Wild and Free

(Auden’s POV)

If my performance didn’t deserve an Oscar, then that acting industry was seriously the most screwed up thing on the planet.

All of them believed it. Mason, Mackenzie, Greyson, Riley, and all of the grey wolves thought that I was just a scared little human that was stunned from such an eventful night.

Sure the shock when the boys morphed was completely fake, but the fear was all real. I had to hand it to Cassie as well. Her terror was most definitely real but she never broke completely or revealed anything about knowing before all that happened. She’d never seen me or anyone else morph before so that shock was also real for her and I knew she was going to have a million questions.

It made me feel guilty. Like I should’ve prepared her if something were to happen, just in case. She was never supposed to be dragged into something like that.

Those guys were scary. I had no idea what they wanted. I knew something was up when they all seemed to want us girls instead of focusing on the guys. And when that one followed us after we ran, that was when I really got scared.

I wasn’t afraid of the wolf itself. Even in human form I knew how to defend myself if I ever needed to. No, I was terrified because I thought that I’d been discovered. Celeste was freaking out inside me because she knew that danger was present and normally I would transform. But I was forced to hold in back which was like an inward battle with my own conscious. I probably looked like I was zoned out in such an intense situation.

I think the adrenaline pumping through me was the only thing keeping my act up long enough to get home where I could hide in the bathroom and have a mental breakdown.

Not once since the day I left my pack did I think that I’d be talking to another werewolf let alone bringing one into my house.

My hands shook the entire way back and the whole while I stuck my key in the door to my apartment.

I could hear Mason’s heartbeat picking up speed as we approached. He was confused.

Pushing the door open I stepped into my cold dwelling.

It wasn’t what someone would expect if they knew I was a highschool teenager living on my own. Most would think that my apartment would be a pigsty with trash and laundry everywhere and broken furniture.

Nope. My apartment was the complete opposite.

The place wasn’t huge but it was decent. It had on separate bedroom with a tiny bathroom attached. There was a kitchenette and a small living space. Again, not much but what else did I need realistically?

I kept everything neat and organized, not wanting to have to worry about things being messy. It also helped to know where everything was so you’d know immediately if something was wrong.

Most of my furniture was from the local thrift store, none of which was damaged or disgusting, just in need of a little dusting. Some of it though had been donated by Cassie’s family. They didn’t know the entire story about my life, only that I had a rough childhood and lived on my own. I was nineteen so it wasn’t illegal. They didn’t ask questions and were happy to give away some of their old or unused furniture during spring cleaning.

I tossed my keys into the dish on the table next to the door.

I turned around to see Mason standing in the doorway with a perplexed look on his face.

“This is it,” I said, holding my arms out at my sides, presenting my pathetic life to him. Or, some of it at least.

He knit his brows and took a hesitant step forward into the room, as if a single footstep would make the entire building collapse.

“I don’t understand,” was all he said, voicing the obvious that was written on his face.

“I’m going to get the first aid kit,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes. “You sit at the table and try not to bleed anywhere.” I forced a joking grin, going into my room and then the bathroom.

And then there I was, standing in the tiny apartment bathroom, ready to vomit. After telling so many lies for so long it was sometimes hard to know when feelings were real or not. At some point it was all going to catch up to me. All I could do was hope that I was prepared when I did.

“Everything okay?” I heard Mason call a few minutes later from the living room. It was then I realized I’d probably been stalling and keeping him waiting.

I took a couple breaths, swallowing my lunch that threatened to make a reappearance, and yelled back, “Yeah, I was just looking for the kit but here it is.” I lied, grabbing the box that was always one the shelf right where I could see it.

When I got back into the main area, Mason was sitting in one of the white wooden chairs at the small round table, holding his shirt in his hand.

He heard my footsteps and looked up.

“Oh, um,” he scratched his neck, “Sorry, I’ll just-”

I rolled my eyes, “Mason, relax. I’m not going to faint or drool over you just because you have your shirt off, if that’s what you think. I can put it in the wash it if you want, it might take a bit though.”

