Imperious.

Part XV: Emilia

© 2014 XxNotTonightXx.

All Rights Reserved

Author's Note: Please vote and comment, it helps.

Pages: 59 - 61

E M I L I A -

My life has become a cliche. Not only have I cried and wallowed in self-pity, and not only has my life turned back into a black and white blur where I'm just existing to excel in a duty and not living but, most cliched of all, my nightmares have returned.

I first got them when I was ten, so precisely ten years ago. I wasn't being groomed to be a leader of a pack then. I had friends, I watched Disney Channel and I worried about what my mom was packing in my lunch box and what shoes I was wearing to brag about to my friends the next day, not how to be a good leader. But then, I started getting these nightmares.

They were so blurry, so confusing, and the anxiety and alertness I'd get after, the way my eye would dart quickly from side to side was as if my body had already known and processed something my brain hadn't quite gotten or didn't fully remember. The scene was always the same: I'd be under a bed in my home. I'm sure I was under a bed because the closet was another whole room and I've always hidden under my bed when I've felt unsafe.

It was always nighttime, and my window would be firmly shut and everything was normal outside my home in this scene. No rain was raining, there was no out of character wind or snow or anything for the matter. It was a calm night, where the trees stood tall and unmoving. The catastrophe was only in my home. There was yelling - a male voice. His voice was strong, clear, and full of malice. It wasn't my mom's mate but my mom was there. She was scared, and I could feel the quake in her voice when she pleaded with the man to calm down, to leave. That's what scared me the most: the fact that there was someone my mom couldn't control. The feral growls and the pleading yells were sounds of chaos that l couldn't handle. I'd start to get anxious, really anxious.

I could feel my little chest breathing hard and my hair was matted down with tears. I started growing angry. Why was this happening? My little fist started hitting the wall and I started wailing. Then the noise outside stopped and I could hear the growl of uncertainty. My mom yelled, "Stop," but again it was not a command, but rather a pathetic plead. And then the nightmare ends.

I'd run, crying and whimpering to my mother, begging her to let me sleep with her. She would, only if I told her in exact detail what my nightmare was about. And I did. She'd watch me intently, not speaking until I'd finished my horrid tale in great detail. And afterward, she'd pick me up and cradle me against her body, whispering that my monster was locked up and chained away. What my mother didn't know was that locked up and chained away egged on my anxiousness. Chains can break if there's a weak link and locked away means all he needs is a key and if he scared my mom, then he would break away, wouldn't he?

But a few days ago, when the nightmare returned it manifested into something else. I was me, maybe a few years older, but I looked so old. Old and tired and just drained of life. I was living but not living, and I didn't smile or laugh. I was a good leader, but that was as far as life went because in my nightmare, Tom had left me.

I was alone and he'd left me here, to run my pack alone, and he went off and found happiness. He found a woman who loved him in every way I wouldn't; she was open and willing to put him first despite her past. She gave him children, two beautiful children who looked exactly like him. Even though he left me, I made sure he was safe and clear of danger. The constriction in my heart when I saw pictures of his kids, or of him smiling at their graduations, was terrifying. I couldn't move on, I couldn't have sex or love someone else. I'm a werewolf, and the thought itself kills me, but humans have less resistance and can move on after finding their soul mates.