CLARA

#Chapter17 CLARA 20 years ago… I was a very bad person but it was so hard to hope for something else. The night before Samuel’s birthday when I went to bed, I prayed for hours to the moon goddess. Prayed that Samuel wouldn’t find his mate tomorrow. I prayed to the goddess to let him be my mate. I bribed the goddess, pleaded with her, and promised to do anything she would want from me. I knew it was cruel of me to pray for that. He wanted to find his mate more than anything in the world and I was asking the goddess to make him wait. I wouldn’t be seventeen in a year and I was praying to the goddess to make him wait a year for me. It was all I could do though, to pray to the goddess to make him my mate because I knew he would never look at me otherwise. I would always be his best friend’s little sister and I wanted to mean more to him. When I woke up in the morning, I hated myself for my selfish wishes. I claimed to love Samuel but prayed to the goddess to keep from him the one thing he truly wanted and wished for. Shouldn’t his happiness make me happy too? Shouldn’t his peace bring peace to me too? The desire to be with him made me pray to the goddess for his misery and I was too ashamed to think about my selfish desires. Rob, my brother would give me a ride to school and I jumped to get ready when I looked at the clock on my nightstand. I frantically gathered my clothes, getting together my outfit because I knew if I was late my brother would take the greatest pleasure in leaving me behind. My eyes move to the clock again and a pool of dread settles in my stomach when I see that it’s seven o’clock. It’s seven hours in the day. Samuel’s birthday started seven hours ago and to think that he could have found his mate in those seven hours, despite my prayers to the moon goddess made me stumble and freeze. My heart thumped wildly in my chest at the thought of Samuel finding his mate today, someone who wouldn’t be me and I feel tears burn at the back of my eyelids and a lump form in the back of my throat. Rob didn’t question my silence in the car during the drive to school. I think he preferred me quiet. I sometimes wondered why he hated me so much. I had seen siblings in the pack and all of them shared some sort of a bond with each other but not us. For as long as I could remember, there had never been any semblance of friendship between us in years. Rob never hit me or anything, he was never malicious but it felt as if he wouldn’t care if I lived or died, as if my existence meant nothing to him. it used to bother me so much, how my elder brother stopped caring about me, how we stopped communicating but now I wouldn’t know any other way. I and Rob just existed, him going out of his way to avoid me while I wondered what had happened to turn him away from me. As soon as Rob parked the car, I was zooming out of the car, desperately searching for Samuel and hoping that the moon goddess had heard my prayers. I muttered under my breath, walking down the hallways, my eyes jumping from face to face. I had never been more irritated by the large number of werewolf teenagers swarming the high school hallways than today. Why did we even have such a huge population anyway? We didn’t need these many horny kids, especially when they didn’t care enough to give me space to walk through. I stopped at my locker, deliberately stalling for some time, hoping to see Samuel before going to class. At the moment, I didn’t even want to see my friends or any other familiar face. I checked my wristwatch, wanting time to go slow, and with a miserable huff, started walking towards my class. I reached my class and just before entering, my eyes met with Samuel who was standing at the end of the hallway, about to enter his class. Our eyes met and the barest smile graced his face which slammed my gut and made my skin heat. With a wink, he entered his classroom and, in my heart, I knew that he was meant to be my mate, someone with whom I was going to spend the rest of my life. Nothing had happened to signify that Samuel hadn’t found his mate but, in my gut, I knew the goddess had heard my prayers. *** I knew I had promised Samuel that I wouldn’t go anywhere else and come straight home but it was hard not to be nostalgic when everywhere I looked, I was assaulted by the memories of my childhood, about the naïve I had been. I wasn’t naïve now and if Aaron thought I didn’t know he was tailing my car, he was a bigger idiot than I thought he was. I parked my car in front of the pack house and looked in the direction I knew Aaron’s wolf form was. Sensing my eyes on him, he shifts into his human form, dons some basketball shorts, and comes out to greet me with a scowl on his face. I smile innocently at him as if I don’t know why he’s so pissed with me. I’m not surprised with the way he looks; his physique is packed with muscle. As the beta, he has to stay in great shape, no matter the cost. “The alpha wants to see you in his office. Didn’t he tell you to come straight back?” #