Mate revealed

$5, 2 twinkys and a trip to the diner.

She woke to the sound of hushed conversations, ribbons of speech and strips of jokes. 

Sunshine trampled its way from the open curtains, across the floor to where Emma was sat. Ester tried to sit up, her body slowly waking. As she did, Ester noticed it wasn’t just her and Emma in the room, but there was someone else.

Next to Emma, the table which usually hung over the end of her hospital bed, had been turned towards this third person. Her legs dangled from the chair she was perched on, her head bent over the desk, industriously colouring away something. 

Emma’s eyes peeled away from the little girl's page, to Ester – “You’re awake!”

“And you repeat that every time!” Ester smiled, “who’s this?”  

Emma delicately placed her hand on top of the little girl’s head, who stilled and looked up at the touch, Emma ran her hand down the back of those black waves and smiled at her.

“This,” Emma began, “Is Rose, my daughter. Rose this is my friend, Ester”

Rose then looked at Ester and smiled mildly. Much to Emma’s surprise, Ester didn’t miss a beat, her replying smile didn’t falter at the shock news.

“Daughter AND artist, I can see?” Ester wriggled toward Rose, her mound of paper and colouring pencils.

Rose angled her drawing towards Ester for her approval. 

This time Ester’s face did falter. Her smile slipped. A twitch twisted her mouth momentarily. 

Two wolves, one big grey wolf, and a smaller, more compact black wolf.

“Very good,” Ester’s smile was back, as she plastered on an expression of mock suspicion. “I’ll give you $2 for it.”

Rose’s face was a mixture of awe, humour and scepticism “No,” she replied eventually, and then – schooling her face into an approximation of Ester’s, primly said, “it’s not for sale”

“Hmm,” Ester stroked her chin thoughtfully, “Ok, $5 and a Twinky, my final offer”

Rose frowned in deliberation, “$5, 2 Twinkies and a trip to The Diner in Lightwood.”

“Rose!” Emma gasped in horror, “that’s rude.”

Rose and Ester both disregarded Emma’s apology on behalf of Rose, and Ester instead squinted at Rose, who squinted back. “Drives a hard bargain,” She murmured quietly. Suddenly, she thrust her hand forward to Rose and broke out in a smile, “deal!”

Rose laughed back and shook the hand offered to her. 

“How old are you anyway?”  Ester asked whilst inspecting her new picture. Little evergreen trees were sprinkled in the background on the hills. On the hill at the very back of the picture was a tiny white house. Ester left the flutter of a memory lift like dust and then resettle into the darkness.

“Ten and a half,” her little artist stated proudly.

“Wow, thought you looked twenty-one and a half.”

Rose chuckled lightly, and fired back “How old are you?”

Wide eyed, Emma muttered, “Rose, it’s rude to ask someone’s age!”

“But she asked me first!”

Emma opened her mouth to respond, but a knock sounded at the door. Emma stood to answer it.

“Well Rose, believe it or not, I’m also ten and a half.”

“No you’re not!”

“No I’m not, that would be weird, I’m 23”

“Cool – what happened to your eye?”

“What’s wrong with my eye?”

“It’s like – all red and black”

Between the back and forth of Rose and Ester, Emma slipped out into the corridor, speaking in hushed tones to the visitor. 

“Holy s**t!” She heard Ester’s voice squeak from under the door. Then followed by, “sorry!”

Emma and Sam stuck their heads around the door. Rose was now sitting on the end of Ester’s bed, holding up a mirror from the bathroom. 

Ester was gazing down at her reflection, her fingers pulling and dragging and plucking at her skin. Two eyes stared back at her, but the left pupil was surrounded by red… not white. Purple bled into blues and greens beneath and turned over into a yellowing colour across her cheek.

“You didn’t tell me I looked like Darth Maul!” Ester gaped.

“Darth who?” Rose asked as Ester looked to the doorway.

“Oh, hi Sam!”

He said little but was polite to Ester, asking how she was feeling. His face looked tired, dark bags hung beneath his eyes and his forehead was creased in concern. He eventually drew Emma out again for a hushed conversation. The whirring of the fan drowned them out, along with Rose’s quiet chatter.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Ester asked, now both scribbling away at their own respective pieces of ‘art’. 

She shrugged without taking her eyes off of her page, “’Dunno, maybe it’s about the Alpha.”

Our Alpha, the voice purred. 

Ester stilled. It had been days, weeks since she’d heard the voice. Briefly, she closed her eyes against the rising panic. But it crawled up, up from her chest and into her throat, heavily and sticky. 

She thought she might be sick.

“He’s been pretty stressed recently,” Rose went on, unaware of Ester’s turmoil. 

Ester took deep breaths, trying to loosen the clawing nausea from her neck. “What do you mean Alpha?”

Rose frowned at the question, “Our Alpha… you know,” she looked up at Ester, “our leader. Although, he’s also my uncle so he says I get special treatment.”

Ceasing her deep breaths, Ester asked, “Your uncle?” 

“Uh-Hu” she nodded, “He’s my dad’s brother.”

Oh.

Understanding dawned in her. 

Sebastian.

The missing brother. 

Emma, and the boy she fell in love with at school. The boy who went missing during school. The disappearance that sent Lucca into chaos.

Oh poor Emma, she thought. Oh poor Rose, who probably didn’t have any memories of her father.

And now she looked at Rose, really looked at her, there were lingering similarities between her and Lucca. The dark, wavy hair. The full lips. The sharp jaw. The olive skin. 

But the button notes, and the big blue eyes, were Emma.

Ester felt a new emotion scamper through her chest now. 

She changed the topic to something safer, and a handful of moments later Emma came back in. Her face was stained with stress, but her voice was level. 

