Chapter 1

• Arabella
• I’m drifting in the dream again; it seems to be getting brighter each time it shows up. With the passing of each full moon it calls to her and that part of me that I can’t ever seem to touch, and right on cue I hear the cries of a baby that was never able to take her first breath, but could still let out a scream. I’ve tried so hard over the years to understand why I keep being plagued with these dreams, reminding me of the horrible and unforgivable thing I did but I am never given answers, just more questions. This is usually the part of the dream my head starts to burn but nothing is happening, and I am trying to look around me, but I don’t see anything but white, then I hear a rumbling sound come from above me, so I look up.
• I see a fluorescent blue light glowing above me, this has never shown up, I feel my mouth whispering a name, but I can’t hear it, and I can’t hold onto it in my head either. I have never been able to move in this dream so I don’t even try to fight to back away from it, as it slowly stops in front of me until it takes the form of a woman that I can’t make out.
• “Break the veil.”
• Nothing has ever spoken such coherent words in this dream, I try to talk back but as usual my voice is gone, she moves closer to me and places her hands on the side of my face and it feels like electricity but not painful, then she brings her lips to my forehead and I hear her start muttering words that don’t make sense and then as soon as she lets go of me I feel my back contort backwards as I feel pain radiate and course through my body and it burns so bad that I let out a silent scream. I try to keep my eyes open as I feel the tears roll down my face as they sear in pain as well. The room gets brighter, and I am unable to close my eyes and I feel like I am being blinded by the light that is now mixed with the same blue hues that descended on me.
• “Ari!”
• I hear a familiar voice but can’t hold onto it because the pain is consuming me, then in a flash as if I blinked the light was gone and the pain gone as I feel myself wake up. I shoot up and take in my surroundings, I’m in my room and I feel soaked in sweat and gasping for air. I throw my legs over the bed and put my hands on my knees and stand up and go to my dresser mirror and take a deep breath and look in the mirror. My eyes are an icy blue, they have never been this blue and never both of them at the same time, I suddenly feel nervous and reach into the back of my mind.
• “Maya? Maya are you there?”
• I feel her but she seems groggy as I feel her come forward in my mind, “Yeah…yeah I’m here.”
• As soon as she speaks one of my eyes instantly turns back to her golden color and I breathe a small sigh of relief, “You scared me.”
• “I scared you…? I’ve been calling out to you for hours. Where were you this time?”
• I sigh as I stand up and walk to the hall bathroom to take a shower to wash off all the sweat from my body, “I…I don’t know, it felt like the same place as always but things didn’t happen on cue and…and something different happened.”
• I feel her anxiety, whenever I say that something new or different happens in the place she can’t see it puts her on edge, “Like what?”
• “I don’t know” I close the bathroom door behind me, thankful that I am the only one who ever wakes up this early in the house, “Where’s Aurora?”
• She is silent for a few moments as I start to undress, “She’s out, when I came to, she was already unconscious from the exhaustion.”
• I turn the water on to the hottest setting I can stand, “Is she okay?”
• I take one more look in the mirror and my eyes are slowly changing back to their natural brown color, “I think so, she just seems to be really worn out, it might be a few days until she wakes up.”
• I step into the shower thankful for the heat and I keep replaying the dream in my head, the blue light didn’t feel like a threat it…almost felt familiar in a sense but I couldn’t recall where it might be from. I need Aurora, she is the only one who sees what happens when these dreams show up, she usually has more answers for me. We’ve tried to keep the link open with Maya, but she says that when she tries to come forward with us it hurts too much and that’s saying a lot because Maya is tough.
• After I let the heat take away all the tension in my body I wash my hair and body then get out to dry my shoulder length brown hair and once it’s dried I pull it up with a hair tie and go back to my room with a towel wrapped around my body to get dressed. I hear my mom in the kitchen making breakfast, so I quickly put on a sports bra and athletic leggings along with my socks and shoes and head downstairs because today is orientation for the new pack fighters.
• I jog down the stairs to the kitchen and put on my indifferent face that doesn’t say I had the worst and most painful dream yet, “Morning mom.”
• I kiss her on the cheek and walk past her to grab a plate because I’m going to need all my energy today, “Morning baby, you seem lively today, are you excited?”
• I stuff an apple in my mouth and finish chewing it as I grab some bacon and potatoes that she made, “Yeah, more just excited to train some new faces, the current ones are getting boring.”
• She laughs at me, “That’s what your dad thought you would say.”
• I chuckle at her and sit down at the table and look around, “Where is dad?”
• She sits down in front of me with a cup of coffee, “He left early this morning to go help Alpha Zeke with preparations.”
• I swallow the food I just chewed and take a drink of water, “What preparations? I thought that the new trainees were the only thing that needed preparing for and dad said they had that taken care of last week.”
• “I don’t know, he won’t tell me, only that what is going to happen will be the best thing for the pack.”
• `
• I raise an eyebrow at her as I finish my breakfast, “That’s vague.”
• I feel Maya push forward, “Maybe a new pack is coming to visit?”
• Her eagerness to see new faces to fight makes me roll my eyes at her in my head so I direct her question to my mom, “Do you think that they could be preparing for a pack coming to visit?”
• She stands up grabbing my clean plate as I finish the apple in my mouth, “I asked your dad that and all he said was that was business between Alpha and Beta for now.”
