Inevitably Yours

QUINN

My dreams were filled with a humongous silver wolf. I was chasing him, and I couldn’t catch up. His fur glittered in the sunlight, but I couldn’t see his eyes. He was magnificent. His powerful form moved more gracefully than I had ever witnessed a wolf move. I ran and ran, disrupting the soil beneath my clumsy paws. I just couldn’t get to him.

When I woke up, my face felt hot. I blinked blearily to find a wall of grey cotton in front of me.

“You’re awake,” Michael’s voice said from above my head. I pulled away from him slightly, suddenly embarrassed about our position.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“No, get closer,” Sapphire whined.

“Oh, thank Goddess, you’re back. I was going nuts,” I said.

“How’d you sleep?” Michael asked. I peered up at his soft, silvery-blue eyes; he looked so calm and happy.

“Good,” I answered. I looked down at our bodies sandwiched together on the couch.

“You rolled,” he said, answering my thoughts.

“Sorry,” I said, avoiding his gaze. We were so close; it felt so intimate but not wrong.

“Did you know you snore?” he laughed.

I looked back up at him, horror lacing through me. “No, I don’t!” I argued. He continued to chuckle softly.

“Yes, you do. Just a little, though,” he said. I wanted to hide in embarrassment, but the only option to cover my face was his chest in front of me, and that seemed just as bad. Before I could get away from him, his head dipped down and gently rubbed his nose along mine.

“What was that for?” I asked in a whisper. I didn’t dislike the gesture, but it filled my whole body with butterflies. It was a new sensation entirely.

“Because I wanted to,” he smiled happily. The way he did that made me nervous but not scared. Something about him was bewitching my heart, but I feared giving someone that sort of power.

“Um, h-how long was I asleep?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“A while,” he answered. “I think it’s almost dinner time.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. I kept him here all afternoon; he was probably bored to tears.

His hand came up, and his fingertips skimmed my cheeks before pushing my hair behind my ear. “Like I told you, I’m magic. Do you think I’ve never slept with a girl?”

I didn’t know how to respond to his comment. It could mean two completely different things, and neither sounded appealing to me. “I just… I didn’t….” My brain seemed to be malfunctioning. Michael just smiled at me cheekily.

“Why did the girl take a ruler to bed?” he asked suddenly, catching me off guard.

“I don’t know, why?” I said.

“To see how long she sleeps,” he delivered. A laugh bubbled up from inside me. I accidentally dipped my head right into his chest as I laughed at his hilarious joke. “I thought that would make you laugh.”

I looked back up at him as he smiled victoriously. It was so charming but not in the same way it usually was. This wasn’t a practiced smile; it was genuine. His eyes sparkled when he smiled like this.

“Did you look that up just for me?” I asked through my laughter.

“Maybe,” he said. I settled down and just stared up at him. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes.

“I was worried about you,” I whispered. “You disappeared.” The elephant still hung in the room, and it had to be addressed eventually.

“I know,” he said, sadness in his voice now. “I’m sorry.”

“I got scared something happened to you or….” I trailed off, not wanting to admit out loud that the thought of him not wanting to be my friend hurt.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “My family is just complicated.”

“Okay,” I said, taking his word for now. It was apparent he didn’t want to talk about it; I just hoped he would trust me enough to tell me sometime. He tightened his arms around me, hugging me closer to him, so I took advantage of the moment. I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent. It settled deep inside with me with a comfort that only comes from familiarity.

“I am very much enjoying this, but I am going to have to go home soon. My mom will want me there for dinner,” he finally broke the silence. His grip loosened, and I pulled away from him.

“Thanks for the magic,” I said softly.

“Any time,” he smiled.

“Are we going to talk later?” I asked hopefully.

“No,” he said flatly. My face fell. “But not because I don’t want to,” he quickly continued. “You should get some more sleep. You look exhausted still. Plus, you have practice in the morning, right?”

“Yea,” I said. “Okay.”

“But we can see each other tomorrow,” he said more hopefully. “If you aren’t busy.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I smiled back. Reluctantly, he let go of me so I could climb off the couch. I stretched out my leaden body as Michael stood up. Sapphire was upset at the lack of touching now. I awkwardly turned and headed upstairs, Michael laughing under his breath as he followed.