The pain was slowly lessening each day. 

She learned she’d shattered all three main bones – tibia, fibular and femur - in her one leg, her cracked four ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, fractured radius in her forearm and ulna at her elbow. She also surmised that she’d had a severe concussion and possible bleed, but Emma couldn’t remember all the details. 

Ester knew she should have been dead. She’d never heard of a patient who’d received such injuries and survived. And what’s more, was now conscious and healing. Her arm felt practically pain free. No headaches from her concussion, and her ribs were mending. 

There was no one else in the building, no nurses or other patients. No laughing echoing down the corridor or painful cries, as one might expect from an infirmary. Ester wondered whether this was because of her, she didn’t belong here, Lucca had made that clear. Had he asked others to steer clear of this building whilst she was here? And she thought, not for the first time, where they dangerous? Or was it that she, as an outsider, was a danger to them?

Slowly, sleep snuck up on Ester; pulling down her eyelids and pushing back her head into the pillow. The morning sunshine morphed into early afternoon light.

“See you tomorrow,” Emma whispered to Ester as she tiptoed out with a yawning Rose trailing behind. 

Dozing in and out, she was aware of the afternoon light dipping into a caramel colour, before burning and becoming darker. Night was approaching. 

Ester’s lungs exhaled as her legs stretched out to keep up her pace. Hadn’t she been here before? Shadows, the crunch of the forest, the cool breeze wafting across her skin. The stars, like crushed glass twinkling and gleaming between the trees. 

A subtle murmuring pulled her gaze backdown.

Her heart lurched. Rose. 

Rose’s body lay across Ester’s arms, her legs dangling down haphazardly. Her eyes trembling with sleep and her mouth mimed whatever dreams were crammed into her head.

Ester’s arms were wound, protectively. 

Lights began to ribbon through the trees either side of her. Them, Ester thought - she wasn’t alone now. 

Torches, blazed. 

A new fear stretched in her limbs. Voices bled into the forest. Shouting. Calls. Grunts of exertion.  The stomp of jogging. 

 “I scent her!” The voice growled through the forest. Lucca? 

Ester’s heart plummeted. Her grip tightened on Rose, but her feet slowed.

Was it Lucca? Was he going to help her? Them? 

A wind suddently tore between the alleyway of trees. Her hair was pulled, her clothes plucked at. 

“Ester!” His voice bellowed.

Goosebumps rose around her skin. She looked down. Rose!

Her skin was white, tinged with blue. Her lips an unnatural shade of purple. 

“Ester! Run!” 

A tremor skirted up Ester’s legs. The ground vibrated. The trees trembles, the sound of the leaves en masse quivering sounded like a waterfall.

Then the roar of water followed.

“Get to higher ground!” Lucca pleaded through the darkness, “Go Ester!”

And then the trees seemed to fall away. In this place, a frothing, writhing wall of water rolled towards them. 

Ester didn’t need to be told again.

Her legs moved without command. The cold bled into her back. Cold moister clung to her back.

Water droplets fell, racing down Ester’s skin. 

Rose began to whimper in her arms.  

Water began to slap and slop beneath her feet. “Ester!” His voice called.

“Lucca, please!” she cried, the water was upon them. They wouldn’t survive it, “help us!”

“Ester”

The name skated patiently across her forehead, disturbing blond strands framing her face, “Ester, wake up” His warm hands were at her forehead again. 

She learned into him, sighing quietly.

“Cold” she murmured.

His hand was gone in an instant. The bed began to shift, the duvet lifting and his arms pushing her onto her side. The duvet came back down and his arms pulled her close.

Her nose grazed his neck. She could hear the pound of his heart. “Better?”

She mumbled an affirmative and slowly slunk back into sleep.

*                                   *                                   *

 Morning sunshine oozed across the wooden floor boards like honey between the slit in the curtains. 

Ester yawned, and then stilled. She wiggled her toes, finger tips and tensed and untensed her legs. There was no pain – or, almost none except for a twinge in her broken leg. 

Tangled in this strange thought, she also became aware of something else not quite as ususal. Her bed was warm, heated from within. She looked across and stifled a gasp.

Lucca. He was here. 

Eyes closed, black lashes resting on his olive complexion. His lip, generous lips slightly parted.  He was beautiful. Perfect. She was sure she could take a picture of him on her phone right now and he could be an advert in a glossy fashion magazine. 

Had he slept here all night?

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, staring at him, willing him to simultaneously stay asleep so she could watch but, but also wake up so he could tell her again how much he wanted her. 

 “Anything interesting?” The words were mumbled, their edges fuzzy with sleep and forced through his full mouth.

Ester frowned, his eyes were still closed, “huh?”

“I said,” he murmured, and this time he stretched – those big arms bracing and tensing either side of his. Ester’s eyes glued to the biceps and triceps on show with an animalistic hunger. “Anything interesting about my face?” And now his glorious eyes opened, finding Ester’s immediately. 

Ester opened her mouth to retort, but nothing would come. She was too entranced by him. He wore a lazy, sleepy smile. 

His eyes skimmed her face in turn, and with those mahogany pupils off of hers for a moment, she was able to think.

“Only wondering why there’s a strange man in my bed,” she murmured.

“Strange man?“ He frowned, and turned his head left and right, “I don’t see anyone strange.”

She smiled, despite herself, and with her grin his grew too.

 Suddenly he froze. And she could have sworn she saw his nostrils slightly flare, like an animal catching a scent. “Trespasser.” He breathed. 

“Huh?”

A loud thud sounded. She stilled. Ester looked towards the door. 

“Where is she?” A voice boomed. 

Ester knew that voice.