Instincts - c.h.

Chapter 8

Ashton was first to reach us, all smiles and bright eyes. He took a seat to my left, Brody handing him a beer. Luke sat across from Ashton, his back to the house, his eyes shifting from Calum to Ashton. He also took a beer from Brody, shyly mumbling a “thanks” in the process. Calum finally reached us with a tight grip on Michael’s forearm. His face was hard, making him look like a completely different person from the boy I had just been sitting with in the woods. He gave Michael a look.

“Sorry about earlier” he sighed, a teasing smirk on his face.

Calum’s expression didn’t change as he continued staring Michael down.

Obviously Michael seemed to find the whole situation amusing. “No hard feelings?”

Glancing at the other boys who just watched me, I nodded. “Yeah…no hard feelings” I mumbled.

            Now free from Calum’s grip, the other boy casually sat down beside Luke, grabbing a beer for himself and popping it open on the heel of his combat boot. Calum moved to sit beside me, a friendly amount of space between us. A beer was passed to him as well.

“Oh, here, let me” I said to Ashton, using a charm to cause the cap to pop off, doing the same for Calum as well.

I would have opened Luke’s bottle, but Michael grabbed it from his hand and opened it with his shoe like he did his own. There was a short silence among us, the boys just looking into the fire as I thought about Brody’s words. Our kinds don’t mix, many witches and warlocks were too proud to ever consider settling with werewolves. In comparison, werewolves always seemed to wild to settle down at all. My parents would disown me as their daughter if they ever found out I had even considered looking at Calum or his pack as more than animals.

Ashton turned to me suddenly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Where are your parents…Calum, um, mentioned you two were step-siblings?”

I glanced at Brody quickly, his eyes meeting mine before slowly dragging to Ashton.

“Texas” Brody answered.

“They live on a ranch just outside Austin” I added.

            Now all the boys were looking at me, waiting for some sort of explanation. I looked at Brody for help, he just shrugged as if giving me the okay to enlighten the boys about our past. I guess it was time to tell my story.

“My mother died during childbirth and Brody’s dad walked out on them when he was really young. Our parents met around the time I was eight and Brody ten. After a few years together we both seemed to realize how miserable the other was in that house…and other problems arose… so we just ran away…when I was sixteen.”

“Why’d you run away?” Calum asked.

“Because her dad’s a greedy scumbag” Brody answered.

“And his mother is a narcissistic wench” I grinned.

“Wow…that’s…um…” Ashton murmured awkwardly.

Brody and I just laughed.

“Our mutual hate for the other’s parents is what brought us together” I shrugged, sipping from my beer.

Brody nodded.

“So what did you two do before you started tracking this wolf?” Calum questioned.

Brody shrugged. “Did a bit of traveling.”

“Met some other witches along the way, stayed with them for a bit” I added.

“Hey Cal” Brody began, taking a drag from his cigarette “what’s your deal?”

Calum’s head tilted to the side, his brows furrowing in confusion. “Sorry?”

“What’s your story?” I clarified for him.

“Oh, right, well” he shrugged, looking down at his beer “I grew up in the suburbs with my parents and my sister. We would visit my grandparents every summer and my grandpa always told me stories about how our ancestors protected the land. He would always tell me stories of how the spirit of the wolf lived in our ancestors and continued to live in us today. My parents always knew it would happen, but just hoped that maybe it would skip my generation or something. Anyways, I first changed when I turned eleven. My grandpa somehow knew it would happen and made this trap to keep me in one area until sunrise. I woke up under a tree, completely naked, and scared out of my mind. He told me how all the stories were true and that I was the one to take over the next generation of the pack.”

“But you left…” I mumbled, wanting to know how these four boys ended up an ocean away from their home.

“Allot of people didn’t like the idea of Calum becoming the new Alpha…they thought he wasn’t right for it” Ashton answered.

“Yeah” Calum agreed “they had all chosen someone else to lead the next wolf pack. I couldn’t take the shame and hate I got after I found out, so…I took some money, we all bought a plane ticket and ended up settling here.”

            At one time I would have disagreed with Calum’s decision of running away from his planned destiny. I mean, yes there were those that disagreed with his fate, but that shouldn’t have stopped him from helping a greater cause. At least, that’s what I used to think. Brody looked over at me, his eyes shadowed by the dim light of the fire, a knowingness in his gaze. I’d been taught a long time ago to shake my head in disappoint at the revelation of Calum running from his destiny, but now I couldn’t because that would have made me a hypocrite…