The Blue Wolf
Chapter 17

Arabella’s Perspective:

~~

William’s Perspective:

I was going to continue rambling when she cut into my sequence of words. And said “And s*x and girlfriends, you’re not telling me you’re twenty-three and a virgin? Because I’ve heard the Erika story.” I was happy she interrupted me with that question. It meant she was taking an interest in my love life.

I turned my head to the left to glance at her. She was on her tippy toes, taking a pretty greenish-colored leaf off of the tree branch of a pacific dogwood tree, she then proceeded to take a white flower from it too. She spilled open her novel to a random page and pressed the leaf in the novel, then she did the same with the flower.

I had seen her do this before too, not pressing them into a novel but taking a leaf or a flower, except when I saw her do it, she was taking a leaf from a tree, outside Cafe Sofa, before we walked in.

She told Sophie to put the leaf in her pocket. I smiled at her action and asked “Why do you always do that?” She turned her attention to me, gave me a childish expression and she started laughing as she said “Well so then they’re mine forever. They stay with me forever. Sometimes I’ll paint them too if I want to.”

I looked at her with a desire to k**s her, I thought in my mind. “You’re mine forever.”

She gazed into my eyes for a few seconds. I didn’t know why she did that. She shook me out of my thoughts: “So can you answer my question now?”

I looked at her in the eyes with l**t in my own, I saw her cheeks getting a little red so I smiled and just looked away.

Looking up at the trees, I pretended I was admiring them. I said: “Well, all flings and romances were kind of like an un-said forbidden thing because it was just a distraction, but no I’m not a virgin, and I sure did break the rules sometimes and had a few flings, but like I’ve told you before Arabella, for a wolf, you can only be in love with your mate. Anyone else you can become attached to, grow to love, but you can’t be in love with them.”

I paused for a second, to check if Ara was listening, and when I confirmed that she was, I continued: “And about Erika. Well, I know Michael told you the story already, but that did crush me a bit. The only reason I didn’t have her executed, even though it would have been valid, and the council agreed with it too, is because I kind of felt like if I had acted out in revenge, and had her killed, I would have gotten bad karma or something like that, and I would not have found you, my real mate. There have been others too, who pretended to be my mate. I’m not the only one either. Lots of powerful Alpha’s have had this happen to them, there are women Alpha’s too, and there are men who have pretended to be their true mate.”

Arabella’s eyes went slightly wider “Really, there are women Alphas?” I smiled “Yes, there is. I have a family friend, named Cora, she’s the daughter of one of my Mom’s oldest friends, and that friend of my mothers, she had a son, Cora’s brother, but Cora proved much more worthy of an Alpha than her brother, and she’s been Alpha now for a few years.” Arabella smiled “That’s cool. She’s probably a cool person.” I said, “She is.”

When I turned to look at Arabella she was already gazing at me. Once I met her eyes she didn’t break the gaze. She just asked ” Well then what happened? You’re twenty-three now, what happened after that?” I said “What do you mean? After what?” Arabella awkwardly said, “After everything you said.” I looked at her confused “What happened is that I met you. We’re here. We’re together. What more do I need?” Arabella rolled her eyes at me. I decided this was a good moment to start proceeding further.

I started walking deeper in the woods to a place that had this little waterfall. There were at least ten spots like this in these woods. Me, Nico, and Sophie just preferred this one, we had a little heated cabin there, big enough for five to six people to hang out in, there were supplies like chairs, blankets, tents, campfire stuff, water, food, a few heavy sweaters. I wanted to take some chairs out, give Arabella a big fluffy sweater and sit with her watching the waterfall, while we talked about, whatever topic the conversation we were having, led us into.

Arabella stayed standing in her spot for about ten seconds before she called out “Where are you going?” Without looking back at her I kept walking and yelled out “Come on. Slowpoke.” I heard her quickly walking, catching up to me. When she reached me she was a little out of breath. And hit my arm playfully, saying “Why would you leave me like that? Don’t you think we should go back now? It might be dangerous.” I looked at her, chuckled “You’re with me. You’re okay. No danger will get us here anyways.”

She rolled her eyes and with the tone of a grudge laced in every word she said “Sometimes, you are the danger.” I stopped suddenly and grabbed her gently by her arms and looked into her eyes “Look, I’m sorry okay? But you don’t understand how possessive wolves are. Wolves usually mark their mate, the day they meet them and couples barely leave the bedroom for the next week.” She took in a breath.

