The Awakening
674 Words
"Earth to Gaia! You still with me, or did you phase into another dimension?"
Amara’s voice snapped the tether to my memories. I looked up from the final box of textbooks and hoodies, blinking against the bright April sunlight streaming into my dorm room. Amara was leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest. She was five-foot-seven of pure, golden-skinned warrior muscle, her wavy hair caught in a messy ponytail.
"Just thinking, Mars," I said, shoving a stray lock of dark, curly hair behind my ear. "About the drive. About... everything."
"Look, I get it," Amara said, her tone softening as she stepped into the room. She grabbed a heavy box of books as if it weighed nothing. "Going back to the pack territory is a lot. Especially with the 'Step-Monster' lurking around. But you’re not that eight-year-old girl anymore. You’re Gaia Santiago. You’re a powerhouse."
"I know," I muttered, grabbing my duffel bag. "I just have this feeling. Like the air is getting thin."
Because the storm is coming, Atabey whispered in the back of my mind. Her voice wasn't words so much as the feeling of a rising tide—cool, deep, and unstoppable. Her name was a tribute to our Puerto Rican and Black heritage, a nod to the Mother of Waters and the Earth itself. She was the reason I never bowed my head.
"Let’s get on the road," I said, shaking off the chill. "The longer we wait, the more time I have to talk myself out of this."
The six-hour drive was a blur of highway lines and Amara’s constant chatter. She was convinced this was the weekend she would find her mate. She had been "in heat," as she put it, for weeks—restless, irritable, and practically vibrating with pheromones. She’d spent the last two nights dry-humping our friends Malcolm and Jace at the campus bars, and while she laughed it off, I could smell the desperation in her scent.
"You're gorgeous, Amara," I told her as we crossed the state line. "You're a top-ranking warrior. If those guys can’t handle your strength, that’s their weakness. Don't you dare dim your light for some 'scary-ass p*****s' who can't handle a real woman."
She laughed, a genuine, booming sound. "I'll try to remember that when I’m staring down a bunch of growling Alphas."
As we turned onto the private gravel road that led into our pack’s territory, the atmosphere shifted. The modern world fell away, replaced by ancient oaks and the heavy, humid scent of the marshland. This was Taino land, ancestral land, and my wolf began to pace behind my ribs.
When we pulled up to the main house—a sprawling estate of dark wood and stone—my heart hammered. My mother was waiting on the porch, looking radiant in a white linen dress. Beside her stood her true mate, the man who had stepped in after my father’s betrayal. And in the shadows of the porch, leaning against a pillar with a look of bored disdain, was the man who had let us burn.
I stepped out of the truck, the humid air sticking to my skin. I didn't look at my mother first. I looked at him.
Never bow, Atabey growled, her power curling around my senses like a protective mist. The earth does not kneel.
"Gaia! You're home!" My mother rushed down the steps, her scent of hibiscus and yarrow wrapping around me like a shield.
But as I hugged her, my eyes drifted to the tree line at the edge of the property. The wind shifted, carrying a scent I had never encountered—ozone, cold iron, and something dangerously dominant. Two icy blue eyes flickered in the shadows of the ferns, watching me with a predatory focus that made my blood run cold and hot all at once.
The "something big" Amara had promised wasn't a party. It was a reckoning.
- Writer