He looked at his bloodstained shirt, “Thanks, that’d be great.”

I took the shirt from his hand, making sure I was holding a part that was not dirty, and went into the small washroom at the end of the hall near my bedroom door.

I came back and got a wet washcloth from the kitchen before pulling up the chair beside Mason.

I handed it to him but everytime he tried to dab the wound it just irritated it and made it bleed more from the angle he was going from.

Scoffing, I grabbed the cloth from him, “Let me,” I sighed, gently dabbing the blood away until stopped.

He looked at me instead of at the wound, “What happened to your arm? Why didn’t you say something earlier, or even scream?”

I shrugged, “It wasn’t our biggest problem at the moment and don’t worry it’s not that deep.”

Leaving it at that, I grabbed some rubbing alcohol and cotton pads from the first aid kit.

“This is going to sting,” I warned.

He just smirked, “I told you, I’m a big boy.”

I rolled my eyes again and continued cleaning, smirking back at him when he failed to hide a wince.

“So what’s so bad about this place that you thought it would be the end of the world if anyone found out?” he asked through gritted teeth, looking around the apartment again.

I stared up at him, “You’re kidding right?”

“What?”

“I don’t know if you’ve opened your eyes since you got here but there’s only one bedroom”

“So?”

I tossed a dirty cotton pad onto the table and looked at him, “So, it’s not a party here every night like it might be at your place. One bedroom mean one bed. One bed means one person. And one person means exactly what it says. I’m on my own.”

“W-where are your parents?” he stuttered, seemingly not believing what I was telling him.

“Oh you mean the ones that everyone thinks beat me or neglect me? Yeah, they don’t exist, or at least not in my mind.” I stated vaguely, grabbing a roll of bandages and some gauze.

I pressed the gauze to the deep but clean scratches.

“So they’re dead? That’s not something to be ashamed of-”

“It’s not that. I don’t know if they’re alive or not,” I told him though it wasn’t true. “They abandoned me when I was sixteen.”

I could tell him was trying to hold back a gasp or anything that would show how shocked and uncomfortable he felt. He opened his mouth to say something but I spoke first.

“Yeah, I know,” I spat, “you poor thing. You must be so lonely. Your life must suck. Not that I think you’d say any of that to me but I don’t need it.”

He shook his head, “I was going to ask if you were okay.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, “I figure that whatever you do and however you survive is hard. And that added to all the mistreatment you get at school for everyone not knowing the truth. I bet no one really takes a minute to ask you if you’re okay.”

I looked at him, studying his face, wondering what had changed.

Not twenty-four hours ago, I dreaded the thought of having to sit in the same room as Mason for English. And now we were sitting in my kitchen, and I was telling him the secret that I kept from the entire town.

“It’s not all that bad…” I trailed off.

“Not bad by Auden standards or normal human standards?” he asked cluelessly.

I gulped and tried to grin at his intention of a joke. The normal human part almost made me laugh.

“But truthfully,” he said, “what’s it like? I know that most teens dream of living on their own but I’ll bet the reality isn’t all amazing. Not to make you feel bad or anything.”

“I know what you mean,” I assured him. “I wake up, go to school, go to work, come home, finish school work, sleep, then do it all over again the next day. Oh, and on weekends I work pretty much the entire day.”

“When do you, I don’t know, have fun?”

I scoffed, “Fun? Yeah the extent of my fun is coming home after work and getting to go to sleep. Training could also be considered fun if you think about it.”

“Training?”

Crap.

“Oh yeah. Holden’s dad owns the gym in town. We train or workout together sometimes,” I recovered from my near slip up. “Like today, we were training before…”

He cringed, “Before we came along and then everything got ugly.”

“Yeah…” I confirmed.

I picked up the roll of bandages that I’d set down and held one end to the gauze. The other end I handed to him and he wrapped it around his torso multiple times before it was secure. Then I used a pair of scissors to cut the bandage and topped it off with tape to hold it.

