Dark Shadow (Book 1 in DARKNESS DUOLOGY)

One: Recognition

The place I lived in was busy as usual. Humans and Werewolves coexisting with the other for two centuries. Carmel-by-the-Sea, or as it's also known as just Carmel, was considered a village in California that I couldn't ever dream of leaving. Sure, it wasn't as grand as Los Angeles or San Francisco with its glamour and attractions. But Carmel was a place to get away when you needed to, with the green scenery and the white sandy shoreline that I tended to spend my pastimes. It was home.

It was also one of the places that had been the last to accept that there were Supernatural creatures in the world after the United States President had announced many years ago that a law had been passed to give equal rights to the Weres just as much as humans. By the time my siblings and I were born, the humans treated us as an equal; never being a problem with who we were or, uh, what we were. Sure, you got some elderly who still lived in the past mentally but you can't please everyone, you know?

"Hey! Eden, that's my gummy!" Molly whined, her mouth half full as she was sitting up and leaning over me to swat at our best friend's hand. Eden shoved one of the gummy worms she stole from Molly's bag into her mouth.

I was seated between the pair, my legs outstretched and my arms behind me to rest back properly. My eyebrow raised watching the way Molly growled and snatched the tail of the gummy out of Eden's mouth. She was giving our friend the stink eye and took a savage bite out of the remaining piece of candy.

If you are thinking that it really shouldn't be that serious to be so aggressive over a piece of candy, you'd be wrong. At least in Molly's case anyway. The candy shop here in Carmel had the best collection of fudge, chocolates, British sweets, gummies, over fifty different types of licorices from all over the world, and a variety of novelty candies.

The Cottage of Sweets was located nearby which we had to stop by after I picked the girls up and Molly announced that she had a hankering for some gummies. Hence, why she had a huge bag filled with them and was now giving a blue-eyed glare towards a chuckling Eden.

After sitting herself down again, flipping her long blonde hair off her shoulder with her chin up in the air, Molly huffed that Eden's fingers were going to go missing the next attempt at her candies. I glanced at the girl on my right wearing a smirk as she kept purposely flicking her eyes down at Molly's candy bag. Seeing this, Molly's eyes widened under her furrowed brows and quickly snatched her bag up and hugged it to herself.

Eden and I laughed, me sitting up and reaching into my own bag to pick out three pieces of chocolate. I popped them all into my mouth, saying, "Ju really need to chill, Mully."

My blonde friend raised a perfect brow and wrinkled her nose at me. "And you need to learn to not speak with your mouth open, Gigi. No one can understand you when you speak."

"Ju did," I grinned, sticking another piece of chocolate in my mouth.

Rolling her eyes, Molly looked away at the guys playing football down the ways, after mumbling, "So gross."

I looked at Eden who rolled her eyes with a smile.

We were used to Molly's high and mighty persona since we were little.

It was never a surprise to us when she'd look at what we were wearing and worriedly question if that was what we were really going out in public in that day. We didn't really blame her since she came from a background with money. It was probably not like this for everyone who had money, but for Molly it was. It was just that she was given anything and everything she wanted growing up so I mean... yeah. Self explanatory.

"So... where to next after this?" Eden asked, placing the end of a black licorice into her mouth before biting it off. She looked between Molly and I a few times. Of course, Molly wanted to go shop at the cashmere store because apparently her blue one was faded and she needed to get a new one to replace it.