Gabriel

15. ...Beast (Part I)

PART I

MAEVE

I take a large step back. The wolf- or should I say Gabriel- whimpers a bit and lowers his head to his paws, looking up at me innocently. It's still his same milky grey colored eyes, but bigger and darker, like the rest of his body. It's covered in a coat of midnight black fur with the only exception to the darkness being the grey tipped edges of his ears.

"Is... is it you?" I take in a shaky breathe. He nods. I take a hesitant step forward and he does the same, gauging how I react. I watch him, waiting for a sign that he's preparing to rip me to shreds or pounce and eat me for dinner. He just takes another step and another and another until he's standing right in front of me. He still towers over my small height, yet still not as tall as... well, you know, before.

"Well, why did't you just tell me straight away. It would have made everything a lot less confusing and this is so...", I say after a minute, breaking out into a grin", cool."

"I mean, werewolves actually exist? Thats awesome!" I say, starting to get hyped up. This is like all the books I read, but much more amazing. Gabriel looks as me in disbelief.

"Tell me everything! This is so weird. Are there like alphas and betas and mates and rouges? Oh! What about vampires! Mermaids? Oh my gosh. I want to be a mermaid! Can I turn into mermaid? Oh, wait! Can I change to a wolf?! Being an ugly human sucks!" I ramble on. I'm starting to get a little light-headed and seeing two of his wolf. My head feels like it's a bit jumbled and I lose balance, tottering before catching myself. Sensory overload, I think. I start seeing spots in my visions and try to rub my eyes, stumbling again. I mumble incoherently about mermaids and feel two soft arms catch me before darkness falls like a sheet over me.

---

Soft sheets. Warm bed. I groan and roll over, disorientated. I see Gabriel on the other side and he turns to look at me from where he lay reading a book. I look around and realize I'm in his room. White walls, grey carpet and an over all black and white theme cover the stark room.
"What... wait... how?" I couldn't form a coherent sentence as Gabriel sighed. He looked over to me and gave me a small smile, setting the book down.

I stumble over my words for a few seconds before finally finding the right thing to say. It's not like there really is a right thing to say...

"Is that the the big secret you were worried about me running away from?" I ask.
"I didn't know how you'd take it after everything else you've handled. I just wanted to do what was best for you, because you just fainted and almost fell on the floor. That obviously wasn't in your best interest", he sighs before chuckling," but how could I resist the eyes?" He says referring to the puppy dog face I had given him. It worked pretty well...

"But how? I thought those things were in books? These creatures don't exist", I shake my head. This can't be real. It doesn't make sense. If they existed wouldn't people know about it? How can an entire race be hidden from the world?

"It might be hard to process Maeve, but is it really that unbelievable? It's been totally twisted and mixed up by the media and fiction, but it's just another species, like humans", he says, sitting up. I notice that the window outside is dark, the only glow from the city lights around and below us as they glimmer like their own island.

"And that's only half of it", he mutters the last part.

"What do you mean?" I'm still lying down, so I sit up and the dress shifts in an awkward angle, revealing my scarred upper thighs. I notice his gaze and quickly shift the dress to cover more. A pained look seems to pass over his face but it's gone and replaced with the same neutral façade as before.