Maze of Trees

Lost but now Found

    My first week came and went, ending with no surprise, and no more werewolf discoveries. We had crossed the path of my mate, well at least a path he had already traveled, quite a few times over the course of the week but the scent was never fresh and I stuck to my guns, never allowing Mefitis to convince me to follow it. She was not happy with me and the constant grumbling, whining, and gripping had worn me down so that by Friday I was at my wits end. I'm hoping that this weekend would bring me a break since I didn't plan to go out which would mean, hopefully, that we wouldn't smell...

    "Heaven?" Mefitis chirped up, "love, comfort, safety, peace? I could go no you know!"

    "Oh trust me, I know. And all you smell is the regular smell of the pacific northwest that both of us love so much. There's tons of evergreens everywhere and it practically rains ever single freaking day, and since its fall there's going to be more fog in the mornings. So again, your probably just missing home and the pack and its making you focus on the smells that we love. It's not our mate." I argued back. I knew none of it would get through to her, but to me it made perfect sense. It was my story and it was what I was sticking to. 

    A Pillow blundered me out of nowhere, snapping me out of my inner dialogue.     

    "Mall, then park! Get Ready, get set, GO!" Clarke practically crowed! she was excited to get out today since we had done nothing but hole ourselves up in our dorm room after my first class had finished. And she was sick of it already. I was starting to doubt my capability of staying in my dorm room all weekend with the way she was already starting to act. I begrudgingly got up and went to the closet to pick out something that would make me look less like a poor college student. I ended with a old Shark week shirt I had bought from the shark week store online and a pair of jean shorts. I tossed my hair up into a pony tail and slapped a baseball cap over my head. I grabbed a bottle of summer fun body spray and began to douse myself in it. Clarke stood next to the door, leaning against the wall watching me quizzically. 

    "We are going to the mall, not a floozy strip club." she wrinkled up her nose as I got nearer because of how much I had sprayed on. 

    "Yes, but maybe the more I spray on, the less my mate smell will be detectable!" I nudged her shoulder and we headed out the door. " Trying to play hard to get remember." I wrapped my arm around her shoulder as we went down the stairs which had her fake gasping for air, trying to escape the cloud of summer fun around me. 

    "No rough housing on the stairs!" The girl at the dorm check in counter snapped at us.

    Both of us nodded. " yeah, sorry! we'll be careful next time." and we scurried out the door.  maybe getting out would be a good thing, I just would have to be careful as to how often we did it. 

    We took the bus to the South Hill Mall. It wasn't a large mall by any means but it looked to have enough to keep us busy for a couple of hours! Add onto that that we would probably eat our way through it as well and that was another hour added on at least!  I knew there would be other wolves here, since this was for sure on neutral ground and when I walked through the door I confirmed it. there were a couple different scents, but none of them I recognized so I knew I was safe from discovery by my old pack. And, i noted with much joy, that none of the scents belonged to my mate! Mefitis would be constantly testing the air searching for it, after all a large meeting place like this only increased the odds of us possibly running into them. She seemed to thrive on the heavenly, damn why did she put that word in my head, smell. But even if he was here, I would be easily able to avoid him. He would have to be right next to me to smell me, and with how many people were here and how many exits there were, I would be able to make a quick escape and bow out before they even noticed me.

    Many young wolves would seek out places like this. Eager to find their mates and it would become almost like an obsession. An addiction to a drug they hadn't even sampled yet. What confused me was they knew what the mate bond did. That once you found your mate, and you were female, you would join your mate's pack with no questions asked. you would leave everything behind. whatever your role had been in your old pack you would be stripped of it only to assume the role equal to that of your mate. If you were the male however you weren't so lucky, only the females would change roles to match their mate. You had to adhere to all new pack politics, follow all new rules whether you agreed or not, and deal with whatever wolves had been sniffing around your mate since before you came along. All of that had never been my cup of tea. I didn't want the hierarchy positions and what came with them. I hoped that when I did accept that I had a mate and that I would join them, that I didn't get mated with an alpha, or a beta for that matter. Too much involved with those positions. 

    This rogue lifestyle seemed to suit me best, and I was enjoying it so far. Mefitis seemed to enjoy it as well, though I could tell she missed being in a pack. Her instinct to have rule and order were much stronger than mine. I just didn't want to be tied down right away. Most werewolves spend their whole lives in their pack territory and the small surrounding area. Sometimes, as a Luna or alpha with their beta's, you would get to travel farther. But for a normal werewolf your pack, and then your mate's pack, was the most you would travel. I wanted to see the world, I wanted to explore and try new things. I couldn't be anchored down when I was still so young! 

