𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 [𝙧. 𝙡𝙪𝙥𝙞𝙣]

chapter two

LEAH

You know how you're always told to be yourself? Yes, it's a lovely phrase, isn't it? Just be yourself! I guess it's simple enough.

Holding back anger can be really bad for you, because then you'll have pent up anger and other emotions weighing on your back and you never know when you're going to snap it all comes bursting out. I suppose that gives credit to the statement that you should express your emotions and not tie them up and cast them into the deepest parts of your already crumbling soul, hoping they will sink into one of the cracks and disappear.

I cannot do that.

I can't be myself when I'm angry.

When you're being yourself and being angry, maybe your face goes red or your eyes become just a shade darker and you manage a perfect I'm-going-to-whip-your-arse look.

When I'm being myself and being angry, it's a whole other look. Black veins start to show vividly against my pale skin, and I start to growl, and my eyes turn bright yellow.

I suppose your immediate thought after reading this is: She's a werewolf!

I'm afraid you're horribly wrong.

People often think werewolf and wolfblood are the same thing, but they are actually really different. For starters, there is no such thing as being bitten by a wolfblood and being turned into one. You can only be born a wolfblood, to wolfblood parents. Besides, if you were bitten by a wolfblood it'd probably be the last thing that happened to you while still alive.

Second, wolfbloods can wolf out (transform) at will, after their first transformation of course. However, werewolves only become... well, werewolves at the full moon. Wolfbloods change at the full moon too, but from what I've heard ours is a gentle, happy transformation compared to a werewolf's transformation.

Third, you can tell a wolfblood just by looking at it in human form. I doubt whether the same can be said about werewolves. The way I see it, being a werewolf is kind of like having the Wolf latch onto you, but being a wolfblood is completely different.

We are one with the Wolf. We are one with nature. Our hearing, sight and sense of smell is unnaturally better than humans'. We can run for miles and miles with hardly any breaks in between, and I don't mean cross-country jogging, I mean sprinting running.

I really don't want to sound like I'm bragging so I'll stop here. My point is 'werewolf' and 'wolfblood' are two completely different things.

Or at least that's what I believe.

* * *

I think my best friend, Mollie, fits the description of 'born and raised in the wild' better, which is saying something because she's a city wolfblood. Her hair is red and curly and falls into her face menacingly just before she's about to explode with anger or pounce on somebody. When I say red, I don't mean auburn red; I mean deeper than red red. She mostly wears jeans and leather jackets and just basically knows where she's going in life. She has a really strong Welsh accent, so when she says something like, 'stop doing that' it sounds a bit like, 'stohp doin' that'.  I think her accent is really pretty.

And I'm just a normal Scottish-bred sort of wolfblood. Most wolfbloods I meet always comment that I look like a wild wolfblood - which I am - but the way they say it makes me think they don't mean it positively.