Bound by Duty (Bound Series Book 1) (36 page)

Then, I found Amelia. Through our first month of class, I sat back and observed the quiet girl who moved with the same weighted motions I did. She understood loneliness. It was clear in the way she would brighten at an instructor’s question, but dim as she refused to allow herself to answer — the way she moved with awkward grace, always bumping into things, but never people. I had overheard her and Bethany talking, and I knew she would be at that party. It was why I’d gone. But I felt like a creeper. I had been hiding out, berating myself for being there, when she came flying down the stairs.

I watched Amelia leap from the bottom stair of the deck like she could fly — all of the awkwardness gone and her movements fluid and beautiful. She pushed her way into the oncoming tide. She was lit up in the moonlight as her head dropped back and from my angle, I could see her smile. I was an intruder on the moment, but her smile broke something open inside of me. She was content and I was jealous. I wanted to know her secrets. I wanted to know how she found that place. She was my beginning and my end. Because now that she’s gone, I’m some kind of magical freak and I’m alone — again.

Dawn was breaking through the trees as I finally got to my car. It was parked right where Micah had told me to put it. It was hard to reconcile the fact that just hours ago I had been kissing Amelia in these very same trees. As I dug in the trunk for my workout bag and spare clothes, my anger rose again. The realization of Micah being some kind of prince, engaged to my girl, had me yanking on my mesh shorts and t-shirt with violent motions. As my shirt came over my head and I pulled the hem down, I both felt and heard the rip of fabric. Looking down, I jumped. My right hand had partially shifted into a paw with claws that shouldn’t be there poking through the blue weave.

I untangled myself and sat on the bumper of my old Honda, breathing and staring until the fur melted away to skin and the razor-sharp nails became fingers. This time, I hadn’t even felt the change coming on. Usually, I had at least the forewarning of building sensations — the “too big for my own skin” feeling telling me I would soon stand on four legs instead of two. This time, though, there was nothing, which was even scarier than the change itself. I had become something. I wasn’t sure whether it was Amelia who had changed me, or if this was the difference all of my foster parents had always felt in me. I was an animal and I needed help before the wrong people realized it. I didn’t know who those people were, but I could hear what Amelia hadn’t said earlier tonight. There was so much more to the story and no one was safe — least of all, her.

I needed help. It didn’t matter whether I wanted it or not. She told me to go to Cole but I wasn’t ready for that. I couldn’t look at him without seeing her. I couldn’t walk inside his gym, past the training room where I’d held myself back from kissing her so that I wouldn’t scare her away. Tossing my bag back in the car, I slammed the trunk down with a little more force than necessary. There were so many thoughts in my head but most of all, I worried about Amelia. She still didn’t know who she was. I had tried to give her space to find herself, to see that the two of us together were more than we could ever be alone, but too much had happened too quickly. Now, I just prayed she was safe.

It was still early morning, but I couldn’t go home. I was too amped up from everything that had happened last night. Since I was always starving after shifting and a night of doing who knows what, I stopped at a local spot for a monster-sized breakfast burrito. I tossed my flip flops back into the car and walked toward the beach, scarfing down the burrito in record time. I watched as the waves came in and the surfers navigating them. There were hoards of surfers, most just sitting on their boards, bouncing up and down as the water beat against the shore.

I dropped to the sand, losing myself in the sound of the waves and the seagulls searching for their own breakfast. The world stood still in those few minutes and my mind was quiet. I felt like myself. Aidan the man. Not Aidan the beast.

Looking on while one surfer rode a wave stretching across the horizon, I was shocked to see platinum blond hair standing out like a beacon down the beach from me. I pushed up from the sand and slowly walked toward her. Bethany sat in much the same way I had just been, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, as she stared out into the water. Her hair whipped around in the breeze and I couldn’t see her face. As I closed in on her, I saw the familiar motion of wiping away tears.

“Bethany? Are you okay?” I looked down at her as she contained her wild hair and looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. She wasn’t wearing any make-up. I’d never seen her look so vulnerable.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when she responded with her normal sarcasm. “You know, I can’t imagine why anything would be wrong, Aidan. My best friend was kidnapped right out from under my nose, I was held hostage by a psychopathic Queen on a power trip after I had been kidnapped by animal witches, or AniMages, or whatever they’re called, my boyfriend turned out to be a two-timing douche with magic powers, and I’m nothing but a human who gets used as bait and leverage. Can I do anything to help any of them? Nope. Sure can’t. So, it’s been a fine week. How about you?” she ended, a completely fake smile on her face as she stared daggers up at me. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well,” I said as I dropped into the sand beside her, “I don’t know if I can beat that, but I’ll counter with the fact that my girlfriend is engaged to a prince of some kind of magical people I didn’t know existed until last week, who also happens to be a guy I thought I was friends with. She had a chance to run away with me and didn’t take it, choosing him over me, and pretty much eviscerating my heart in the process.
And
, I woke up not long ago suddenly able to turn into a wolf. My eyes light up like blue headlights and I lose entire chunks of time. I wake up naked every time it happens and have no idea where I am. How’d I do?”

