Alaina's Destiny Book 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

ALAINA

It's 12:00 a.m. and I hear the radio blast throughout the room.

"Good morning, Seattle Washington."

Thankfully, I turn it off before I open my eyes and see that my phone starts buzzing with messages and notifications from my friends and family all probably saying some variation of

"Happy birthday, Alaina!"

I flop back against my pillow and squeeze my eyes shut. I'm eighteen now. I can't believe it. Don't be mistaken, I'm not excited. Oh, not at all. This is the day that my life officially comes to an end. It's not like most other kids who have been waiting their entire lives. Not for me. In my family, once you turn eighteen, you must get married.

My family is not what you'd call "normal" or "typical". We're werewolves.

I'm sure you're probably imagining some super cool scenario where we change against our will at the full moon and go crazy and lose our sense of who we are...but no. That's not how it works.

We change whenever we want and still keep ahold of who we are (which is much better, trust me). We have powers too (wolf-like powers) and we control those too; honestly, being a werewolf is pretty great most of the time. Except for this one little, tiny fact that my parents have been shoving down my throat for the past year: at eighteen a werewolf must be ready to mate, marry, and breed.

I think it's because I'm the youngest that this is such a big deal. If my sisters hadn't been ready to get married EXACTLY on their eighteenth birthday, I bet my parents would've been okay with me being the same way...possibly. But my sisters got married right away, and they have beautiful families now (which they started right away). I'm not saying I don't want to get married. I don't want to get married right now. I ESPECIALLY don't want to be forced to marry and that's what my parents can't seem to understand. Or what they're not willing to understand. Either way it's caused a big problem and for the past, eh, six months or so we haven't been on the best of terms.

Now I'm dreading actually having to get up and face them which would be in 7 hours. That seems to be a lifetime away, but a lifetime won't be long enough. I'm willing to wait, watching the time slowly go by. That way I know it won't sneak away from me when I'm not looking. I remember each of my sister's birthdays (which happened to be their wedding day also) I remember having so much fun.

We all got ready for the wedding, my sister got married and then we all danced, ate and generally partied all day and night. Even shy little me-at the time-had a blast on the dance floor. I guess I always thought my birthday would be like that too. Until the time came to actually do it. I glance out of the window at the side of my bed. It is a little frosty, but I can easily see flakes of snow falling with my sharp eyes. I turn over and see that the clock reads 7:00. Good. The time got away from me.

I rub my eyes a couple of times and let out a loud (slightly exaggerated) sigh. Then I swing my legs over the side of my bed, stand up and stretch; I walk across the room and flip on the light. I look around my room, which is a mess like usual. Werewolves are generally messy, more than humans typically are, I imagine. Rebellious teenagers might exaggerate it more but that's beside the point. My room is pretty small, but honestly, I love it.

The walls are painted blue and yellow, and there is a desk in the corner, a closet on the opposite wall and a secret door in the back of my closet that opens up into a secret little room. In that room I keep all my art stuff. Drawing and art have always been my getaway, my relief. I took up art when I was ten and eight years later, I still go into that room and paint and draw for hours at a time. I throw on some clothes and run a brush through my hair. I let out another sigh. I go around, slowly picking up each item that's out of place in my room, about to put it away, before I decide to just drop it back down on the floor. Why bother picking it up now? Ladies and gentlemen, I am completely depressed. Trying to keep my mind off facing my parents. These distractions haven't helped me one bit. My phone begins buzzing again with a new round of messages. I ignore them too. It's a good thing I do because I hear mom calling me.