• Maya seems a little shocked as I hear her again, “Wow, dad used his Beta title on mom? It must be important then.”
• I silently agree with her, “Okay mom, well I guess we’ll know when Alpha Zeke is ready to announce it, I’m going to head up to the packhouse, maybe see if I can get a quick sparring session in with dad before the new pups show up.”
• My mom laughs at my sarcastic sense of humor, the thing I try to hide behind so no one sees the ugliness underneath, “They are only a few years younger than you Arabella so hardly pups.”
• I scoff at her, “Please I was fighting better than all of them by the time I was thirteen.”
• I start walking towards the door, “Not all of them had the privilege to train one on one with the Beta and sometimes Alpha, plus it helps that the moon goddess has blessed you.”
• I grimace slightly at her words and I bite my tongue to the point of tasting blood, “You know I don’t like when you say it like that.”
• She sighs, “I know, but one day you’re going to have to see it that way.”
• If only she knew the truth, she wouldn’t be so kind and gentle with me, so I just give her a nod and she lets go of my arm and I walk out of the house. I stretch slightly on the front porch looking up at the sky and I think that the blue sky isn’t even as blue as my dream. Once I finish stretching, I start jogging to the packhouse. My dad being the Beta could live in the packhouse but my dad for my sake opted to live in the Beta residence instead, he told Alpha Zeke that the space would be good for me and thankfully he didn’t push him.
• Alpha Zeke is a very understanding Alpha even though he has a bit of a temper, thankfully not as bad as his dad, the former Alpha who died from his wounds during a pack raid when Alpha Zeke was only fourteen, that’s when he took over. My dad was his father’s Beta and never once put the idea out there that he was out to change the Alpha succession and really helped Alpha Zeke who is a strong leader now.
• “Do you think that any of them will try to be cocky little shits and force a shift?”
• I laugh at Maya, she is always eager for a fight and will often try and force forward to push boundaries, “Not sure but we should try and be on our best behavior today, especially if you’re right and a pack is going to be visiting us.”
• I feel her hesitating to ask something, “Spit it out, what’s up?”
• She grumbles slightly, “Do you…do you think that our mate will be in the pack coming to visit?”
• Mates are a sensitive topic among us, “I think you are overthinking it and jumping to conclusions, we don’t know if a pack is coming to visit and even if they did, like I have told you both in the past, I don’t think it is a possibility for us given our…situation.”
• I hear her sigh slightly, “You’ve never been interested in it anyway right?”
• I feel her scowl at me, “Well no, I’d much rather be fighting but maybe because you’re almost nineteen the thought can’t get out of my head but I know Aurora wants one.”
• I see the packhouse as I jog around the corner and I stop and walk the rest of the way up, “I know, I just feel like we don’t have all the answers and I don’t feel like it would be fair to you if we found hers and not yours.”
• She snorts at me, “Don’t get soft on me now, not on the day of beating new pups to the ground.”
• I chuckle at her, “Well you were the one who brought the mate topic up.”
• She growls at me, “Forget I mentioned it, I’m glad we don’t have to wear those stupid contacts today though.”
• “Me too.”
• I walk through the opened gates of the large packhouse and see a couple of familiar faces who just give me a nod as I walk inside the packhouse. I can hear my dad and Alpha Zeke talking loudly in his office, it sounds heated but they don’t seem angry at each other. I try to tune them out as I walk into the kitchen for a bottle of water, and think back to what Maya said and I feel a little bit of worry fill me too, nineteen is when we are able to find our mate and with my birthday only a few weeks away I would be lying if I admitted that I wasn’t worried about it as well. The thought of potentially finding mine and Maya’s mate then finding Aurora’s and having to reject him would hurt her so badly and I can’t bear the thought of having to do that to her.
• I sit down at one of the chairs at the large island, I still have an hour before the new trainees will be showing up and I am hoping that dad and Alpha Zeke will be done soon so we can get in a sparring session when I hear footsteps stomping away from the Alpha’s office. My eyes perk up and I see my dad walk around the corner so I jump down from my chair and his face looks flushed with anger.
• “Dad?”
• He snaps his eyes to as he reaches for the door to the front of the packhouse, “Ari, you’re here early.”
• I walk up to him and see his face try to soften again while looking at me, “Yeah I was hoping that maybe we could get in a quick sparring session before everyone shows up?”
• He gently smiles at me and brushes my cheek with his thumb but then looks at me with a sad look, “I don’t think I can fit one in this morning, a little too…busy.”
• I raise an eyebrow at him, “Is…everything okay?”
• He clears his throat and moves back towards the door, “Yeah, I’ll see you at the training court later sweetheart.”
• He smiles at me but something is definitely wrong with him and just as he closes the door, I feel the mind link open from the Alpha to me, “Come here Ari.”
• “Yes Alpha,” he closes the link and I turn to walk up the stairs to his office.
• “What does he want?” Maya asks, but I don’t have an answer for her.
• I sigh, “I don’t know but let’s keep the thoughts of mates out of our head so you don’t accidentally fluster me and make me trip over my words.”
• She huffs, “I’ll do my best but I highly doubt Apollo will be in a good mood, he seems to be grumpy a lot these days.”
• “Yeah…I don’t like that.”