We were by the cabin now. I walked up the steps then I opened the door of the hut, and stepped in, I beckoned Arabella to me “You can come inside.” She scoffed “Oh nooooo, no thanks, inside a little cabin in the woods, just you and me, no one in sight, no way, Jose, I’m just gonna walk back, thanks for the weird walk.”

She threw the peace signal out to me comically and turned around. I walked out of the cabin and caught up to her. I grabbed her wrist, when I had her attention, I let it go. ” I’m honestly just getting chairs. I just wanted to sit here for a while with you, and talk.”

She furrowed her brows like she was thinking about something “But I’m cold.” I turned and pointed to the cabin, I have really warm sweaters in there, I’ll get one for you.” She said “Ok.” And started walking back with me. She remained standing outside as I got the chairs. I found a big fluffy brown sweater, that was even baggy on me, so I threw that to Arabella, she put it on immediately, and zipped it up.

Once I brought the chairs where I wanted them. We sat down. Once she seemed comfortable in her seat, she looked at the waterfall, then awkwardly said “Sooooo, what did you want to talk about?” I literally couldn’t think of a single thing to say, so I said “About us.” She said, “There’s no such thing as us.” I said, “Olay then about you.” She said, “What about me?” I said, “Well why don’t you tell me, is there any scenario you could see us being friends?”

She looked up at me with her wonderful brown eyes: “Yeah maybe if you had come into the shop one day, and asked me to hang out, or asked for my number, and then we hung out, became friends. But obviously, that’s an unrealistic scenario.” I said “That’s what I would have done if another pack wasn’t trying to kidnap you. And you know that’s what would have happened if I hadn’t come?”

Arabella rolled her eyes “Oh god you really don’t get it. It’s all the same whether they kidnapped me, or you kidnapped me. If they took me, I would have been forced to stay there, like how I’m forced to stay here, most likely would have had my neck forcefully bitten into, and everyone there would have been in some sort of delusion that I’m the chosen one.”

I looked at her sincerely “I will apologize a thousand times to you if that’s what you want, but that’s all I can do, I can’t take back what I did, I already tried to convey to you how possessive wolves are with what is theirs.”

Her face turned into an expression of extreme irritation, she suddenly stood up from her chair as she said “But that’s just the thing. I…AM…NOT…YOURS! How many times do I have to convey this to you!? I think you and your group of whatever the hell you are! Are f*****g insane! You all need help. I’m just a human being, that you stole from the world outside of these boundaries and you think you have some claim over me, and won’t let me leave. I…DO…NOT…WANNA BE HERE!”

In my angered state, my wolf takes control of me. She turns her body quickly and takes a step forward, away from me, I stand up abruptly, walk a few steps, and grab her wrist, whip her back around, face me, and snake my arms around her waist and press my lips to hers forcefully.

For about ten seconds, I feel her melting away into the k**s until she pulls away from me and pushes me back as hard as she can. But it barely makes me shift. And then she looks at me with nothing but resentment and slaps me right across the face. I feel the slight sting of her hand but not enough to feel physically hurt by it.

She looks straight at me with tears welling up in her eyes “Don’t ever come near me again.” She turns and starts walking away, back from the direction that we came from.

This time I and wolf don’t regret what we just did to her as much. Marking her without her consent, was wrong. But her saying she’s not mine even though I know she feels the sparks every time we touch and giving me such a heated reaction to kissing her was just immature.

I decided to not follow Arabella right this second. I was exhausted trying to make Arabella like me, accept me, validate me. I couldn’t reject her, cause I had already marked her and because I didn’t have the heart to do that anyway, I fell in love with her the second I saw her.

I couldn’t just let her go, to live her life in the city, unbothered by me, because there were too many packs and Alphas after her, and she didn’t know it but their treatment towards her would have been much worse than how she was being treated here.

I also didn’t want her getting any closer to Ryker, who she believed to be her friend. I was aware she had grown to like my sister and brother, I knew that very well. But I also knew she meant what she said when she thought we were all crazy. Who wouldn’t think this was all crazy if they lived their whole life without knowing any of this existed and that they were an extremely rare species of Wolf?

The second I started following in the direction I last saw her walking I heard a scream of agony. It was happening. It was Arabella. I heard the sound of a couple of bones cracking.

Arabella was shifting for the first time. As I ran as fast as I could, I mind-link the Pack Doctor, Dr. Edwards. He says he’ll be here in less than five minutes. I mind-link Michael to bring a big blanket, a change of baggy clothes. I mind-link my sister Sophie to come too, just because I know Arabella trusts her more than anyone else in my Pack. I tell all three to leave everyone else out of it. Even my parents, for the moment.