I held the door open for him, and he stopped as he stepped over the threshold. “Get some sleep, beautiful,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

My breath caught in my chest, but Michael continued on. He trotted down the stairs and then down the driveway. I swallowed and closed the door quickly.

“Is your friend gone?” my mom called.

“Oh no,” I thought. “She’s going to be so mad that I was alone with a guy in the basement.”

“Play it cool,” Sapphire said. “She let him down in the first place.”

“Yea,” I called to my mom. I walked through the house to find her in the dining room with her laptop on the table. We seldom used the little room except for holidays or when my grandparents visited.

“Did you guys have fun?” she asked casually.

“Sure,” I said. “We just hung out.” I didn’t want to tell her he lulled me into an intimate position, and I fell asleep on him. I may be about to start high school, but I never got the feeling my parents were amenable to the idea of me spending time on boys instead of school.

“He seems like a nice wolf,” she said. It felt like bait.

“Yea, he is. He is in band, actually,” I told her.

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh really. Is he in your section? Is he going to be competition?”

“No,” I told as I took a seat next to her. “He plays a different saxophone. But having a friend outside my class makes it a little less daunting.”

She nodded, studying me for a minute. “And you’re sure about him?” she finally asked.

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Yea,” I said. “Michael’s nice. We have some of the same interests.”

“Okay,” she said. “What do you think about going out to dinner tonight?”

–

I sat on the floor, stretching my legs out. Now that I was full of some rich, carby pasta, I hoped my morning would go better. My legs ached as my muscles pulled in different directions. It was still early for bed, but I knew I could sleep. My nap with Michael helped a lot, but I needed a full night’s sleep to feel closer to normal.

“Hey, Saph?” I started. Something had always bugged me. “Where do you go?” I asked her.

“What do you mean?” she responded.

“When I can’t sleep. You always disappear, then you’re back whenever I do manage to pass out,” I clarified.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Can you hear me? Can you see me? I just don’t get how you can vanish from me like that. You are a part of me,” I said.

“I don’t know where I go. There is no warning; it’s like something pulls me away from you. It’s almost like there is a wall of water between us, or maybe I am trapped in a room with water walls?”

“Water walls?”

“Everything is muffled and distorted. I know you are awake; I know you are okay. But I can’t really make out anything you’re doing. I can’t get out of that place.”

“What do you do there?” I asked her.

“Pace mostly,” she said. “When things start to go dark, the walls squeeze in until the pressure makes everything burst. Then I feel like I am back.”

“I wonder if anyone else has this happen? I mean, humans get insomnia,” I reasoned.

“Maybe we should go to the pack doctor to find out,” she suggested. I rolled my eyes.

“Dad said deal with it,” I reminded her.

“Well, I don’t like when it happens,” she pouted.

“Me either,” I agreed, climbing into bed. I got down in my covers, pulling them tightly around me. Something else was nipping at the back of my mind. “Can you see my dreams?”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“Did you earlier today? When you came back?” I asked.

“The silver wolf?” she guessed. “I saw him.” Her voice got a little dreamy as she said that.

“That wasn’t normal, right? I mean grey wolves, sure, but that thing looked like shiny,” I said.

“He was magnificent,” she hummed.

“Saph! Come on, be serious,” I chided.

“Q, you have blue hair, and when we shift, I’m blue too. Do you think that is normal?” she pointed out. I bit my l*p; she wasn’t wrong. “To our knowledge, no one else in the pack has blue hair like you do. Do you think a silver wolf in your dream is that strange?”

“I guess not,” I said. “I wonder why I never saw his face.”

“I think you are reading too much into a dream,” she said. “You should be going to sleep. We need energy to see Michael tomorrow!”

“You are smitten with him,” I commented.

“I want to meet his wolf. I bet he is to die for,” she fawned. “Plus, you are too, even if you don’t want to admit it. He’s just dreamy.”

“Dreamy but cocky, and we are not meeting his wolf,” I told her. “There is no way my freak-ness is shifting with him. He may be all sweet and nice now, but the whole blue wolf thing will be too weird.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “The cockiness is well earned. Look at him! Agh.”

Sapphire was too in love with Michael. We barely knew him, and it had only been a couple of weeks. Plus, I had two years and a few more months before finding my mate. Did I really want to get my heart all tangled up in someone else before then? I heard so many stories about older siblings of my friends dealing with drama and rejection over it.

I sighed heavily as I let my eyes fall. When did my life start getting complicated?