    "Girl, what do you think? Can you stop spacing and give me an opinion here?" I had been so stuck in my thoughts that I didn't realize we had wandered into Rue 21 and Clarke was standing in front of me wearing a cute as pie sundress with small black polka dots on a white background and red cherries that stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the dress.

    "You already know that dress looks amazing on you, you don't need me to confirm it." I smiled at her as she nodded her head. 

    "You're right, why on earth would a girl look for a compliment from her best friend?" She gave me puppy dog eyes and batted her lashes in her best look of innocence ever.

    "Alright fine, but after you are done preening your feathers can we go get something to eat please, Auntie Anne has cooked up something delicious and I want to go taste it!" I licked at the corner of my mouth, making sure I wasn't unknowingly drooling at the delicious smell wafting down the mall from the food court.

    After Clarke bought the dress and a couple other little accessories to go with it we walked down to the food court, our arms linked.  We settled at a table on the outskirts of the food court where I would have the best vantage point to keep an eye on the surrounding area. the food court was at the end of the hall way so putting ourselves at the very end, by the windows, would put the majority of people in front of us. 

    " heads you get the food, tails I do." Clarke quickly grabbed a quarter out of her purse and flipped the coin. I sat with fingers crossed as the coin landed and spun viciously on the table. Luck was not on my side however as it landed with heads up.

    "Why do you agree to this, you know you never win." Clarke laughed and handed me her credit card. 

    "I don't know, I really should just volunteer at this point so we don't waste 30 seconds of our time."  I rolled my eyes at her and got up from my seat. "Can we start doing rock paper scissors from now on? maybe my luck will be better with that game?" This got a laugh from Clarke and a quick nod of agreement.

    "Game on A. Just another game I can beat you in!" I held up my hand and waved an imaginary white flag above my head causing her to laugh loudly and a couple people around us to turn their heads, searching for what had caused such a reaction.

    I decided on Panda express for Clarke and I, with Auntie Anne's cinnamon bites as a side order. Both food choices were two of the faster options so I didn't have to wait long. Which was good, because I kept getting the weird feeling, hairs on the back of my neck standing up, that I was being watched. as I collected my tray and turned away from the Panda counter I quickly scanned the crowd but wasn't able to pinpoint anyone looking out of place or meet the gaze of anyone staring at me. I delivered the tray to Clarke and volunteered to do the drinks. Being mobile would give me the best chance to keep my eyes on the crowd and keep up my scanning without looking obvious. I couldn't spot anything though and delivered the drinks, sitting down and poking at the food in-front of me.

    "So you going to tell me what's going on? who do you think is here?" Clarke asked absently while eating and glancing at her phone. She was good, if not better than me, at acting like nothing was out of the ordinary. 

    "Someone is watching me, us, but I haven't spotted them just yet. I can only feel them. And with all the smells here I cant get any direction either." I grumbled. between the smells of all the different foods, the multiple perfumes that permeated the air, and the smell of other wolves, I couldn't even get a direction to look in. We continued eating, Clarke acting as though nothing was wrong but I knew she was observing those around us just as much as I was. For a human, she was very observant. 

    We were able to finish our meal without any discoveries, which bothered me but what could I do. We carried our trays to the trash can and dumped the contents into the bin, placing the trays on top. We went to the bathroom, I sighed a sigh of relief when we entered. Whoever was watching us wouldn't follow us in here, unless they wanted to reveal themselves. So either the one watching us was a man, or they were smart enough to not follow us into a confined space. 

    After primping and preening a little in the mirror, I simply adjusted my hat and tucked away any stray hairs, we exited the bathroom and started to make our way back to the shops. My eyes scanned the crowd and crashed into deep pools of emerald green. I immediately froze. Those eyes were ones I knew, ones I had grown up seeing.

    "s**t" I said out loud and Mefitis echoed it in my head. I had been found. Gabe, an omega from my old pack, and a childhood friend, sat in the middle of the food court surrounded by other wolves from the pack. How had I not smelled them?

    "The smelly stuff not only clouds other wolf's abilities to smell you, but it also clouds yours!" Mefitis growled.

    I grabbed Clarke's hand and when I saw Gabe break eye contact I  bolted, putting Clarke and I on the other side of a group of teenagers.  We had been discovered, now what?