Hey everyone 👋,
Hope all is well with you all. My story is beginning to take shape and honestly I think I'm doing ok. As mentioned before, I'm no writer, I prefer reading, so I'm unable to give myself a proper critique, so I'll leave it in your capable hands. Please leave comments, ideas even (there's always room to edit) and vote 😘
The flight was over 15 hours long, uncomfortable, cramped and no sleep at all. To be fair, we were all exhausted, but thankfully a minibus was ready and waiting for us outside the airport and according to the driver it would take us approximately 45 minutes to reach the resort. Personally I thought he was overly optimistic.
Once we left Anchorage, the roads were clear and a relatively relaxing drive. Everyone tried to catch up on sleep during the journey, while I just stared out the window reminiscing my last moments with my family.
It's been 17 long years without them in my life and being back here, is stirring up old wounds that I carefully did my best to bury.
I'm grateful for the small mercy the weather provides, being winter rather than summer. The highway looks familiar but rather than being a sunny day with blue skies and green forests, the way I remember it, everything is white. It's oddly comforting, it makes it just a little less familiar, the purity of the white snow blanketing the land, disguise's the past horrors, purifying it, cleansing it, healing it and I wonder if it will do the same for me and my scared soul in the upcoming week.
"Lina wake up, we're here!" My friend and colleague Nick calls out to me, shaking me awake a little to ruff for my liking. I didn't even realise I was sleeping in the first place, but I am tired.
"Five more minutes", I groan back and turn away from him leaning on the window. "Nah, mate. We all have to get up and get our stuff", and shakes me even harder, playfully and excitedly, while my head, bob's limply from side to side. "Fine", I groan and glare back at him playfully. "You're a real pain in my ass, you know that?".
"Yes, but I know you love me really" he laughs while pulling me out of my seat. "Now let's go stunner". I roll my eyes at his obnoxious but lovable behaviour.
I thought the journey to our destination alone was breathtaking, but I was wrong. As I walked through the sliding glass doors, behind Nick and the rest of my colleagues through to the lobby, dragging my suitcase behind me, I can't help but be in awe. I have never been to such a luxurious hotel in my entire life. Everything smells new, clean, I can even smell the leather sofas, a hint of pine in the air and I find myself circling around, taking in the design of the place.
Although it has a modern appearance, it had a cosy feel to it. The first thing to really capture my attention was the upper walls painted mountains with a soft blue purple glow and turning back on myself the huge white stuffed bear, above the entrance doors on a sort of balcony.
In all honesty stuffed animals are not usually my thing, I find them tacky and cruel. Seeing them alive and free in their natural habitats is what I truly love, but I can't deny how classy they managed to make it look.
Refocusing on my group, I walk up to catch up with them and wait for Steve to come back from the reception desk with our room keys, but in the corner of my eyes I spot someone I'm very familiar with, "uncle Vince?".
"Sorry, did you say something?" Nick asks. I nod, "Yeah, I think I just saw my uncle here". Well I call him uncle, but since the death of my parents, he's been my guardian for years until I came of age and moved out.
"Are you sure?", Nick asks and I look around and no longer see him. "I don't know, I could have sworn I did. Weird."
"Come on, let's grab our keys, settle in and meet up, because I don't know about you, but I'm starving." Nick pulls me along towards the front desk catching up to the others.
"Simon and Taylor, here's your room key. Chris and Liam, you guys have the room next door", Steve hands over the next set of keys to my colleagues then looks at me and Nick awkwardly.
"Lina, there's been a change with the accommodation arrangements. Me and Nick will be sharing a room as originally planned and you will be staying with your uncle at a friend of the family's house." I look at Steve shocked, jaw dropping shocked.
With a growing scowl on my face I ask, "where is he?". Steve immediately raises his hands up in a defensive stance saying, "Look you'll have to take it up with the lady at the desk. Management is aware and have left you the schedule for the photo shoot. As for the rest I really don't know, you'll have to ask your uncle ".
I take a deep breath in and then heavily sigh out. "Sorry for the trouble Steve. I'm just surprised he's here and pretty pissed that he's interfering with my work. I'll catch up with you guys later". Steve nods handing me over the schedule and everyone else just wave me off as they leave.
I turn to the brunette lady behind the desk and ask for a Vincenzo Ferrera.
She smiles kindly to me and informs me that there is a car waiting for me outside the main entrance.
Sure enough, there was an old man standing in front of an old red, rusty pickup truck holding a notepad with my name in bold sharpie writing. I guess he's here for me.
He looked like a slim but well built Santa Claus lumberjack, approximately 6ft tall, short silver hair and moustache.
"Hello", I say shyly with a small wave. As soon as he made eye contact with me, he walked over, then startled me by pulling me in a huge bear hug, nearly crushing me in the process. If I didn't have my puffer coat on, I'm pretty sure he would have crushed my bones.
He finally pulls me back at arms length, looking me over from head to toe smiling. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, but Vincenzo talks about you all the time and I couldn't wait to meet you, so I couldn't resist. Oh my goddess, where are my manners. I'm Sam, Sam Rivers an old friend of your uncle and I'll be driving you to our um—home".
Goddess? Is that a slang version of goodness? Never heard it said like that before. "Hi, I'm Lina it's nice to meet you. If you don't mind me asking, where is my uncle?" I ask while trying to create some personal space.
"He's got some errands to do, but he'll meet us back home." He grabbed my suitcase, walked back to the truck, placed it in the back, then proceeded to open the passenger door for me.
"Stupid wolf. You got me too excited and now I must seem really strange to her. You need to calm down. We don't want to scare her off."
A werewolf. I'd be terrified considering my past, but I've grown since then and see the world differently. Nothing is black and white, no one person is the same as another and I don't want to live in constant fear unable to give people or other beings the benefit of the doubt. I climb in the truck slightly nervous but do my best to hide it.
Like a gentleman, he gently closed it behind me, then walked round to the driver's side climbing in and starting the engine.
"I need to say something, make her feel comfortable, but what can I say?"
"Did you have a good flight?" He's as nervous as I am. "Long, cramped but other than that, fine", I reply politely.
'She's grown into such a beautiful young lady, Mary is going to love having a girl around the house.'
I blush in embarrassment at Sam's thoughts and avoid eye contact, staring out the window. I wonder who Mary is.
"It's beautiful isn't it?"
"What is?" I ask confused. "The view", he replies simply, still keeping his eyes forward driving. He's not wrong, it is beautiful, problem is it also brings back painful memories. "Yes it is", I can't bring myself to say anything else without getting emotional.
"Sam right?" He nods, "why am I here instead of the hotel with my colleagues?" I ask genuinely curious.
'I knew this question was coming but not so soon.' "I'll explain everything when we get you settled in".
He laughs, relaxing instantly at my honest response clearly finding it amusing. He glanced at me briefly then back at the road ahead. "Your uncle was right about you".
"What did he say?" I am genuinely curious as I've never met any of my uncle's friends.
"He said and I quote..." he takes his right hand off the steering wheel doing exclamation marks with his fingers and finished saying "... she's a little firecracker".
I roll my eyes. What on earth has my uncle been saying about me?
YOU ARE READING
The Beast Within - Two worlds collide
WerewolfA fated encounter that she couldn't avoid. An unexplained attraction she can't seem to escape from. A whole other world she thought she imagined through trauma. Life has been unkind to Selena Beaumont, who at an early age had witnessed her parents b...
