Moon Bound

Chapter 1-Scent and Sensibility

        My cell buzzed angrily on the table next to the box labeled 'donations for food kitchen'. One glance at the caller ID told me it wouldn't be a conversation I wanted to have at the moment. Or at all, if I'm really being honest.

"It's him again isn't it?"

"Ugh..Yes!" I said in exasperation.

"You know you can't ignore him much longer."

I turned to look at my best friend Blanca. Beautiful silver blonde hair was falling in messy tendrils from where she had it piled on her head as she stood with an armful of my medical textbooks precariously balanced against her chest.

"I know." I taped up the box I had just finished packing. "l just wish he wasn't such a wolf with a bone."

"Oh he's got a bone alright," she laughed, shooting me a meaningful look.

"Good Goddess stop!" I threw my hands over my face but I couldn't stifle my own laugh at her innuendo. I shook my head, "He's convinced I'm his mate."

"Maybe you are."

"I'm not."

"Okay." She drawled, filling yet another box with books. "But would it be so bad if you were?"

"Yes! He is an arrogant man pup, I just can't accept that the Goddess would mate me to anyone who didn't, at the very least,  know how to open a book!"

"Oh come on! He can read! —He's just spent more time honing other ... skills." she smiled licentiously.

Lots of time —if the word around the den is true.

"He can be sweet!"— She continued— "he's charming and loyal... he's the Alpha's brother, he's hot." She blew a tendril out of her face, "he's really hot.

"Maybe he's your mate," I offered.

She stood up and shot me a mischievous smirk.

"I mean"—she gestured to herself—"that man can make me howl any night he wants... but seriously, you're going to have to accept that you're probably going to be far smarter than your future mate, so why not get something else out of it. You know what you need? A good roll in the woods, then you'll understand. She waggled her eyebrows at me, "He could definitely give you that."

I chuckled and tossed her a new roll of tape. I wish I had a fraction of Blanca's confidence. She had always been fully connected to her wolf. When the season had come for her first shift, she welcomed it, and it had happened effortlessly on the first full moon after her sixteenth birthday.

My first time...

Well to be honest, I was a late bloomer, It took a full eight lunar cycles after my sixteenth birthday. When it finally had happened, I was so scared I fought it, making the cell remodeling excruciatingly painful and slow.

Afterward, I could barely walk on all fours never mind run with the pack.

If it hadn't been for Blanca, and my brother Silas, I might never have gotten past that awkward teen wolf phase. They took me out in the woods everyday, far from any prying eyes at the den, and helped me practice shifting over and over again until it became instinctual. Then we would go on runs, just the three of us.

Sure...maybe I never fully achieved the level of grace Blanca possesses, and even as an adult, I can still be a little awkward in my own fur... but the memories of running through the pines and splashing in the creek with Silas and Blanca were some of my most cherished childhood memories. They had always made me feel loved and like I belonged, even though there was a lot about me that was different from others of our kind.