Falling Under The Lunar Eclipse

Coming Home

With her hair completely a mess with sweat dripping off her forehead, Hazel made it home after her horrifying encounter from earlier. It was so dark and late at night, that the lights weren’t on in the house anymore.

“Mom? Art? I’m home!” Hazel called as she opened the door, but she didn’t see anyone in the dark. She shrugged her shoulders and went to shut the door with a small click to try to go to her room quietly if everyone had fallen asleep.

But as suddenly as she turned around, the lights turned on brightly, causing her to wince and a loud banshee yell was dominating the room.

“Hazel Halifax! What have I told you about coming home so late. . !”

My mother. . . Hazel groaned.

“If you were going to try to sneak in, you could have at least brought a boyfriend!” Hazel’s mother started going on a rant. When her mother went on a rant, she could go for hours. She resembled Hazel except for the slight aging wrinkles that graced her skin where she showed her emotion the most around her eyes. Hazel also noted that their personalities were completely opposite.

Completely.

“Mom, leave Hazel alone, she’s a grown woman who needs to rest for her midterm final tomorrow,” a younger light brunette man walked in with her mother. It was her brother, Art, who was thankfully always keeping their mom in check when it came to her and Hazel.

“But Art, I want grandbabies, and I haven’t ever seen her go on a single date!” She snipped with her brows furrowed and all the anger and disappointment tumbling towards the younger woman.

“Mom, I’m tired. Art is right, I’m going to bed,” Hazel shot back with a tiredness in her voice, but also a slight hint of shying away from the topic. She walked past her mom and brother and headed straight to her bedroom. It was small and didn’t have much in it. All she did was study so she could try to get a good education and a good job. She didn’t date or have boyfriends.

Hazel slipped her sweater off and had a thin, pink, silk camisole on underneath and threw her shirt on the floor. Right where the rest of her self-reflections felt they resided at the moment.

I’ve never had a boyfriend. Nor have I ever had any desire for one. She thought, and with all the weight of the world from her mom on her shoulders, she let gravity take her and she fell face first into the bed. It felt so divine against her aching body, and with all the stress from school and having ran a bit before coming home—Sleep was a welcoming relief.

The young woman’s eyelids felt so heavy that all she could do was to succumb to sleep. It was all she wanted, and the cool wind from the window blew gently and caressed around her body, lulling her into a slumber.

It was pitch quiet, and her mind almost faded out, but then cutting through the quiet of the world and her mind—the words came flooding back into her memory-- snapping her awake and horrified.

“Did you see something you like?”

Hazel groaned and rolled onto her back and grabbed the pillow next to her and pulled it over her face. If only time could go backwards, and she would have just looked to make sure she didn’t sit right across the booth from that other woman.

Or if I could just suffocate, that’d be great.

How embarrassing. I don’t think I’m ever going to recover from that. And you know? It wasn’t all my fault! A normal person would just have thought I was an ass and kept quiet! She was just a cocky woman for even acknowledging that I was staring!

. . .

I guess I was totally in the wrong for staring, Hazel finally decided on. It was better to go through the stages of grief and get past the denial phase, right?

She stared out the window and the memory played over and over again, and all she could wonder was why she was so enchanted by that woman. Hazel had never felt these kinds of feelings before, and for her to feel this way towards a woman made her feel extreme unease.

It was wrong, right?

She was a woman.

A very strong, beautiful woman. . . The auburn-haired girl thought as she imagined those arms and the strength that woman must have had. The sun-kissed woman looked so toned, and one of her arms had a simple tattoo that circled around the top of her brachial muscle where it connected with her deltoid muscle that it just attracted the eyes to her arms. And following the dip from the deltoids into her pectoral muscles, the older woman’s shirt was a tight, dark-gray tank top that accentuated her large, perfectly shaped breasts. Her voice sounded so commanding, that she had wanted to answer back deep inside, but thankfully she had enough sense to not be an irrational human being.

Oh, this is wrong. Hazel grimaced. She felt a heat in her lower belly as she fumbled her fingers around her skirt. She didn’t know what to do with this feeling. A pulsing sensation was growing inside her, and it felt like she’d burst.

Is this lust. . ?

Her face felt heat and she hugged her pillow and rolled over on to her side. She tightened her legs together as her breathing was getting heavy.

Go to sleep. . . Go to sleep. . . She chanted to herself until it finally came true.

---

As the evening had turned into night, the full moon was shining in full force and illuminated the waters that splashed against the sand. Jacqueline was heading back to her tribe, which resided in a secluded part behind the mountains, where humans didn’t normally track. Slung on her left shoulder was the teal bag that was going to be used to find that younger woman. But in the meantime, it was heavy, and Jac started to wonder if this woman was way too far out of her league compared to her own education due to how many books must be in there.

Jacqueline was breathing heavily as she trudged along the shoreline. Now she wouldn’t have to be doing this if it wasn’t for her wolf, who had reasons to be mad at Jac, but. . . She was just being unreasonable at the moment.

