HER: Novel by Nicole Maria Navarro

Marked 12

The crowd around the pack house was huge. Mothers had their hands covered over their mouths while a loud wail could be heard deep in the crowd. Men were pushing the crowd further out to get them away from whatever was in the center. The sun was starting to set and that's when I saw a furious Sebastian coming towards me as the crowd parted for him like the Red Sea. His eyes were black like charcoal, his muscles were tensed under his white shirt that had blood stains on the edges and his hands were clenched with dark blood.

They were so bloody. It was traumatizing to look at.

He dipped his head low and sniffed my neck as he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me slightly off the ground.

"Where's Thalia?" He says roughly while looking towards the car. Thalia was still asleep in the backseat.

"She's fine, she's fine what's wrong what happened?" I say trying to look over his shoulder at the massive crowd.

"Someone came and attacked a pup. He died Bella. Slash marks all over his little body. Some others were a injured but they're all okay..Th-..they-" His hands were a little shaky and he spoke with anguish and hate.

I whipped my head around towards the crowd and noticed the mother kneeling down over the bloody child his stomach still had blood pouring out of it and he lay pale and motionless on the ground beneath him.

"Ar..- are you hurt? How's the rest of the pack.." I stutter

"They left a message on his body."

He ignored my question, he growls ferociously and a howl rips out of his chest as he changes into his huge wolf and rushes towards the woods with warriors and his beta right by his side while the pack howls and mourns for a lost one. Sebastian didn't come back that night, they all didn't. I heard howls far away in the distance once or twice after they had scouted out. The rest of the pack stayed back and comforted the mother of the young boy. I told the elder members to help carry the child to a better place for the time being as I led the mother over into the pack house where she sobbed into my shoulder until midnight. When the mother had gone to sleep I held Thalia in my arms; asleep as I entered our home with an eerie silence.

••••

Waking up to a screaming baby was not pleasant. At all. I rushed to her room and lifted her in my arms and patted her back while walking back downstairs to make her a bottle as she got louder with every step I took.

"Sh..sh..sh baby, I'm here sweetie don't cry mamas here."

When I finally took the last step off the stairs my senses caught the curtains wide opened with the sun gleaming inside through the shinny windows. I walked closer to the kitchen where noise was coming from and Thalia's wailing was still as loud as her little lungs could take her.

"Sebastian?"

The woman's back was turned to me as she was sitting on the barstool, she picked at something that was on the table and turned to me when Thalia finally got quiet and was blinking away her tears. The woman whips her head around and her brown eyes look me up and down at my clothing and then towards Thalia whose head is now in the crook of my neck.

"Mia?" I say startled, her stool screeches against the tile and the sound pierces my ear.

"What are you doing here?" I say looking around the kitchen to see if Sebastian was here since he didn't come home last night.

"Oh... I didn't know I'm sorry I thought Sebast- I thought Alpha Sebastian was here."

"He didn't come in last night... I'm sorry did you need something..?" I head towards the counter where Thalia's baby bottles are.