Ayla: Always an Alpha

Chapter 34 - Two Obsessions

~Ayla~

4  Weeks Later

Squatting down, I adjusted the shutter speed on my camera before taking the shot. It was Jorge's day to lead training, so after a morning of work, I'd grabbed my favorite camera and took it to the practice grounds.

The loneliness felt more concrete than it had before. Previously, it had been a shadow that trailed me every once in a while, but then, reality sunk in. Now, loneliness was a person, and he nagged me. Everywhere I went, he sat, filling a spot in all the empty chairs and spaces around me.

It had taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I'd never hear from Killian again. For almost two months, I'd carried my cell phone with me everywhere I went, and my mind played games with me. At least twice a day, I'd feel buzzing in my pocket only to pull the phone out and see a dark screen.

I was still giving Saleem space away from me, so outside of work, I had no one's company to seek. Aside from Saleem, I'd had no close friends within the pack to take with me through the normal person to alpha transition. Everyone wanted to be friendly with their alpha but not friends with their alpha.

I'd organized every piece of paperwork I had, rearranged all the books in my office by genre, author, then title, sorted through every item in my closet, moved each piece of furniture in the house to dust behind it, planned the training program for the next few months, and watched the entire Lord of the Rings franchise with my father. And all that had only occupied me for a few weeks. After that, in an effort to keep myself from going idle, I'd returned to my old hobby. One by one, I'd taken the old cameras off my shelf and carefully dusted them off before spending hours reacquainting myself with them.

My lack of companionship was still glaringly obvious to my heart, but at least I was keeping myself occupied. Loneliness walked beside me, but my lens allowed me to cut him out of the picture.

A shadow blocked the light from behind me.

"Getting any good shots?"

I capped my lens and peered over my shoulder. It was Nikolay. He and another of the newcomers had been the warriors assigned to stay after the rest were called back to Alpha Cox's pack. Surprisingly, they'd kept to themselves, which made me think Cox had given up on playing his games for the time being.

"Yes, actually," I responded, squinting up at him in an attempt to block out the glare over his shoulders. "The lighting is really good right now. It's almost golden hour. Everything is warm."

Noticing my scrunched up face, Nikolay moved a few inches to the left, using his wide shoulders to block my face entirely from the low sun. "Hmm, I'd love to see the final product when it's ready."

This is it - a little voice whispered in the back of my mind - an opportunity to make a friend. "I can show you some now if you'd like. I've already developed some photos I took on my film camera last week." I tried to sound as casual as I could.

"Sure." He shrugged. "That'd be nice."

"Okay." I smiled widely. "I'll lead the way."

At some point in high school, I'd realized that I tended to intimidate people that didn't know me. To keep that from happening, I tried to be as approachable as possible during the walk to the pack house. I smiled a lot. I asked Nikolay a few questions about his life back home. I learned Nikolay had a billion sisters and a dog named Tate, which was short for Tater Tot, something that had me cracking up for a few minutes before I admitted to him that it was absolutely adorable.

When Nikolay started to give me a few smiles back, I felt like I was on top of the world.

"These are really cool," Nikolay emphasized after we finally made our way to my library/office turned studio.

My coffee table was covered in photos from the week before. Equipment was scattered between the shelves, and I'd even set up a backdrop in one corner. I'd tried my hand at still lifes for a few weeks, so random items were haphazardly placed in its vicinity - withering flower bouquets, random patterned rocks I'd found pretty, ribbons and strips of cloth in various colors, leaves, and even a random deer skull I'd found in the woods. It was that last item that made me think perhaps Nikolay wouldn't find my work interesting but instead think I was just weird as hell. My style had become kind of dark, so when he seemed genuinely impressed, I practically glowed.

Nikolay picked up one of my favorite photos from the coffee table. The morning I'd taken the shot, a thick layer of fog hovered over the ground, and my pack members appeared spectral while practicing. Wolves appeared from behind clouds of mist. Limbs disappeared as they fell away from bodies.

"Thanks," I responded politely. "I just got back into it, so it's been a bit of an obsession lately."

"I think you're at that point where it's not an obsession, just pure talent." Nikolay's arctic blue eyes held my gaze as he spoke.

I blushed. It'd been a while since I'd gotten a compliment, and an infinitely longer time since then that I'd received one that seemed so genuine. I liked it.

When Nikolay gave me another smile, I felt overjoyed. Ayla Huxley making a friend? Who would've thought?

~~~

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lost, i was lost, i was lost, i was lost til you loved me. now i'm found, now i'm found, now i'm found. yeah you took me to a place, it was safe, it was sounddd

Question of the week!   If you were a werewolf, would you be friends with your alpha? Why or why not?