Melody

39

Three days practically to the hour after Alexander and Melody's self imposed quarantine ended, they were ready to leave. They had emotional goodbyes with Alexander's friends and cousins. Melody felt especially sad to leave the place that had welcomed her when she needed their support, but she was starting to understand the complex hidden shifter society. Alexander and her staying here, put his uncle, his family and this entire pack at risk for something none of them had any part. It wasn't fair, but Melody was already very well versed in how unfair life could be. Thankfully, Melody's arm had healed completely thanks to the vampire blood she had been forced to drink, so the pack doctor was able to cut the cast off before they hit the road.

Once again, it didn't take Melody long to pack up her life, Alexander only had some clothes, books, and a very battered looking guitar. Their entire lives easily fit in his jeep, with room to spare. Melody didn't tell her family she was leaving town. She was free, and thought the less her family knew the better. She did check in with Royal, but only through apps that hid her location and her new phone number. Not trusting that his brothers or father wouldn't try and get to her through him.

"You need to tell me more about your family. They can't be worse than mine." Melody said after they had been driving down the interstate for a while.

Alexander blanched. "What do you want to know?"

"You said you had four sisters, their names and something about them would be a good place to start?"

Alexander nodded sheepishly, taking a deep breath before he started to speak. "Robin. Oldest, basically a clone of my mother that happens to be 17 years younger. Next is Wren, organizational freak. Like any large scale events or moves by the pack go through her, logistics queen." He described Wren much with much more reverence than he had for Robin." Lark is..." He paused trying to think of how to best describe his free spirited and eclectic sister, "Lark is just Lark. Free, wild and creative, and last is Raven. Spoiled, everyone thought she would be my parents last,  she is strong. Born leader." He smiled a mischievous smile, "She hates that I came along after, and that I'm not awful. She wanted to be the first female pack leader."

"Wait, girls can't lead?" Melody asked, shocked and very bothered by the inequality.

"Well, I guess nothing says they can't. But men have always been stronger and won the right to lead." He said, quoting what his teachers and elders had always told him.

"Thats stupid. So you have four qualified older sisters, and then you come around last with a dick between your legs and get to be in charge?" Melody's mom had been Catholic and tried to raised Melody in the church. But once Melody realized that a woman would always be less than a man in a Catholic church, unable to lead mass, or have agency over her body, she noped right away from that. Now learning her new family was just as deeply intrenched in patriarchal bullshit did not make her happy.

"Raven is going to like you too much." He said it with a dark smile. "You are going to give us all a little hell aren't you?"

Melody shrugged,"I was a feminist before, just because I let you claim me doesn't change what I know to be right." She ran her finger over where she had bitten him. He had a crescent shaped scar there. Melody wasn't a wolf, or supernatural in anyway. But Flint had let her mark stick on his skin. Wanting the scar. "Plus I marked you as mine too."

Alexander shuddered, it wasn't a bonding mark, it didn't flood their bodies with arousal like Melody's mark did. But he liked it all the same. Liked that he bore a mark that was hers. He liked that they were equally each others, heart and soul forever.

"You said Robin was like your mom. Tell me about her." melody continued her inquest.

"She has been waiting to meet you since I didn't find my mate in our pack. The first day you were at school. I knew you were mine. I called her, and she screamed so loudly I almost threw my phone across the parking lot."

"I thought you hated me that day. You looked like I smelled like last weeks garbage when I sat next to you, and bolted before the bell rang." She had taken his hand in hers, his thumb rubbing a circular pattern on the smooth skin on the back of her hand.

Alexander licked his lips, remembering that day. "The opposite. You smelled so fucking good, I popped a boner immediately. I was barely able to keep Flint from taking control and marking you before the class ended."

Melody looked shocked at the revelation,"The first day you knew? That explains a lot then."

"What do you mean?" He asked, sincerely confused.

"I couldn't figure you out. I thought you hated me that first class or were at the very least repulsed by me. Then you kept coming around, and then I assumed there was some joke or prank involved. Like who can sleep with the new girl first, or something gross. It took a while for me to trust that someone like you could actually be interested in someone like me." she finished, shyly.

"Someone like you? The strongest, sexiest woman I have ever met!?" Alexander and Flint were both agitated by her downplaying how fantastic she was.

"Have you seen you? Or any shifter really? You are all more perfect than any model casting call! I feel like a short, dumpy weak nothing around the pack. They are too physically perfect."

They were close at hand to a small park that was just one exit off the highway. Alexander quickly took the exit at an almost unsafe speed.

"Where are we going?" Melody asked as she grasped for the handle over her door to compensate for the swift change in gyroscopic force.

"We need a rest stop." Alexander said through clenched teeth.