Willing Sacrifice (15 page)

I showered before bed while everyone else was out except Brian and Britney. When I went downstairs too jumpy for bed, they were sitting at the island counter playing cards.

"Deal me in." I slumped down on the stool next to Brian and ruffled his hair. I looked at the scene before me and laughed. "What are you guys playing?"

"Texas Hold-’Em." Brian said pulling a carton of Oreo cookies my way so he could give me my share of the poker chips they were using.

"I'm losing my bedtime snack." Britney complained pointing to the huge pile of cookies in front of Brian. "I'm honestly scared he'll eat his winnings and throw up. I told him the proper serving size for a werewolf was only three times what it says on the box."

"What are you at?" I asked.

"Almost five and a half times the human's serving size." Brian said matter-of-factly.

"Britney, I know you're just trying to do a good job here, but gambling with an Alpha in training isn't a good idea."

"No shit." She squeaked out. "I lost my milk in the first five minutes, and we hadn't even started playing yet."

"Well Brian,” I said. “If being an Alpha werewolf doesn't work out, you could always sell used cars or life insurance."

"I wanted to play strip poker." He whined. "But she said, no."

I turned my eyes on her, "How does he know about strip poker?"

"He doesn't know what it is; he only knows it’s something his parents like to play when he's in bed."

"People don't hide a lot from him do they?" I chastised.

"What's the point of hiding anything from him? If he's going to have his own pack one day, there is no room for baby delivering storks, Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy." She shrugged.

"What about the Easter Bunny?" I asked.

"Well, I heard that Sarah thought it would be cute to have Max dress up as the Easter Bunny when Brian was four. Brian thought he'd hunt and kill the biggest rabbit in the world and clobbered Max dressed as a giant rabbit, from the top of the refrigerator."

"How'd you get on the fridge?" I asked Brian, confused.

"Uncle Jack helped me; he said the rabbit had to die for being so stupid and walking into our house."

I snorted out a laugh and grabbed a cookie from the pile in front of me. "Was Max okay?"

Britney shook her head, "I heard he needed stitches."

"I guess that story is better than any Easter egg hunt I've ever been to." I said smiling and pulling Brian into my lap for a hug. He snuggled for only a minute before deciding he was too big to sit on laps anymore.

"Bedtime!" Britney announced too happily.

Brian groaned but scurried up the stairs after sneaking about two thirds of his cookie winnings, smiling proudly when he saw we finally noticed.

"I got things from here if you want to go out with the rest."

When she didn't say anything I narrowed my eyes, "You're babysitting me too, aren't you?"

"You've had a hell of a day." She said as response.

I rolled my eyes, "It’s not like I'm going to slit my wrists or anything."

Again she didn't say anything.

"What? They think I'm going to kill myself?"

"You didn't go on the run, and you're really down."

"I didn't feel like running with the pack tonight."

"You haven't run since you've been here."

"So."

"It worries Robert." She said cleaning the crumbs of the counter.

"What about it worries him?"

"He's just worried that you don't go running and you've been through Hell; you know." She shrugged, "It worries me too to be honest."

"I know that I can't run from my past. I'll be more careful and talk to someone about it, but I'm not suicidal."

"Do you know the best way to feel better?" She asked suddenly.

"Going on a run; yes I know that."

"So why would you avoid the one thing that's guaranteed to make you feel better?" She cocked her head.

"Britney, I like you but you're one short sentence away from one long beating."

"You should talk to Robert about it." She skirted. "It probably has to do with what happened to you."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right, but I like to limit my psychotic breaks to only one a day, and the quota is up for today." I said in a happy singsong voice.

Her eyes grew wide. "Fine, there's no need to plead insanity to prove a point. Really it isn't that big a deal; it happens to a lot of wolves."

"Really?" I asked skeptically. Maybe I wouldn’t have been but the way she worded it sounded like a woman telling an impudent man it was okay he couldn’t get it up. "I keep thinking that I'm some sort of mutant, you know?"

