Wolfsbane

The slamming of textbooks yanked me out of my thoughts which consisted of nothing but the amount of work I had to do when I got home.

“Alright, don’t forget to study for the test next week as it’s going to count for twenty percent of your grade,” Professor Richmond hollered as students rushed out of the room.

I followed after them, maneuvering through the crowd of students as I hurried to get to the bathroom. Glancing at my watch told me I had two minutes to go before the hour ended and I needed to get to the bathroom before then.

Pushing the bathroom door open, I threw myself into the nearest empty stall and yanked my favorite perfume out of my bag. Pulling the cap off, I hurriedly sprayed the perfume all over me, satisfied only when I ended up sneezing due to it.

A sigh of relief escaped me when I glanced at my watch and the minute hand struck twelve. Phew, that was close.

I stayed inside the stall as students filtered in and out until there was total silence. Opening the door, just barely, I peeked out making sure that no one was present before stepping out and heading to the sinks.

Fixing my attention on the mirror, I swept a hand over my curly, blonde hair, making sure that nothing was out of place. I swept a finger over my eyebrows checking to make sure the color wasn’t coming off, before applying a fresh coat of lipgloss and face powder. Satisfied that I looked alright, I left the bathroom only to come face to face with the Vixens.

The Vixens were the most beautiful and the most notorious females of our college and the pack. The Vixens included Letitia—the golden girl of the group. Everything about her, right down to the nail polish on her toes was golden. On her right stood Sandra, a little over five feet with black, glossy hair and hazel eyes. Though she was a wolf, her eyes resembled a cat’s. Next to Sandra was Hilda with wavy brown hair and blue eyes. And lastly, on Letitia’s left stood Cassidy with pale, blond hair and equally pale blue eyes. These girls were not only beautiful and worshipped by everybody in college, they were some of the strongest wolves we had.

And they absolutely hated me.

“Well, hello,” Letitia said.

The smile on her pretty face told me that I should be on my guard because she was planning on doing something. Something that would cause me a lot of discomfort.

“H—hi,” I stammered, looking away from the group. I didn’t understand how they could be so mean when they were so beautiful it hurt to look at them.

“You know, Erela, I always wonder why you take so long in the bathroom. I mean, you run as if your bladder is about to explode and then you leave after everybody else does. Seriously, are you trying to clog our toilets?” she said loud enough for the other people lingering in the hallway to hear, which had a chorus of ew’s and yucks following, causing embarrassment to color my cheeks as I thought about the best way to get out of here without any more humiliation. But these were the Vixens we were talking about, they wouldn’t let me go until they had their fun. To think they would stop with their immature remarks now when we were about to graduate college but no, Letitia and the Vixens would just never stop.

“Can you get out of the way, I really need to get to my next class,” I said, trying to side-step them but as usual they were quick to block my path. I honestly never understood what they got out of making my life miserable. Letitia was going to be the next Luna once Vesper turned twenty one and his wolf manifested and here she was wasting her time telling me how I was nothing but trash.

“Why? Can’t you give the rest of us a break from you for once?” She said, a smirk painting her glossy lips. If she didn’t let me go, then I would be late again and I wasn’t sure if the professor would be merciful during finals week.

“You can have all the break you want from me after we graduate which is two weeks from now; then you’ll never have to deal with me,” I told her, hoping she’d take a break and harass someone else.

“That’s the thing, I don’t want to deal with you. I want to eliminate you. I want you out, not just out of the pack, but out of this town,” she snarled, her eyes widening with hatred. Sometimes I wondered if she conjured excessive hatred for me or it just came naturally to her.

“Don’t worry, you won’t even see me after we graduate. But I do need to graduate, so I do need to get to class, so if you don’t mind.” This time I tried to force my way past them but instead of letting me go, Cassidy gave me a rough push and since I wasn’t expecting it I ended up losing my balance and would’ve fallen down had I not collided with the person coming up behind me.

“I—I’m sorry—” I blurted out as I tried to get away from the person but ended up falling down, my books flying out of my hands.

It took me a while to get back on my feet, mainly because I kept patting my hair to make sure it was in place and checking my bag to see if my perfume bottle was still intact. However, when I managed to look at the person who I collided with, my jaw dropped when I realized it was none other than Vesper Halket. The most desired man in the entire college and the next Alpha of the Everhide Shadows pack.

The man was over six feet of power and strength. Wherever he went, people either shivered with terror or respect. There was not a single entity dead or alive who didn’t know who Vesper Halket was. His ice blue eyes never missed anything which made him such a formidable hunter. And currently they were assessing me as if he’d never seen me before in his life. Which wasn’t true since we’d crossed paths multiple times but I just wasn’t interesting enough to hold his attention.

“What the hell, Cassidy?!” Vesper said to the fourth Vixen who was looking like she’d just committed the biggest sin of her life.

“Sorry, Ves, I didn’t mean to. It—it’s her fault for colliding into you. If you want to blame someone, blame her,” she said.

“I have eyes, Cassidy. I know what I saw. And I know exactly what your intentions were and what her intentions were,” Vesper said. Normally an angry man would raise his voice but not Vesper. I don’t think I’d ever heard him raise his voice at anyone but nonetheless, the effect was the same as if he had. Cassidy turned pale, paler than she already was, which I wasn’t sure was even possible for her as fear colored her eyes. Great, the Vixens were going to kill me after this.

