not even a slight breeze, which helped relieve some of my anxiety. I quickly stripped down and closed my eyes, allowing my wolf to take over. It only took a few seconds for me to shift. As soon as I was in my wolf form, my nerves settled.
My muscles stretched, coiled, contracted, expanded while my eyes adjusted to the night and the things I could see now that I couldn’t see before. I swiped my front paws over the damp as I prepared to run. Moonlight glinted off my fur. I raised my head to stare at the starry night sky.
Taking a deep breath of the crisp night air, I tried to focus on the present instead of letting the past in and allowing it to consume me. But even with my surroundings providing me with some semblance of peace, I still had an uneasy tightness in my stomach.
I ran, picking up speed as the worries weighing on me lightened. There was the constant rhythm of my paws hitting the ground, pushing off and flying between steps. The sensation of a cool breeze on my fur centered me, so much so that the fear and sadness had nowhere to go and no choice but to fade.
There were no other wolves in the area, at least none that I could see as I sped through the dense forest, dodging thorn bushes and fallen trees. I was used to running alone. Even during pack shifts as a child, the other kids ignored me and left me behind. So, I tended to stick close to my brothers.
I was different. An arctic wolf with a silvery blonde coat that matched my hair and blue eyes. Even women who paid a lot of money couldn’t match this hair color. It set me apart.
It wasn’t often that I actually felt alone, but in moments like this I was reminded of how different I was from all the others. As I pushed harder and pumped my legs to run faster, I wondered where I had come from and how I got here. Why were there no other wolves like me in the pack?
I let the questions linger in my mind as I kept running, eventually coming to a stop when I reached the edge of a clear lake.
The moon illuminated the water and mirrored its light on me. I lay down on the bank of the lake and listened to the sound of the water’s gentle ripples before closing my eyes and allowing sleep to take over.
Birds chirped above my head, gently waking me from my deep slumber. The sun would start to make its full ascent any minute, so I ran back home at a steady pace to prepare for my day.
By the time I returned to my house, my mood had changed from anxious and scared to calm and steady. I shifted back to human form and dressed quickly before making myself a cup of coffee and several strips of bacon.
Mom and I had hair appointments that morning, so I pulled my dirty hair into a high ponytail and covered my head with one of those new, fashionable black baseball caps that had a hole at the top for a ponytail. My mother had given it to me.
I pulled into the salon’s parking lot a few minutes late, but Mom didn’t seem concerned. I was late often enough that she was used to it by now. I found her sitting in the waiting area, reading the latest edition of a DIY home décor magazine. She loved being the caretaker of my childhood home. I found it to be quite endearing, though I never imagined myself becoming the mistress of a household. Well, except for the cooking. I had no problem making three home-cooked meals a day.
