Just My Luck

17○ Familiar Eyes

V E R Y A N

She just smiled at me and held an enigmatic look on her face.

"Doesn't it feel good," Nicoletta said, "To bring the memories up."

It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. But now, the places where I held those thoughts felt more empty than it did free.

I ignored her and silently followed as she walked deeper into the forest.

"Tell me a secret Luna."

"Luna?" I scoffed. I held no qualities of a Luna. No softness. No love. No care. I wasn't Torrez's mate. I wasn't Nyah. I would never be her. No matter how much I wished and wished. I could never come close.

"I'm not your Luna. And I will never be so don't call me that."

"Once alpha Landon marks you, you'll have to have a title," she trudged deeper, leading me down into something resembling a cave near the river.

"I'm never letting him mark me. But if I'd ever have to get a title, I'd want to be called...Alpha."

She laughed a laugh resembling a giggle.

"Fine Alpha Luna," I rolled my eyes, "Tell me a secret."

I sighed, "Why?"

"Because we're friends," she giggled again truly like a child, not like the beta who snapped the necks of rogues a few days ago, "Then I can tell you mine in return. Make it special."

I laughed at her projected innocence, "Okay... I was in love with my brother."

She stopped giggling. Maybe I shouldn't have been caught up in the momentum of spilling my guts. The look on her face dropping with confusion.

"Oh, oh, o-ok. Wow. Huh. Interesting."

"We're not actually related," I blurted out, "And I don't think of him like that anymore. I think."

"Sure...My turn!" She led me into the cave towards a cage in the corner.

"Tada!" Inside the cage laid a girl. A human. She was definitely a human, but her smell was obscured. Long light hair and hazel eyes that looked like mine in the sun. Her clothes were ripped and muddy but her cuts and wounds freshly bandaged.

"You have a pet human?" I asked, twisting my face at the sight. Nicoletta ran up to the cage, opening it and pulling the human to her side. The girl stood significantly taller than Nicoletta, but leaned all her weight on her.

"Her name's Vasiliki. I found her in the woods passed out after the rogue attack, so I put her in here. I thought she would be dangerous, hence the cage." Nicoletta beamed brightly, an odd sight next to a weak looking human. Weak I say as she struggled to stand, but her arms bore even more muscle than myself.

"And now, why did you cage her in here rather than the in the house?"

"Let's be real Alpha Luna, that house is shitty and Landon refuses to clean it. So I'm not gonna let my Vasiliki stay in there." She hugged the human tighter.

My. The beaming smiles and odd giggling seemed to make sense in this moment. Either the human was really her pet or she's in love with an odd person she met unconscious in a forest. But who am I to judge after what I confessed to her.

"And also," she continued, "Landon would probably kill her. I know for a fact he would. So you have to help me convince him Alpha Luna."

I could've barely convinced him to keep me out of the dungeon. Now I have to convince him to keep a human, a human who stares at me so intensely I feel as if I am the one being caged in her eyes.

She scans my face with such an intent my head begins to hurt. My wolf's claws gripping me. I feel it. Myself within myself.

"Are you okay Veryan?" Nicoletta calls, her face becoming serious.

"So no more Alpha Luna?" I joked, snapping out of the frenzy those hazel eyes put me into. I don't think I can push these eyes away like I did before. They were so familiar.

"Answer the question."

"I'm fine. I'm fine," I brushed her off. The panic I was feeling not subsiding at all. The indiscernible lust I felt, bubbled up again.

Nicoletta lifted the human, a bizzare sight to see such a big person being easily hauled by a small girl, and dragged me along back towards the house.

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The walk seemed longer as I was trying to avoid the human's familiar eyes. The panic and urges growing; my own eyes feeling a need to break out of my skull.

The sun didn't aid in my aching skull, it only drove me closer to ripping out my skin. All these eyes that I saw, crawled out of the back of my mind forcing me to remember something that I have never had the chance to experience.

And my eyes began to hurt more and everything began to burn with a pain I've felt before.

Then everything stopped and I smelt the books and the moss and the rain, even as the sun stung me.

Then the light faded away as a hand covered my eyes, so warm yet it didnt burn me.

I was pushed into a chest; forced to listen to a shallow heartbeat. I struggled against the hands, and clawed at their back but I truly just wanted to be pressed further into this darkness and fade away with this pain.

"Nicoletta," Landon sighed, "Take whatever that is in your hand and lock it in the dungeon."

Without another word, I was carried into this darkness, reluctantly snuggling against the smell of books and moss and rain.