Awake | Book 1 of the AWAKE Series | (BWWM)

Chapter Two

Karter

            This morning I got up and surprisingly things were already handled. No one came to my office to bother me or ask any questions and no meetings were scheduled. I decided instead of sitting around like a bump on a log to take a walk around the grounds. I can’t remember the last time I was able to just take off and survey my land and it feels good to take it all in.
After walking away from the white three story Victorian home we call the pack house, I took a stroll out to the stables where I keep my horses. I haven’t been able to come and visit them in weeks so I know they’ll be happy to see me.
I grunt as I pull the reinforced steel doors back to open the stable up. I like to make sure my horses are protected from us when we turn.
Bullet, my chocolate brown Mustang neighs loudly when he sees me, waking up Princess, his all white mate. I feed them a few carrots and rub them. I admire everything about Mustangs, their strength, speed, their agility, as tacky as it may seem I even drive a black mustang convertible.

            After securing the doors and lock on the barn I decide to go for a quick run before heading back to the pack house for dinner. I run into the woods and strip down before shifting. The pain that normally comes to new wolves from shifting is like second nature to me with minor discomfort. As soon as I’ve shifted to my light brown and black wolf I take off like a bat out of hell.
The feel of the earth beneath my paws is indescribable. Nothing makes me feel more whole than when I’m running free like this. My vision and hearing are sharper and everything I feel is more intensified. It’s in these times that I can come and reflect and deal with the thoughts and feelings I keep locked away. With everything that happens on a day to day basis in the pack I can’t show any weakness.
I shift back to my human form and lay out in the clearing overlooking the city that Derrick and I would always come to. It’s a little spot sticking out of the back of the mountains surrounding the area, if you aren’t looking for it you won’t find it. I laugh out loud recalling the first time Derrick and I came here.
We had just turned sixteen and it was a few days after our transition ceremonies. I begged my parents for weeks to let me come and visit him alone and finally on the day of my ceremony they told me they would allow it. I drove here as fast as I could in my old 66 Mustang the minute my ceremony was over. As soon as Derrick and I saw each other neither of us could stop talking about how much stronger we felt and how cool we were, sounding like gossiping teenaged girls. After dinner we went on our first run together and neither of us realized how much pain we would be in for our first change.
He and I both passed out mid-change and woke up hours later in our wolf forms. Something about the smell of the flowers on this clearing brought Derrick here and I followed behind him. We sat here for hours looking at the city through our enhanced vision until we decided to head back.
Once we got to the pack territory I shifted first fully expecting for my clothes to magically still be on my body only to find that they weren’t thanks to Derrick’s loud barks. He had fallen over onto his back and was rolling around on the grass laughing at me, still in his wolf form. I turned as red as a tomato all over and ran behind a tree to hide until he came back from the house with clothes for me to put on. Every time I visited him from then on we went back to this spot accept I remembered to bring my own change of clothes.

            After my walk down memory lane, I shift and head back to the pack house for dinner.
“Hey ma what’s for dinner?” I ask the minute I step in the back door.
She rolls her eyes and finishes fixing my plate.
“You’ve got a nose can’t you smell?” she asks jokingly, her heavy Creole accent shining through.
I roll my eyes dramatically and try to walk away quickly but not quick enough before I feel the playful slap to the back of my head.
“Roll your eyes again at me boy and I’ll be pulling them out and putting them in this jambalaya,” she quips with a laugh.
I turn and stick my tongue out at her before running into the dining room to sit down with the rest of the family.
My dad, Phil, Grandma Mae, my former beta and his wife, Grey and Denise, Connor, my current beta and his mom Raina and dad Greg are already seated and in the middle of a football discussion. Everyone is enthralled in the conversation besides Grandma Mae, she doesn’t say much but when she does everyone listens. I get a lot of my brooding silent attitude from her, we get each other.
I sigh loudly as I sit down hoping they’ll shut up but to no avail. Being six foot one, an Alpha, and extremely strong and athletic, you’d assume I was into football but honestly I don’t see the point. There’s always been something about it I just didn’t like, maybe it’s the high risk of injury all for silly points on a score board, but whatever it is it just doesn’t float my boat.
I notice Connor’s withdrawal from the conversation as soon as I walk in the room. It happens every time we’re around each other. There’s still tension between us from his brother’s death but we move past it most of the time and put pack issues first.