"Sugar, you're one of us. You keep magnifying your differences; sure they're there but at the end of the day, we're biologically the same."

"Just keep it to yourself that I'm shift retarded."

She shrugged, "Not a problem. Did you know the pack Omega is basically like the go to person for stuff like this?"

"Really, why?"

"Talking to someone who's got nothing to gain from knowing your weaknesses is basically a get out of jail free card." She smiled.

Sounds of bare feet crossing the driveway had me looking over my shoulder. "I'm going to bed."

"You can't avoid them forever."

"No not forever, but at least until tomorrow." I trotted up both sets of stairs and closed the door to my bedroom as quietly as possible. I climbed into bed and threw the blankets over my head and waited for my heart to stop pounding.

I listened to footsteps climbing the stairs and through Gage's room, then my door opened a crack. "Sugar?" His voice whispered quietly before coming in and closing the door behind him. He peeled my blankets back as I faked sleep for the second time that day. He watched me briefly brushing a gentle hand across one of my cheekbones before leaving again. It was Robert, checking on me. Probably making sure I hadn't choked myself to death with my bra, he would definitely take that personally.

Lynn; I had never spoken to her directly but she was the type of girl who could just look at you and make you feel inferior. She didn't go out of her way to be snide or rude, actually quite the opposite. She was quiet, but you could tell by her watchful gaze that she saw everything and mulled it over in her sharp mind saving it for later. She was startlingly beautiful, easily more so than any of the other girls. She had delicate features and waist length golden blonde hair and Caribbean Sea blue eyes with a cute little Cupid’s bow mouth. Top that all off with cheekbones any model would kill for. She was a living goddess, and probably the most beautiful thing about her was that she didn't know it. She saw that face in the mirror every day, so to her it was just another face, but to anyone else, she was perfection personified; a Disney princess come to life.

She was sitting at the counter eating a muffin when I came downstairs. She smiled sweetly and offered me a stool by pushing it out from under the island with a pointed bare foot. "Good morning, Sugar."

"Hey, I’m Sugar," I repeated sounding exactly like the dork she made me feel I was. "So what are we doing today?"

She shrugged and made it look like a ballet move. "This far up the chain there really isn't that much to do. Alex makes a lot of unnecessary work for herself, but it makes her feel useful."

I nodded but looked around at the kitchen and kept telling myself not to say anything dumb. I felt a little like a teenage boy with a crush, but the truth was I didn't want her; I just wanted to be a little more like her.

"You have a beautiful name." She said, at last ending the awkward silence I had caused.

"Most people tell me it sounds like a stripper's name." I mentally head slapped myself.

She shook her head, "I still like it."

"Thanks." I said happy she didn't take that opportunity to crush me verbally.

"I know a great place to go swimming, do you feel like swimming? It’s really hot out today; it’s almost eighty-five already."

I thought about it; there was still snow on the ground in the deep shade of the woods, but though I hadn’t tested it much after my experience with the lake that winter I knew werewolves could tolerate the cold far better than humans. "Yeah, sure I'll just go grab one of Sarah's suits and we'll go."

"I've got a suit that would look awesome on you." She smiled warmly.

We went up to her room and she started pulling out bathing suits neatly hung on hangers. I wondered why she had so many, but the truth was if I looked like her I would probably walk around naked. She pulled a solid black bikini and held it out to me.

I turned and changed into the suit and she tied the back of the top for me before changing into her own bright pink string thong bikini, and I could see enough of her in that suit to see she wasn't hiding any flaws. I was hoping she had a strange rash or an extra toe, but she was flawless from head to all ten toes.

I pulled my jeans back on but left the rest for when we got back. She wore a pair of cut off shorts that looked a lot like the one's Sarah wanted me to wear to first meet Robert, only she didn't look cheap in them, she looked perfect, it was almost too much and I nearly said something.

We walked through the woods barefoot for almost half an hour until we came to a little outcropping that jutted out into the lake. "They call this place Cub Scout Point." She said stripping off her shorts.

