Lies I Tell Myself

Lie 1 I should've died

Lyra’s POV

On the night of January 12th, I died. Well almost. I wasn't that lucky, I guess you could say. Maybe I should have checked the weather and waited for a snow storm instead of the 3 to 4 inches we got. It barely qualifies as anything more than a dusting. The southern border is the furthest from the pack house. It has lots of cliffs and a river that runs through the pack lands there. Deep in the woods, there is a ravine where the rapids never freeze and the rocks split to allow a covered sitting spot where I love to sit. I have been coming to this spot since I was 10. The first time I found this spot was after I got into a fight with my mother about not wanting to do dance or cheerleading. Dad found me asleep. He explained the importance of a secret place where you can deal with all your frustrations. So that became the beginning of my favorite spot, and the place that felt appropriate to end it all. Maybe if I had gone deeper into the woods, I could have left the world behind. If I hadn’t mindlinked that rogues were near the southern border, the rogues could have completed their mission. All the “what if’s” in the world wouldn’t change how I almost died only to be found by border patrol and sent to the hospital.

My name is Lyra Elle Spencer and I am twenty-one. I will be 22 in April. I have long dark brown hair, pale ivory skin, and cornflower blue eyes. My family is an old family of betas. Mother comes from the Evermane pack betas. My uncle is their current beta. My dad is the beta of the Baneridge pack. Everyone in our family is either a beta or a warrior. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. My mother was a fierce warrior before she met my dad. My beautiful mother, Tallulah, is gorgeous with short honey blonde hair and hazel eyes. I could never compare it to her petite beauty. No, I'm too tall, though 5'8 isn't that tall, but I suppose to my sister and mother I am abnormally tall compared to their 5'3 and tiny build. Honestly, I always thought I took after my father more. My dad is 6'4" with a shaved head, dark green eyes and broad shoulders with lots of muscles. He likes to train with all the pack members and spar with Alpha Judson, while my mother helps Luna Jena with anything she needs and runs our household as the dutiful housewife. The role she wishes for my sister and I to have when we are mated.

My brother Cooper is twenty-five, the golden boy and ready to take over after our father steps down. He is a great brother. We get along for the most part. He tries to cushion the tension between mother and I, but he isn’t always successful. He helped me move to North Carolina for school from Vermont. Mother refused to go, so it was just Cooper and I. Dad had some packing business so he wasn’t able to leave. Coop can’t wait to be in charge with his best friends. Mason, Coop, Nick, and Levi used to think they were untouchable, but now they are the pack's golden boys.

Then there is sweet little Josie, my sister. She is a petite sixteen-year-old cheerleader. She is a doll, but way too excited to meet her mate and become a housewife. She looks like a little version of our mother and dad mixed together. Josie has long blonde hair like our mother and dad’s green eyes all packed into her little 5’3 and 110 pound body. She is the complete opposite of me. Don't get me wrong, I like how I look. Of course, my mother thinks I could do with losing ten pounds. I am the family disappointment. You’d think I was adopted with my long black hair and cornflower blue eyes. Dad only says I get my looks from his side of the family, but he doesn’t talk about his family except for small little details here and there. Most of dad’s family died in the Rogue War.

My mother wishes for me to look for my mate and dad wants me to join the Silvercrest Pack training to be a warrior, like my best friend Halley Williams, Delta Ben’s daughter. Silvercrest is a military pack of werewolves. They are responsible for investigating rogue attacks, issues between packs, training pack warriors and much more. I have no desire to be a warrior. My dream is to be a criminal attorney in the human world. I don’t want to be a simple little housewife. I want a life of my own. So as soon as I finished high school, I got as far away from Vermont as I could.

After high school, I left for college to get a law degree. I got accepted to the University of North Carolina, my parents were less than excited. However, to be able to go, I had to promise that I would come back and take over for Robert Williams, Delta Ben’s brother and our pack’s attorney, when he retired. Dad facilitated the agreement between mother and I. Dad heard my reasoning and finally agreed with several conditions. I had kept a low profile, kept Raya a secret, contact was a must, and I couldn’t get into any kind of trouble. Not even a speeding ticket, I was allowed to stay. I had to call every week and come home one weekend a month and every pack event or my dad would bring me home. He didn’t care if I was kicking and screaming. My mother, of course, was not happy with the arrangement. She added the stipulation that I had to answer her call no matter what I was doing, day or night, to give her details about everything and how I was adjusting. This was her way of keeping track of me.

Honestly, I wonder if they would have been better off if I had just died, but that didn’t happen. I was close enough to touch it, but not enough to stay gone. Now I’m stuck picking up all the mess and hoping to get my life back to some kind of normalcy, that's if I make it. I can either stay or I can give up and just finally be at peace. Maybe if I had fought harder to not come back with Cooper, I wouldn’t have been rejected. I could have just left with my boyfriend, Brandon, to live in Seattle and never looked back. I don’t know why I thought my mother would be happy to see me or proud of me for completing my degree. Even though my brother Cooper convinced me to come back for the good of the family. Nope. Not ole Lyra messing up my family reputation again, well according to my dear mother.