Hailey’s P. O. V

His room was clean enough. The backpack he’d brought with him lay near the foot of the bed, still mostly packed. He’d made a change of clothes after, presumably, showering. Probably the reason he smelled so nice. Though, his hair was messier than when I’d last seen him.

Another whimper. Then a sharp yelp. And I was reminded of why I was even here in the first place.

‘This wasn’t exactly what I thought you had in mind when you said you wouldn’t let him get to you.’ Opelene mused.

‘Yeah yeah, hush… I know. I’m just here to check on him.’

I’d be right out once I was certain he was okay.

“No… no-Jay, don’t... Jay… Jason, STOP!” He screamed, jerking in his bed, back arching when he said ‘stop’. The bed frame itself trembled, jerking and arching with him.

He’s gonna be very sore in the morning.

‘Should I- should I do something?’ I panicked slightly, ‘Do I wake him up?! Hold his hand?? Sing him a lullaby???’

‘Hailey… calm down. Think about whenever you have a sleep vision. What would you appreciate someone you just met doing if they find you in a restless sleep?’

‘I guess… I’d have liked to wake up to someone holding my hand and telling me that everything will be okay or ask me how I’m doing. Like you do…’

‘Good. Now what do you think he’d like to wake up to?’

I paused, ‘I don’t think he’d want someone too close to him or prying too much. But I think anyone will need someone to just be nearby.’

‘So go do that.’

I nodded. He was still restless and his mumbling was less coherent, more like a string of incomplete words. At the foot of his bed, I wondered how close was too close in his opinion.

Maybe I should pull a chair close to instead of squatting by the bed like someone whose close to him.

Grabbing a chair, I lifted it, carefully moving closer with it, so as to not make noise.

He let out another yelp. All the wood in the room seemed to respond to him, becoming rough and forming spikes along their surfaces. Including the chair I was holding.

“Gah…!” I hissed, holding my heavily bleeding hands.

The chair hit the ground with an amplified clank. Tim sat up sharply, breath heavy and ragged.

“Hey…” I called softly, pausing when his wide gaze whipped in my direction, “You’re okay… you’re safe.”

It took a moment for him to come back from where his mind was. His expression of panic and unease gradually settled into realisation, then his head hung in sadness.

“How are you feeling?” I whispered, somehow unwilling to break the atmosphere, “Wanna talk about it?”

He didn’t respond for a while. When he looked at me again, all traces of vulnerability were gone and he was right back to the same expression he had when we’d first met. Angry, cautious and ready to throw down.

“The fuck are you doing here, Sunshine? Watching me in my sleep? Some damn creep you are.”

My heart pumped with anger, making my hands bleed more. The sting was maddening, “No, you jerk. I heard your restlessness when I went to drink water and thought you could use company. Sorry for my misplaced empathy.” I spat.

“Obviously, it wasn’t needed. Go bother someone else wi-” He paused, sniffing the air, his gaze landing on my hands, “Why the hell are you bleeding?”

“It’s nothing.” I grumbled, moving away.

He got out of bed, stepping closer. He cradled my hands in his before I could move them away.

Hand holding shouldn’t feel so nice…

When he asked again, he was kinder, the nickname no longer a thinly veiled insult, “Sunshine… what happened?”

Somehow, I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at my hands in his. So I settled for staring out the window that looked onto the forest.

“It’s nothing… You were restless in your sleep and the wood in the room responded to that. I should’ve known better. That’s all.”

He looked from my hands to the chair near us.

“Come on, you probably have some splinters. I think I saw a first aid kit in the bathroom.” He said, leading me to the connected bathroom.

“I’m a Werewolf. I’ll be all better by morning.”

“Well, I don’t need you trailing blood everywhere. And I’m sure Ari and Kaesha wouldn’t want to see you like that either.”

I didn’t respond.

He led me to the bathroom and told me to sit on the counter, near the sink. Doing as instructed, he retrieved the first aid kit from the cabinet near my head.

Without a word, he guided my hands to the sink and rinsed the blood off. I winced.

He glanced at me, apologetic, “Sorry. I’m gonna take the splinters out. It’ll probably hurt.”

I nodded.

He placed a hand over mine then flexed his fingers. At once, several pieces of wood shot out of my hands.

“Ahh…!”

“Shhh… you’re okay.” He soothed, retrieving antiseptic and some cotton.