I pulled off my own jeans and stepped into the water, surprised at how warm it was. Though some days the weather was in the eighties it was still only in the thirties or forties most nights.

She surprised me and grabbed my hand smiling sweetly. "Ready?" She crouched and we ran for the water screaming and dove under its surface in one breathtaking leap. Though the water was warm by Maine standards, a spring fed lake didn't get much warmer than sixty degrees on a good day. I gasped and bounced my feet on the rocky bottom of the lake laughing with her through chattering teeth.

She spun onto her back and floated around lazily. If she was a season, she would be summer through and through. She was tanned and sweet, warm and beautiful, while I was defiantly an autumn. I was dark and threatening, always stormy and cold, and death seemed to surround me like a suffocating shroud that kept me separate from the rest.

We swam in silence for most of the morning, just enjoying the peace of solitude and warm sun.

She smiled with her eyes closed and seemed to soak up the brilliant early summer sunshine. "Sugar?"

"Yeah?"

"Why don't you talk to me like the others?" She didn't sound hurt, just curious.

"You unnerve me." I floated beside her in the shallow clear water.

She looked over at me and smiled. "You've got nothing to worry about."

"You and Robert aren't compatible?" I asked.

"More than you know."

"It seems to me that he's looking for someone just like you."

"He's not my type, trust me." I thought about that for a moment. To me he seemed to be everyone's type, but then so did Lynn.

"Lynn." Robert called from the shore. "Your Daddy's on the phone for you."

I sat up shocked that he'd just appeared out of nowhere again. I started splashing noisily as I tried to gain my footing and ended up getting water up my nose in the process.

"Yes, Alpha." She called back sitting up and doing a perfect breast stroke towards shore.

I walked onto the shore more slowly when I realized Robert wasn't leaving.

"You enjoy your swim?" He asked as I walked past him on the smooth rocky beach.

"Yeah."

He nodded then swiped at his hair nervously.

"What did Lynn mean by saying you weren't her type?" I asked, forging ahead. It was a rude question to ask but I needed to know everything that was happening in the house I lived in.

He grinned wide, "What do you think, Sugar?" He turned to walk back to the trail leading to the house. "Nice suit."

My brain slowly connected all the dots and I jogged up beside him. "She's gay?"

He just kept smiling. "Yup."

"But, I'm probably not her type anyway, right?"

He stopped and faced me, but his smile was gone. "Sugar, you know for a woman who's seen so much in such a short amount of time, you are truly the most naive person I've ever met."

"Maybe she just wanted a friend." I said defensively.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I mean when I hang out with a guy I put him in a string bikini and take him swimming somewhere really private." He snorted and rolled his eyes.

I stopped in the trail to put space between us. If he was only talking to me so he could patronize me and make me feel stupid I didn't feel much like talking.

Lynn was still on the phone with her father when I got back to the house so I plopped down in front of the new television and flicked through the channels, avoiding one reality show after another.

I didn't understand the draw of these kinds of shows. They were about teen pregnancy, drug addiction, sex addiction, and the battle for love in a world where people have almost completely lost the true definition of what reality is. People who worship minute-by-minute twitter updates and facebook friends they'll never meet. Seemingly normal people sit down and watch these different groups that in the past would have been exiled to the outer most fringes of human society, not worshiped for their inadequacies. These people sit at home, watching them on television, logging on to observe updates on-line and reading magazine articles about their lives after the special two-hour season finale. And these people care about whether they succeeded or not, while living vicariously through them and their obvious failures. So all the producers have to do is sit back and every once in a while poke and prod the cattle and pray for a stampede.

"Why are you watching the home shopping channel?" Sarah plopped down next to me.

"It’s the only thing that's on." I said, examining the gaudy but reasonably priced authentic, imitation gem broach on a black velvet stand, sparkling its little heart out under the glare of a billion studio lights.

"Do people still wear broaches?" Sarah asked.

"I don't know. They probably aren't my kind of people anyway." I shrugged and turned off the television.