“Jacqueline. . . My feet hurt, you’re making life so much harder,” Jacqueline groaned alone in the night.

‘No, Jac, you are making life harder! You let her run.’ The wolf quipped back, causing Jac to sag her shoulders at the relentless battle that she was slowly accepting that she just could not win with her wolf. Or make her wolf see reason.

“I can’t change into a wolf right now, or you’d just run to her. Wouldn’t you?” Jac asked with a grin, knowing the answer.

‘Yes, so you can keep expending your energy and walk home. By yourself.’

‘b***h,’ Jac’s grin dissolved as the village lights looked smaller than they did five minutes ago in the distance.

‘She was our soul mate. I mean, you did feel the bond too, didn’t you?’ Her wolf questioned with a hint of doubt that maybe Jacqueline hadn’t felt it.

The black-haired woman looked forward and saw the light of her village from a distance and sighed, ‘I did feel it, but you have to understand, we can’t just go to her and claim her like if we had shared the bond with another werewolf. She doesn’t feel it the way we do.’

‘So how do you propose we make her ours?’

‘I told you, we would go to her school, and then I'd do all the talking and, trust me, she will be falling for me.’

‘Like she fell for you earlier?’

‘. . . Jacqueline. . . Let me walk in silence, please.’ Jac internally begged, and surprisingly her wolf let her be.

---

It was a festive night for the village as it bathed in the moonlight. Lights were strung all around the houses, causing a warm glow throughout the village. There was lots of chattering and howls in the distance, that made Jac have a warm smile grace her lips. She also spotted, in the midst of all the wolves playing around, a young boy kicking a worn-out ball in the middle of the village. If it wasn’t her favorite little person, she would have snuck to her home, but she pushed her unease of being seen in the village aside to go say hello.

The young boy had his hair unkempt, drawn back in a cloth band, which had his hair flying all around him as he was running fast getting ready to deliver the final blow into the ball.

“And he scores a goal. . !” The boy laughed, keeping all of his focus on the ball right as he swung his leg hard. It made a loud smack as his foot collided with it and the ball went flying towards Jacqueline. She brought both arms out in front of her and caught it with a big grin.

“Hey! What’s the goal? Trying to take me out?” She asked. The young boy’s eyes widened when he saw who his ball just tried to take out and a huge, toothy grin took over his whole face.

“Hey, Jac’s back. . !” He cried out and ran for her arms. The older woman dropped the ball and caught the boy and gave him the tightest hug.

“If it isn’t my favorite Elloy”, Jacqueline bent down so she could be eye level with the boy, “How is my little wolf? Any sign yet?”

Elloy’s eyes brightened, and he put both of his pointer fingers in his mouth and opened his jaw wide, “Ook!”

She chuckled at his enthusiasm, preventing him from speaking clearly, as she looked in his mouth and saw two perfectly sharp little canines.

Oh!

“That’s awesome, my man! Pretty soon, the Lunar Goddess will bless you with your wolf spirit. You better hope he’s not as feisty as some can be,” the older woman gave her own toothy grin to match his canine smile.

‘Jac, I don’t think any wolf can match your feisty behavior. I have my paws full being blessed to you.’

Jacqueline coughed, trying to pretend she didn’t hear her wolf, “That was a great kick earlier. Are you training to play for a team?”

“Oh, Jac, you know I can’t. . .” He mumbled and looked down at the ball on the ground. She gave a sad smile, because she knew what he was referring to. She always told him stories of how humans played in teams, and he so desperately wanted to play with them.

Werewolves from her tribe did not normally associate with humans. The only contact they have with humans is done through some of the elders that pertained to land deeds, and contracts of business that kept their village financially sound. Or it used to. Their town started on a decline in funds due to the cost of the economy changing and fishing wasn’t getting paid what it used to.

“Well, if I ever have anything to do with it—you'll play for a team one da-”

“JACQUELINE.”

Jac got cut off from a loud booming voice that ripped through the festivities that caused an unsettling silence in the village square. Even the presence of her wolf inside tried to make itself as small as possible. She turned her head in question and realized the person she was trying to hide from must have been alerted of her return the minute she walked up from the beach.

Elloy tugged on her jacket sleeve and whispered, “I forgot to mention. . . The Alpha was looking for you all day.”

'That would have been nice to know up front,' the older woman cursed herself for even coming. She wasn’t ready for the conversation she knew was coming.

Taking in a deep breath, Jacqueline turned to face the alpha. He wasn’t in his wolf form, and had a heavy scowl painted on his face. His jet-black curly hair was pulled back that draped down past his shoulder blades. His muscles rippled underneath his skin and was littered with many scars from the many fights he had been in, as he crossed his arms and stared directly at Jacqueline. The dark-haired woman nodded to show she acknowledged his presence.

Ugh. . . She groaned internally and turned towards Elloy.

“You have a good night Elloy,” Jac chirped and started walking towards the main building that the alpha resided in.

“Good night, Jac. . .” He spoke quietly as he watched her walk in the main building behind the alpha.