“Thanks,” he said while I packed away the supplies and threw away the garbage. It wasn’t the first time I’d done first aid but it was the first time I’d used the first aid kit in forever. In any case that I might have gotten injured or scraped up, I would just wait it out until it healed. Why waste the materials?

I almost laughed at the irony because I knew Mason wouldn’t need the bandages in a few hours. But I needed to act as if I didn’t know that so he wouldn’t be more suspicious than he was already.

“Well speaking of what happened tonight.... again… do you want to use the phone to call your friend?” I asked, pointing to the phone hanging on the wall. It was a little old fashion but I liked to think of it as vintage. Plus it came with the apartment so who cared.

He nodded and stood up.

I guessed that his healing process had started because he didn’t seem to be in any more pain.

I went into my bedroom and cleaned up my arm. The scratches had happened suddenly, I hardly saw it coming. While I was in there, I changed into a pair of shorts and a plain grey top before returning to the kitchen just a Mason hung up the phone.

“How is she?” I asked, crossing my arms and leaning against the doorframe.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, “Cassie or my sister?”

“Both.”

“Well, Cassie was really shaken up and confused but Riley got her to calm down,” he explained. “And Greyson said that he took Kenzie to the infirmary and they’re fixing her up. She was still unconscious though but I’ll check on her later.”

“What about them? How are Greyson and Riley?” I said.

“They’re alright. A little battered and bruised but they’ll survive,” He went on.

I looked down at the floor, “I feel guilty.”

“Why?” he asked, confusedly.

“Because those guys, whoever they are, were after me. You should’ve just let them. If you had then you and your friends and sister wouldn’t be hurt,”

He shook his head and walked over to me, “Don’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault. That might be true but none of us would ever just leave you, or anyone else.”

I sighed, still not convinced.

Sure they were all clueless, not knowing the truth and most of them weren’t nice in the beginning, but none of them deserved to get treated how they did.

“Either way…” I trailed off. “So what now?”

He laughed, “I feel like that’s just the million dollar question tonight.”

I put a hand to my neck but flinched when I touched the tender skin, tucking my hand behind me.

I felt Mason’s eyes on me as he took a step toward me, putting only about a foot between us. His eyes were thin like he was looking at something that bothered him, though he wasn’t making eye contact with me.

His hand reached up to the skin on my neck. I felt my skin flush but kept a calm face. Against every instinct I had, I didn’t step back. Instead I just stood there, frozen in place.

“Your neck,” He muttered, nearly touching the place where I’d been choked. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking that you were hurt too.”

I breathed out and turned my back on him to look in the mirror on the wall. Sure enough the previously pink tinted marks had turned a noticeably purplish brown color in the faint shape of a hand. Man did that guy have a tight grip.

I tried to swallow and hide the fact that it bothered me.

“They’re… just bruises,” I sighed, trying to instead focus on something other than the markings. My eyes landed on my necklace and I touched it with my fingers.

“What’s that?” Mason asked, meeting my eyes in the mirror from behind me.

I smirked, “So you don’t remember this?” I pointed to it. He looked at it and I grinned, “Well, this necklace has got a story to it. I was leaving the diner one day when some horrible guy crashed right into me. Didn’t even say he was sorry you know?” I joked with a face of complete seriousness.

He rolled his eyes, “Oh really? He sounds like an asshole.”

“Believe me, he was,” I replied. “But he helped me, and my friend today I guess that makes up for it. Though I still can’t figure out how…”

My smile was replaced it with a serious look, “But really. I know I want some real answers about what I saw tonight, and I’m sure that Cassie does too. Are you ever going to give us any?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, “It’s not that we don’t trust you-”

“Sure doesn’t sound like it.”

He shot me a look, “We do, I swear. Sort of. Anyway, it’s just that we could get in huge trouble for telling you. It’s a huge law to keep our secret away from people like you.”

“Like me?” I feigned hurt.

He shook his quickly, “No, not you, I mean… humans…” he avoided my gaze.

I knit my brows, “You’re kidding right?”

