Steel: The Transformation

Chapter 13

                 

Chapter 13

Jackson POV

The morning had barley caught any light and the air was cool, chilly even, when I sat down on our front steps to tie my shoes laces. I needed to go for a run. It was as if my body started to crave it when I felt overwhelmed. I pulled up the zipper of my hoodie and started to lightly jog down the street of our house. Well, my father's house more than anything. Ever since my mother had left and he had moved his girlfriend in, I felt more like a visitor. I guess he had hoped that I wouldn't change, that I would be the abnormality. The normal human with two wolf parents, it did happen. But I had changed first of everyone and now I was stuck here. Stuck in that house with him and his girlfriend and stuck with this pack.

Even if I wanted to leave I couldn't, my pack needed me and I needed them. The connection between us was so strong, I doubt I could ever be the one to break it. I continued down the pavement, my feet running progressively faster. I could feel the wolf in my veins, begging me to shift and run through the woods instead. I ignored him, I needed to clear my head and not give in to my wolf impulses right now. So much had changed over the last few weeks. Cleo, my amazing human girlfriend had miraculously accepted the fact that I was a scary supernatural being. She had then in the blink of an eye turned in to something more than a human herself.

The word Basati floated through my mind and tugged at my heart, there was something about it that I didn't like. It wasn't Cleo, I knew myself how helpless you are when your body goes through a transformation. The wind caused my eyes to tear up, but I continued running. I saw his face flash across my eyes, blond hair and brown eyes. The wolf within me was screaming at me, telling me that he was too close to her. That Cleo somehow trusted him, she had told me that he was her Mentor. What did that even mean? I didn't know anything about the Basati except for what she had told me. Maybe she didn't even know everything herself right now? But he would know everything... Yes, Alec would know everything there is to know about the Basati if he is her Mentor....

As I started stretching on the lawn in front of my house, I felt how my thoughts started to order themselves into neat lines. Firstly, I would have to call another pack meeting. I know we had just had one but I would have to tell Cleo that we had extra practice tonight. A pang of guilt passed through me, I didn't like lying to her but to protect my pack I had to keep our meetings as secret as possible. We needed to protect ourselves and I needed to protect her. She might have decided that she needed him as a Mentor but she had only known him for such a short space of time. She didn't know anything about him. It was up to me to find out what he knows, both for the sake of protecting my pack but also to make sure that she was safe.

~*~

I walked over to Tim, he was sitting at one the benches in the courtyard of the campus and for a split second envy flashed through me, I wish I could be like him. Not be responsible for the pack, just responsible for myself and for following someone else's orders. I didn't want to be the one to make decisions like this, but if I didn't we might slip into more danger than what we already were.

"What's going on?"

"Not much," I sat down next to him and I felt a need to share something with him, but I didn't know what.

"Pack meeting tonight?" Tim could clearly sense that something was troubling me and he knew my mind almost as well as I did.

I nodded back to him, defuse plans were swirling around in the back of my mind.  My gaze fell on Cleo and Alec walking across the courtyard, he was carrying a big stack of paint cans. She sent me one of her sweet smiles and waved at me before heading into the annex where the lecturer's lounge was. As I saw the door slowly close behind her and that guy, I felt a stab of emotion. Not envy, but something deeper a territorial protectiveness bloomed in my chest until I was shocked out of it by Tim's hard punch on my shoulder.