Gertrude’s Curse

Chapter 5

Before everything in my life went wrong, knowing that I had a mate somewhere was an exciting idea, I would dream of the day I met them and Jess, Alice, Rache and me would always talk about it, how happy we would be with our mate, how we imagined them to be, tall or brunette or blonde and so on, how we would have a family and pups and stuff, the whole fairytale. Of course that was before, by the time I turned 16th I dreaded actually finding him, everyone here hated me and other than Lana, Jason, Rache and Nate most people wouldn’t relate with me, unless it was some guy trying to score with the girl who had no mate but had heats… So, I knew that if anyone who knew my story ended up being my mate I would get rejected in the spot… A side from that, after everything that I went through I was experiencing some very negative thoughts about my body. There was a time when I would only stand being naked to shower, the rest of the time my body repulsed me, I felt disgusted with me inside out and wouldn’t even dare to think about enjoying myself in the company of a male, just the thought made me feel dirty.

However, by the time I turned 16 I had not heard my wolf nor had I felt any different. I mean I was a ware wolf and very sure of that, but nothing was going on… the rest of my generation was going through the motions of the shift… Nate and James had their first turn a few months before their birthday, there was an attack at the pack’s border and their instincts kicked in almost instantly when they went to fight or flight mode, I heard Alice and Jess got theirs around their Birthday and Rache got hers right in front of me, some guys were bugging us while we were having coffee downtown, when we left the Cafe they were following us calling me names, she lost her nerve and got very angry and suddenly shift into a beautiful golden fur wolf, she is without doubt one of the most beautiful wolves I’ve seen, Nate’s wolf is the same color but bigger, equally magnificent. And the rest of our generation went through it, other than me and a few Omegas who didn’t shift within the first few months of our 16th birthday.

I honestly cannot say I was shocked about my situation at this point… if I were walking down an empty road and a piano would fall in my head I wouldn’t have been surprised at all… obviously people were now even more suspicious of me, how could I claimed to be having a heat when I don’t even have a wolf, honestly even I began to doubt my self but after a while I decided to just ignore the comments and my self doubt and kept going, by the time we were almost 17 everyone was starting to date, you are supposed to feel attracted to your mate before your bond reflects, so there were many couples going on, yet so far other than to try to get in my pants no guy had shown genuine interest in me, hence I figured I did not have a mate or at least not one in the pack. Rache on the other hand had always been interested in Will and he started to show interest in her when we were 16, the thing is that his intentions were never really clear. He would ask her out to the movies or to hang out at a cafe but then he would disappear on her for days, she always said he was shy but I had seen him flirting and going out with other she wolves so I was not sure, I tried to mention it to her a couple of times but then he would call and she would be on cloud 9 again.

My current issue started one evening about a week before my 17th birthday, it was spring and Lana and Jason were on holiday celebrating their anniversary. I was done helping at the clinic (I mainly just did Lana’s paperwork since she was the only person who wanted to work with me), I went home to change and rang Lana up to see if she was interested in hanging out, my mom was on an assignment at another pack and Lana gave me extra money for the week’s work since she was going away, I never did get to do anything nice so I thought maybe I could order us a pizza and we could watch a movie, however, she picked up and told me Will was taking her out to dinner and so she couldn’t, Nate was next to her and he told her to tell me he could come but I politely declined, didn’t feel like being alone with Nate, he is gorgeous and one of the popular kids and also one of the few friends I have left, jeopardizing that was not even a question for me and if someone found out we were alone together we would face harsh consequences, I heard him tell her to tell me not to be silly we have known each other forever and he didn’t care what people would say about him, maybe he didn’t but I knew what was at the end of that straw and I did care. In the end he gave up and I decided to go for a bit of exercise instead, my house was far away from the other houses and closer to the woods that surrounded our pack so I felt safe, figured I could go by myself I had been running for about 30 mins when I smelled something, it was earthy and made my stomach flutter but also made all my senses go into high alert, I was not sure if I wanted to run toward the smell or the opposite direction, I didn’t have time to decide when a huge silver fox showed in front of me, it scared the hell out of me to say the list, the wolf was staring at me with a very deep look, was it angry? I was not sure… I didn’t know if he was going to attack me but my heart was skipping beats and I was shaking like Jello, I decided to talk to it, didn’t know what to say so I started to stutter “Hhhi, I ddiddn’t thhh thh think there would be anyone thh thhis ffaar frr frrom the town”, I did not finish my phrase when this wolf shift in front of me… it was James in all his naked glory… and I froze in place not sure of what to do, he gave me a half smirk probably feeling my unease… “Hi Gertie”, gosh I had not heard him say that since we were children, my face must have shown some sort of surprise, cause he kept staring at me, I probably looked like an i***t… we had not been in front of one another like this since the awful day, I had avoided him like the pest and have to assume he did the same since we rarely ever passed each other and the few times there was enough distance between us for it not to be this awkward… I probably stared too long cause next I hear him interrupting my thoughts “hmm sorry I didn’t mean to scare you, I just wanted to go out for a run, it helps me clear my mind and my wolf needed to stretch a little too, do you come around here often?” I can see him move his mouth and hear him speak but is like my ear-brain-mouth connection is down, I can’t seem to form any coherent thought or sentence for that matter, so all that comes out of my mouth is “uhuh”, followed by a nod… He gives me a half smirk “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while, I mean well I know things got weird between us and I know that we cannot longer call ourselves friends but I mean you are part of my pack and I am to become alpha, we’ve known each other since we were little and I think maybe we could talk? I know things have not been easy for you and” that’s it, that brings me back to myself enough to reply, “I’m sorry” is all I can say to him before I sprint out running in the opposite direction…