He rolled his coffee colored eyes, “Is something like that is so unbelievable after what you saw us do tonight?”

“Well kind of. I’m still trying to figure out if this is all just a bad dream!” I exasperated, throwing my hands in the air.

Yep, definitely Oscar worthy.

We stood there in silence for a minute, neither really knowing what to say next. I half expected him to think I was a waste of time and leave, then I remember that he would be on his own to find his way back to wherever he lived. And he didn’t really have a shirt.

Before either of us could take another step or say another word, the was a knock at the door.

I gazed at the clock on the wall. It was nearly midnight. Where had the time gone? And who would be there at that hour?

Stepping towards it, I slid the cover of the peephole to the side and looked out.

“Oh my god,” I breathed, swinging open the door.

Cassie nearly jumped into my arms.

“I was so worried!” she cried into my shoulder, hugging me tightly. “Neither of us knew if you were okay until Mason called.”

I peeked behind her and saw Riley standing awkwardly in the hallway. Gently, I pulled back from my best friend and moved to the side, welcoming them both inside. Great, more people into my sad living space.

“I’m sorry, it took us awhile to get back,” I told her.

She didn’t look reassured, and her eyes widened further when she saw the bruises on my throat, “Oh god what happened to you?!” she breathed, worriedly. He coffee brown eyes landed on Mason and narrowed, “I thought you were going to keep her safe,” She stepped forward and pointed her finger at his chest. “Did you do this to her? Cuz I swear to god if you-”

“No, Cass, he didn’t do anything to me,” I pulled her hand down, “I promise he did keep me safe. There were too many of them and they-” I cut myself off looking up at Mason. I knew by his gaze that he didn’t want me to tell them about the deal with the rogue leader. “They weren’t happy about us putting up a fight but we got away,” I looked into her eyes. “I’m okay.”

She nodded, “But why’d it take you so long to call?”

“Like I said, it took us a while to get back. We were both pretty beaten up. And when we did get here, I was helping Mason bandage up,” I told her, gesturing to the wrap on Mason’s abdomen.

I heard Greyson scoff from where he stood next to Mason, “Bandages? What do you need those for?”

Mason elbowed his friend in the stomach and he winced, probably from and earlier injury that, like Mason’s, had yet to heal fully.

I knit my brows in fake confusion and Cassie did the same, “What does he mean?” I asked Mason.

He shifted uncomfortably on his feet glaring at Greyson.

“You didn’t tell her yet?” he whispered.

Mason rolled his eyes, “I was a little bit tied up.”

“Getting bandages? You don’t need those! What have you guys been doing here for last two hours?” Greyson asked.

“What haven’t you told me?” I pressed, in an accusatory voice.

He didn’t answer, only just rubbed his eyes in stress.

“Well then, you want to play it that way?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. “Fine.” Mason’s face slowly clouded with nervousness. “Though I don’t know how any of it is possible, I saw what I saw tonight. That gives me leverage. I can tell anyone whenever I want. Believe me, I’m not the kind of person to use blackmail of this degree. But after my best friend and I were almost killed tonight, I want some real answers. And so far you haven’t given me anything.”

He narrowed his eyes at me for the first time that night and I hadn’t realized how comfortable we’d gotten until then.

“I didn’t think you could be so evil,” he remarked.

“Perhaps near death experiences make people resort to the irrational,” I shot back, recovering quickly.

He and Greyson both traded a look that lasted a minute longer than it should have. The two were probably mindlinking each other.

“Fine,” Mason spat. “Meet me, Greyson, and Riley tomorrow at the waterfall at noon. If Kenzie is feeling up to it then I’ll bring her too. We will explain everything.”

“Wait but-”

“No buts, just come,” Mason cut me off, looking at me seriously. “Until then don’t speak a word to anyone.”

And with that, he grabbed his shirt from the dryer and he and Greyson left.

~~AUTHOR’S NOTE~~

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! there are things that you will find out about the Royal pack in the next two following chapters.

As always, comment, don’t hate, and read on!

~your Cheshire Cat loving friend