Apple Martini

Chapter 6 - A Journey's Beginning

The line of cars moved along the road. Within the one in the middle, Beta Asher was clutching the steering wheel, eyes focused on the tarred path ahead of him, Alpha Regan in the passenger seat beside him checking on regional updates through his phone.

In the back seats, Cass was fast asleep and leaning on Ethel's shoulder, the latter of whom was still awake and gazing out the car window at the passing scenery.

As the sun shone overhead and the trees passed by in a blur, Ethel could only play the events that had transpired the day before and this morning on repeat in her head, still in disbelief that she was no longer in the Wild Blossom Pack or at the beck and call of her younger sister and father.

That had been her life for as long as she could remember. Being ordered around, punished if she stepped out of line even by accident, and being seen as some kind of curse or entity better left forgotten. And she thought she deserved it somehow. Being the only wolfless member of her family, having the strange eye, being Liana's servant, and probably spending the rest of her life without a mate. That was all she knew.

And yet...the Alpha of the prestigious Black Sun Pack had saved her from her poisonous upbringing, and they were now several miles away from the pack that had ostracised and broken her down since her childhood. The veil she had always worn back in the Wild Blossom Pack had been left folded on her bedside table, and Ethel could see her one dark brown and one white eye gazing right back at her in the tempered glass.

She'd never been able to see her own face clearly before outside of her bedroom mirror.

She'd been so accustomed to it, that the very notion that Alpha Regan, this powerful man who had assumed leadership of the Black Sun Pack at fifteen and somehow only strengthened it, had not been repulsed or unnerved by her at first sight still felt like a distant dream.

And not only that...he was her mate.

Ethel was feeling overwhelmed by the scents she could suddenly smell alongside her in the vehicle. There was the sweet scent of different types of berries - though mostly raspberries and blueberries - and cheesecake that seemed to radiate off Cass's hair as she slept. The primarily sweet with a tinge of caramel licorice aroma that trailed from Beta Asher in the driver's seat. And in front of her, the strongest scent of all; freshly ground coffee with a medley of spices, with cinnamon, cloves and allspice reaching her nose.

Ethel wondered if it was like this for all standard werewolves, to scent everyone around them to a certain degree and all times. It felt incredibly chaotic, but fortunately Alpha Regan's scent helped to calm and comfort her.

The dream she'd had in her room the night before was still pinging at the back of her mind. The dark furred wolf she saw with the diamond coloured eyes, who bowed to her and called herself Elodie.

As much as she wanted to hope regarding what Elodie had implied, other than gradually being able to smell scents, Ethel hadn't heard a thing from the mysterious wolf since awakening that morning.

I am not at my full strength yet, but I promise that once I am, I will help you get back what you are owed. For now...you have Alpha Regan and his wolf to support and help you. Stay with them.

Ethel had almost been prepared to write off her encounter with Elodie as a manifestation of her own wishful thinking, but the fact that she could now scent other wolves to a decent degree, and that she somehow had a fated mate, pointed to the wolf being her missing other half.

She supposed she should have felt...happy? Relieved? But she only had more questions.

Werewolves normally got their wolves and went through their first shifts at thirteen, before being able to find their mates once they turned eighteen. She'd witnessed Liana's first shift into Lucie, and how overjoyed Alpha Thomas had been in contrast to his barely veiled disappointment a year before when Ethel had failed to do so.