Beastless

Episode Four

"You bit him?!"

An hour later I was in my Mother's car. The school had told her what I had done. I just got a suspension. My mother was furious.

"Holy s**t!" I happened to notice the speedometer. "Mom slow down, you're going too fast!"

"Peyton!"

"What!" I shouted, "He was squeezing the life out of me. That was self-defense, Mother," I shot a glance out the window and everything passed in a flash. For a low-quality vehicle, we were going pretty fast. Ninety miles per hour.

"Well, I don't know if you noticed but your self-defense just earned you a week's suspension from school."

"Don't you hear how unfair all of this is, mother? They're not going to do anything to him, he's suddenly the victim now when I was the one being strangled."

"He's a future Alpha, Peyton, he gets to do anything he wants and you're – "

"A defenseless latent," I offered.

"I didn't say that," she muttered and turned to look at me.

"But you thought it. Keep your eyes on the road!"

"Look Peyton, all we've had to do is not cause trouble because we're not part of a park, we could be rogues if your father didn't leave us money. But all of this will be over soon."

"What do you mean?"

"My point is you're lucky this only got you one week's suspension."

"Yeah, a week away from all those idiotic two-faced werewolves. He's lucky my teeth only grazed his arm," I mumbled.

"Why did you do it?" she demanded.

"I already told you it was self-defense. Why do you even care, you haven't been talking to me all weekend."

"I care because it's not like you to do something like this. He's done multiple things to you before but you've never reacted this way."

"There's a first time for everything, Mother, now would you please slow the f**k down you're going to get us killed." She sighed and the needle gradually drifted toward seventy. "Thank you."

I intertwined my fingers, waiting for her to say something. When I saw she wasn't speaking anymore, I spoke. "Maybe I was just tired of being treated like dirt. I have no explanation of what is happening to me. Something inside me just wanted to claw at his skin and bite his face off but all I could do was bite his arm."

She hesitated before she spoke. "And you felt this thing trying to get out. It felt like it wanted to leave your body, to surface."

"Exactly, only it just couldn't surface and I could control it a bit that's why I only bit him."

Her face tightened. "Peyton, that's your wolf."

"That's not possible because I'm latent. My wolf's buried, remember? It cannot surface."

"Honey, I could be wrong but maybe the feral moon did wake up your wolf."

"I need to see someone about all of this, this is beyond complicated, Mother."

She waited. I could see she was contemplating something but I didn't know what. "I guess it's time for me to tell you, then," she said calmly.

"Tell me? Tell me what?"

She took a deep breath. "I met someone over the weekend at the depo."

"You were buying tools? I thought you went to buy groceries." It surprised me that that was all I could say about what she just told me.

"I did and after that, I went to get a few tools. Just a few hammers and nails, the floorboards are acting up," I remembered the one sticking out in my room. I made a mental note to show her that later.

"Anyway, I was just about done when my wolf sensed someone that she thought smelled nice. Not as nice as you're father's did, but just nice enough and she approved of it. I went to him and we truly connected and we've been in touch ever since."

"What? Mother, you said it yourself that you only truly connect with your true mate."

"Yes Peyton, I did say that," she admitted.

"Are you saying Dad wasn't your true mate?"

She was silent, staring at the road. I assumed she was searching for a way to place her words without saying the wrong things. "I'm saying that right now he's our ticket out of this sorry life we've been living. I told him about you and um… and every other thing. We were supposed to meet later today for dinner but I'm sure he wouldn't mind us dropping a little early."

"Mother, what are you talking about, who are you taking us to?" I asked.

"My new mate Peyton," she sighed.

"Your new mate? Who is he and how come he's never come up?"

"His name's Kester, and he's the Beta of Brawling Pack."

"Brawling Pack?" I gasped. "That cruel pack, you want us to be part of that Pack, Mother?"

"You call a Pack that's ready to accept us cruel then what will you call the one that chucked you out for silly reasons?" I said nothing. I had heard of the Pack but only whispers through the school hall. Truth is I have no idea why they call the Pack cruel, I only knew that no one likes the way they run things.

"If whoever you're taking us to is the Beta, who's the Alpha?" I asked, curious to know who the lucky sucker was.

"He challenged his father two years ago when he was only 19," she explained slowly, "He won and he started running things. But he still takes ruling advice from his father according to Kester, he made his father his advisor, you see. Kester says he wouldn't mind having us. He's always been decent to Kester since he was his father's Beta."

"Who's decent to Kester, mother?"

" Nicolae… "

Nicolae? That sounded like a name an evil person would bear. His reign must have been so terrible that no one liked to talk about him. I gulped at the thought of having to deal with an older version of Ramson. A week's suspension will surely not be my penalty if I try something foolish.

"Peyton, mother continued, but her voice was very low, "if things go well, we could get married. I know you have a lot of questions, but let's save that for when we get there, OK?"

I couldn't believe my ears. My mother could be getting married soon to someone she just met and she didn't even think to inform me. And now we were heading to a place I knew nothing of. I started to wonder what other surprises the universe could throw at me.

We passed over a bridge, houses flashing past us as we went further till we got to an unpaved road. With a forest on both sides and the road in the middle starting to twist, serpent-like.

After a few miles, our car slowly pulled up in front of the gates of a grand mansion. The wrought-iron gates were covered in patterns of vines. Two sentinels stood on the inside. Here I was thinking the universe couldn't possibly surprise me more. I looked out the window, never in my life have I seen Sentinels this formidable. One thing was certain – my life was about to take a very unexpected turn, and there was no turning back.