With more care than I’d thought he possessed, he finished cleaning and patching my hands up, eliciting a few winces and hisses of pain.

“Thanks.” I mumbled as he put the kit away.

“Forget it, Sunshine. Was my fault anyway.” He stood back upright, “You can get down from there now.”

I slid off the counter found myself standing nearly chest to chest with him.

Dang… he was tall. He stood nearly a full head above me and I had to tilt my head up to meet his gaze.

‘And he smells so good…’

“You should probably be more careful too.” He said lowly.

“Yeah…”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Why on earth was I whispering? And this was Tim for goodness’ sake! Was I going mad?

‘I’ve got no objections…’ Opelene hummed.

Well I did!

I took a step back, my hip hitting the counter, “Yeah, so… um, what were you dreaming about? You seemed pretty upset.”

He cleared his throat, “Nothing of your concern, Sunshine.”

“You sure you don’t wanna talk about it, at least?”

“Pretty sure, Sunshine. Even if I did, definitely not with you. Now, get your klutzy ass out of my room and back to your bed. And try not to die on the short trip there.”

“Fine.” I rushed out of his room, and retuned to mine, closing the doors behind me.

‘That was definitely something.’ Opelene whistled.

I climbed into bed and buried myself in the covers, ‘Nope. Not addressing it. Take control and put us to sleep.’

‘Aye, captain.’ She snickered.

Soon, she was in control and we were drifting back off to sleep.

I woke the next afternoon to voices drifting from the living room. Getting out of bed, I went to join them.

“Afternoon Hailey.” Ari greeted, “How was your night? When I went to wake you, Opelene told me that you needed to rest. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah.” My eyes landed on Tim perched on a couch armrest. He paid me no mind.

I refocused on Ari, “I’m okay. I hurt my hands last night and Opelene probably just wanted to make sure I’m fully healed.”

I unwrapped the mildly bloodied bandages. There were still lights scars and the skin looked tender, but they were almost good as new.

“Take it easy, alright? Your breakfast’s in the kitchen. We’re discussing how best to go about introducing ourselves to the pack in the woods.”

I nodded and retrieved my meal then sat on the couch furthest from Tim.

Ari gave me a look, then returned her focus to the map she’s laid out on a coffee table before her, “Alright. To go over everything, Hailey, Timothy and I will get new accounts for the WolfNet. Not a lot of packs take well to strangers, especially not if they’ve been targeted like Timothy’s pack was. Timothy, you’ve had an account before, but the Lightwoods will probably be monitoring it for activity so you’ll need a new one. If they ask for your former pack, you can pick one from the list of targeted packs Kirstin wrote. It is extremely important that we don’t give away our real information. That includes names, birthdays and the like. As for where we live, we’re a trio of nomad lone wolves. What names will you give?”

“Jason Armeniy.”

I glanced sharply at him. There was that name he’d screamed in his sleep.

Ari nodded and turned to me.

“Danielle Flow.” I said.

“Good. I’ll be Richelle Avaline. Don’t forget that we have to address each other by our fake names. Remember them. Kaesha, it’s not a must that you come too, but if there’s any way to make others perceive you as a werewolf, that would be great. If you’re coming, also tell us your name.”

Kaesha thought for a moment, “Probably, but I’ll need some things from one of your wolves. I’ll most likely smell pretty similar to whoever helps so, Timmy, it’s probably best if it’s you.”

“Sure.” Tim shrugged.

She smiled, “Thanks. So I guess I’ll be Kenya Armeniy.”

Ari nodded, “Timothy, you’re more experienced, so I’d like you to give us a rundown of the appropriate behaviour so that they won’t feel threatened.”

“We’ll need to approach the territory cautiously. When we reach the border, take no more than five steps inside it. They’ll sense us and respond. We’ll have to explain why we’re there then most likely be taken to the Beta. Once we’re there, the highest ranking member present will shift and stand before us. We’ll have to shift and either expose our bellies or lower our heads, depending on our wolf size.”

I could see the wheels turning in Ari’s head. She couldn’t shift yet so what would she do?

“How do we know what we’re big enough to do?” I asked.

“Basically, if you’re bigger than me, lower your head. If not, roll over. Same size, still roll over. You and Ari are Alpha descended so you’ll probably only lower your heads. Kaesha, I don’t know what you’re gonna do, but make your wolf a bit smaller than mine and a similar colour. After shifting back, they’ll help us with what we need.”