She actually snorted. Which then turned into a chuckle. Which became all out belly laughter. I couldn’t stop myself from joining her. What we had just laid out sounded completely insane — completely and utterly insane. And yet, we were living it. There were parts of her story I hadn’t heard, and I was sure she hadn’t known the full truth about me yet, but it didn’t matter. I bumped my shoulder into hers as we settled down. She turned to me. “She told me you were a part of the supernatural club, but a wolf? And you wake up naked?” Her eyebrows rose and she gave me an incredulous look. I could only shake my head and laugh again.

We both turned to stare back out to the sea. As quickly as the laughter had come, it was gone. There was total silence between us as we sat there. The true weight of our words, of the realities sitting in front of us, stole any happiness I’d had like a plug being pulled from a drain. She was gone. Amelia was gone.

And then, Bethany hit me. She punched me in the shoulder with more force than I’d expected from a girl so small. I rubbed the spot and turned to her. She was grinning. “What’s gotten into you?” I asked.

“Here’s the thing about me, sweetie,” she said with a wry smile and a matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t just sit around. A girl needs a good wallow every now and again, but then you dust yourself off and get back on the horse. It’s time for us to saddle up.”

Eighteen. We all expect our lives to change when that number finally hits us. It is, after all, the year you are finally an adult, finally in charge of your own life. Most people wake up on that monumental birthday and run to the mirror, convinced that they were magically transformed during their 8 hours of sleep into a
bona-fide
adult. Others just lie in bed, thinking about the momentous changes that are sure to be coming.

I’m sure there are some people who just go about their day as if nothing were different and usually nothing really is. I like to think that those are the people who are most content with their lives… The people who have no unanswered questions, no haunting pasts, and no uncertainty about their futures.

When my 18
^th
birthday arrived I didn’t rush to the mirror eager to see my grownup self. And being in the foster system since birth kept me from seeing that day as if it were any other.

I probably lay in bed for 10 minutes before my alarm finally convinced me to get up. 18 was huge. It was a birthday I had waited impatiently and anxiously for. It meant I was legally an adult and for foster kids like myself that’s a big deal; it meant that I was no longer a ward of the state. Finally, it meant control. I didn’t have to worry about getting a new family if I made a mistake. No more psych evaluations, no more child services, no more any of that kind of stuff that made up my life. I was free!

It also meant that I was, suddenly, responsible for myself.

Just the day before I had a team of people to answer to; people that fed me, clothed me, told me what to do and when to do it. If I had felt like a prisoner to the system before, I felt as if I were adrift at sea now.

After getting out of bed I gingerly stepped over my two duffel bags’ worth of clothes out into the hallway and made my way downstairs. Most of my room was already packed. I didn’t have many personal belongings, which would make moving that much easier since Margaret, my foster mother, was no longer responsible for providing me with a room.

Margaret was, as always, already up when I walked into the kitchen. She was an early riser and was usually drinking her second cup of coffee by the time I rolled out of bed. The previous eight months had actually been pretty decent because of her. She was an elderly woman, with salt and pepper hair and a disapproving mouth; not exactly warm and cuddly, but she treated me well enough. She kept mostly to herself except at mealtimes, when she insisted that we be together. I’d had worse rules. I think she appreciated my company since her own children so rarely visited, only twice since I moved in.

Though my world already felt so different, that morning’s routine continued as it usually did. Margaret finished making her oatmeal and started on the coffee while I poured milk into my Lucky Charms, then we both sat down to eat in companionable silence at the beige card table she kept in the kitchen. When the meal was finished I grabbed our mismatched dishes and brought them to the sink, before lathering them up with lemon scented dish soap and playing the part of dishwasher, as I always did. When I reached for the flamingo-decorated dishtowel to start drying, I was surprised to find that Margaret had already started on the job.

“I can finish this up, Margaret.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities Della, but I can at least dry the dishes on your birthday.” Not knowing what else to do I thanked her, then turned to go back down the hallway into my soon-to-be former room, but was stopped by a tentative touch on my arm.

“Della, the new kid isn’t supposed to be here for another couple of weeks. You’re welcome to stay here until then,” Margaret said, surprising me completely. I knew that she was going to get another ward soon; she’d been fostering consistently for the past 10 years and was a way station of sorts, only holding on to a kid for a few months until a better place was found.

“Um, thanks Margaret, but I’m already packed and it won’t take that long to move my things into the apartment above the convenience store.”

My job at that store had been a lifeline. I mean, the pay wasn’t exactly great, but in a smaller town the job options were limited, especially since school was out. My boss Marv was letting me rent the small room above it for cheap in exchange for fixing it up and making the space livable, since it barely fit that bill.

After thanking her for the offer I went on to my room. I was supposed to meet one last time with my social worker that morning, and even though she no longer had any say in my life, old habits die hard and I put on my nicest sundress and made sure my mousy brown hair was properly subdued.

The meeting really should have been before my birthday, to see how I was preparing for the transition, but things kept getting held up. Sara was by far the best social worker I’d had, mostly because she hadn’t been doing the job long enough to become disenchanted with it; she still cared. She was the one who got me placed with Margaret instead of in another group home.