“Ves, baby,” Letitia moved forward and wrapped her fingers around Vesper’s bicep. “Don’t worry about Cassidy. She made a mistake.”

“Watch your girls, Letitia. You know I don’t condone such behavior,” he told her, his eyes expressing disapproval.

Letitia blushed but smiled at him. “Don’t worry about her, I’ll make sure it never happens again. Shall we get to class?”

“You go ahead. I have to meet up with the others for something. I’ll join you later,” Vesper replied. ‘The others’ meant the beta, delta and the omega of the pack but it could also be the rest of the pack, I could never really guess. But Vesper was especially close to those three; they were his eyes and ears around the world and pretty much just as terrifying as him.

“Don’t make me wait too long,” she purred and kissed him on the cheek before moving back to her group and walking away from me, but not before she turned around and shot me a deadly glare which told me she wasn’t done with me, not by a long shot.

I quickly picked up my scattered dignity and tried to walk away but stopped to look at Vesper one last time.

“Thank you,” I muttered to him.

He seemed not to have heard me, which was impossible considering his hearing was impeccable, which meant he was ignoring me like he always did.

Instead of responding to me, Vesper strode towards the exit and left the college with me standing in the hallway. Glancing at the clock had me running to my next class and I made it just as the professor was entering the room. He shot me an irritated glance before making his way to the front of the class while I made my way to the back and tried to forget what happened just a few moments ago.

Getting home took another dose of perfume. I sighed in disappointment when I saw the half empty bottle of perfume. I would need to purchase another bottle soon, maybe two with the way I was using this thing.

I did not see any more of the Vixens nor did I see Vesper anywhere but I didn’t need to. In two days he would be turning twenty one and marking his mate. The whole town knew

Letitia would be the next Luna even though nothing was official yet. But Letitia was the most powerful female wolf of the pack, so it had to be her.

On my way back home, I decided to take a detour to the one person who was my savior in this town. Without her I would’ve either killed or been killed by the wolves.

The wolves can’t kill you, you know that.

Yes, I knew it but that didn’t make life any easier. If anybody found what I was, Goddess knows what they’d do to me. Hiding yourself amongst a pack of werewolves made every day a challenge.

But you’ve been doing it since you were old enough to understand what you were.

Yes, and I had no idea who took care of me before then. Who kept me hidden before I grew into my senses. Was it a man or a woman? I didn’t even know that but whoever it was knew me inside and out and all I had as proof of their existence was a notebook which told me how I was the worst form of werewolf.

That I was an abomination.

But no one knew and I couldn’t even tell anyone unless I wanted to die. That person mentioned a witch in the notebook who brewed a potion which would hide my scent from even the most powerful werewolf in the world. And I’d been that witch’s customer for as long as I could remember.

When I entered her shop, I found her sprawled on a loveseat, chewing gum and flipping through a magazine. She grinned when she saw me. Flinging the magazine aside she got up from the chair and went over to the shelf which was filled to the brim with potion bottles.

“There’s my favorite werewolf. Back so soon?” She knew what I was here for and didn’t waste time pulling out a pink perfume bottle.

“Yeah, I’ve used half of the bottle already, so I thought to stock up,” I told her.

Lux Rathmore was the only witch in town and people stayed away from her in much the same way they same way they avoided me, just for a different reasons. Where I purposely made myself repulsive to the eye, there were all sorts of rumors surrounding her and what she did. But it didn’t seem to bother her. I wish I could be as carefree but my life was all about hiding and making sure that no one ever caught on to my scent.

“So, are you ready for the big day?” She asked as she rang up the perfume.

I pulled my wallet out of my bag. “The whole town is but it’ll be just like any other day for me.” She was talking about Vesper’s birthday which was in two days. The whole town would be celebrating their new Alpha, while I would be staying at home with the curtains drawn and working on finishing my assignments so I could graduate in time.

“You’re not going to his birthday?” Lux asked.

I shook my head. “Of course not. I’ve never attended a single one of his birthdays, you know that. I can’t risk it.”

“You know, you can’t hide forever,” she told me as she put the perfume in a bag and handed it to me but not before I gave her the money.

“That’s the goal. I can never let anyone know about me. It’s too dangerous,” I said, putting the perfume in my bag.

“Dangerous yes. But no one can hide forever.”

“I have to try.” I shrugged. “This town is my home and I have to protect the people, even if it means protecting them from myself.”

“Hiding your scent can only protect you for so long,” she remarked just as I made to leave her shop. She was right, masking my scent wasn’t enough and that’s why I chose to disguise myself to the point where I didn’t even recognize myself. But she didn’t know that. No one knew it.

“I’ll take it for as long as I can have it. You take care of yourself. With Letitia becoming the next Luna, she might just come after you and drive you out of this town,” I told her.

“Let her come. She can’t hurt me. Vesper won’t let her.”

“You have way too much faith in him.”

“I do and you should, too. He is a powerful wolf and I’m sure if you tell him the truth about you, he’ll protect you.”

“No. He’ll kill me; at least he’ll try to. But—” I shuddered at the thought. No, Vesper could never know. No one could ever know.

The truth about me was dangerous.

The truth was destruction.

The truth was deadly.