Ari, looking like she’d finished thinking, nodded, “We’re also going to be around for the full moon shifts so we need to tell them in advance. And I want to spend some time with them. Timothy, you’ll be in charge of communicating what we want.”

“Sure about that?” He raised a brow.

“Yes.”

“Alright then.”

“Kaesha, Tim, you two go work on the spell. Afterwards, Kaesha, I need to talk to you.”

“Okay, Ava.” The two stood up to go outside.

“So you know, you’re gonna be my little sister.” Tim stated matter-of-factly

Kaesha argued, “No way! We’re twins.”

“I’m still older.”

“By a minute.”

“Nope… seventeen.”

“You’re not serious.”

“You’re right… I’m older by an hour.”

“What?”

“Poor mom. Took ages for you to decide to come out.”

“If you’re an hour older, then the doctors had to perform surgery to reshape your deformed head.”

Tim laughed, “Now, you’re just making stuff up.”

“Try me. I can make you look like Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame for the whole of our visit.” I could picture Kaesha standing with her hands on her hips.

“Fine, fine… how about we-”

Ari chuckled, drawing my attention from their playful squabbling.

“If they keep that up, no one will have trouble believing they’re siblings.”

“Yeah.”

Ari remained silent for a while, analysing me with a soft gaze.

“What happened last night, Hail?” She asked finally.

“I’m fine, Ari. My hands are all better.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

I looked away, “Nothing happened last night.”

Nothing.

She relaxed in the couch, “That’s not what I heard.”

What?!

My head snapped up sharply, “He told you?!”

So he’s that kinda jerk! Bragging about his conquests!

She snickered at my expression, “This is the first time I’ve seen you mad at someone other than Keily. No, Timothy didn’t tell me anything.”

“Oh…”

She started folding the map, “It doesn’t take much to wake me and my room’s right next to Timothy’s. I was up the moment he first yelled in his sleep. Then you fell out of bed and left your room not long after. And, well…” she glanced at me, “you know the rest.”

I was talking a mile a minute, “I swear, Ari, I just wanted to check on him. He sounded so scared and I thought anyone would appreciate someone being there for them after a nightmare so I went in but then I didn’t know what to do and I figured he wouldn’t want me too close when he wakes up so I was carrying a chair to his bedside when he screamed and all the wood went sharp and rough and my hands got hurt so I dropped the chair and he woke up and was a jerk again till he noticed that I was bleeding and he took me to the bathroom to get patched up and that’s all that happened, I promise!”

“Hailey, it’s okay. You weren’t wrong to go help him. If you hadn’t, I would’ve.” She reclined in the chair, staring quizzically, “But it doesn’t feel that way to you, huh? What else happened to make you feel so guilty about helping someone?”

I didn’t look at her, “Nothing happened… ”

Right? I mean, we didn’t kiss or anything like that. He just… smelled so good and was extremely gentle, but that didn’t count as something happening, right?

So why did I feel the need to leave it out?

“Intimacy and fondness count as something.” She stated, “It’s often the thing that escalates without us noticing.”

Of course… But what would I say? That he was nice to me for a second? I wasn’t gonna be that girl, especially not in front of my little sister.

“None of it really matters. More importantly, what’re you going to do about when we have to shift?”

She gave me a look that told me she knew I’d just pulled a subject change before answering, “I want to talk to Kaesha about helping me out with that. I’ll go over the specifics of size and colour with her.”

I nodded, thankful she’d let us leave the previous topic. I knew she’d confront me about it later, probably after our visit.

I took my dishes to the kitchen as Kaesha and Tim returned. From her new scent, they seemed to have succeeded.

For the next hour, Ari and Kaesha fine tuned their shifting illusions while I got dressed and thought up a username and password. I had no idea what Tim was up to and had no desire to find out.

When it was time to go, Ari called us back to the living room.

“Alright, nomad wolves. It’s time to go. Remember to address each other by our fake names. Timothy has the most experience and empathetic capabilities for this pack so he’s in charge for this trip.”

Standing behind her, Tim smirked.

“Don’t let it get to your head. And no demonstrations of power. Don’t attack them off the bat.” She glanced behind her.

Kaesha and I snickered and he shot us a scowl.

“Let’s go.”