Klaus's Pet Prequel

54

Lorelei's Flashback:

I stare out into the mountain, my eyes adjusting easily to the darkness. It took a little longer than I had wanted. Ever since I got my moonlight ring I've been trying to control the transformation from wolf to human and back but it's not easy to break every bone in your body. Especially doing it on repeat.

I scan as far as my vision will allow and listen intently but there's nothing.

No lights. No voices.

Emma had told me they were leaving but it's been months since then.

Why haven't they come back yet?

I decide to wonder about that part later. As I walk up the mountain, I stop every few moments to listen and make sure I'm not being watched or followed. As the hike up the mountain continues, I start to relax a little.

There's this gnawing feeling in me that I have to check and make sure. I need to know that they are actually gone even though I feel it.

I hike and turn right and go straight on towards the clearing that had been my prison for so long. I have this overwhelming sensation that if I stay too long, I'll get sucked right back in to my old life. I'll just take a quick peek to ease my mind.

As I make my way through the woods and into the meadow, I'm stunned. I'd only seen this place empty once before when we had adjusted for a mud slide.

All the tents and tables, gone.

The place where I grew up was now an empty field and an abandoned garden once again.

There's nobody here.

Good.

I turn around to another section of the woods.

I didn't come here for this.

It takes me about 20 minutes to get where I want to go. As I do, I pick flowers along the way until I have a whole array of purple, white and blue flowers.

I stare down at the X mark I had carved on the tree in front of me. I'd used a knife to dig into the bark. I place the flowers on top of the ground just as I had done 4 years earlier when Jackie had died.

Two of Hector's men got into a heated fight during a full moon. At first it was threats and shoving, maybe a few swings. After they'd turned however, it was a different story. They ended up tearing through the clearing where everyone was settled in their tents getting ready to go to sleep. Jackie had been in her tent when they had come barreling through and was caught up in the middle of a vicious wolf battle. She died that day.

Things weren't the same after that.

Hector made it law that everyone who was in the pack who could turn had to stay on the other side of the mountain during full moons until the transformation was over and they returned to human form. He even had guards in the trees with arrows in case any wolves came too close.

Kane moved on from me to kids closer to his prefrances and I did my best to protect them as Jackie and I had done for one another.

I sit down and give Jackie an update on my life. How I betrayed the entire pack to be free. How I'd been living the past few months and what it was like to be a wolf.

The first night was awful. The pain was so intense it was all I could focus on as each bone snapped one by one. It took so long I'd lost track but once it was over, it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced in my life, running through the mountains as a wolf.

I'd ran to smaller mountain range that was uninhabited by humans or wolves and enjoyed life. That's when I'd hunted my first deer.

I was on my own for years until Emma came along the day I was banished. Those few weeks before I'd lost her were the most amazing moments of my life.

She reminded me a lot of Jackie. She was fierce and smart. Knew all the interesting things nobody else cared to.

She brought back a joy in my life and in a few weeks, I'd lost her forever.

I turn and walk away after a few moments, tears running down my cheeks before I transform and take off as fast as I can.