CLARA

#Chapter6 CLARA Twenty Years Ago…. Being a sixteen-year-old werewolf certainly had its perks and the top of the list was not having any pimples or zits. Having flawless skin while being a teenager was the best relief because when I looked at the rare human in my school, I nearly shuddered with revulsion. Yeah, vanity is a real thing for me. I’m more than excited today for several reasons; Beatrice, or as everyone calls her, Bea is finally coming back from her month-long vacation to one of her uncle’s beach cabins. Bea was the only human I interacted with, for safety reasons, but also because she somehow really understood me and that wasn’t something I could say about everyone. The only real friend I had was Mona; she was a werewolf too so I didn’t have to keep any secrets from her. Bea had no idea about the existence of werewolves but other than that, there were no secrets among the three of us. I picked up my school bag and hastened downstairs to eat my breakfast. If I wasn’t on time my brother, Rob would leave me home without any guilt. What is it with older brothers trying to exert their authority every chance they get? I huffed in irritation and entered the kitchen, trying to judge what was for breakfast with my super smell. I rounded the corner and immediately came to a halt because there at my dining table were sitting Rob’s two best friends, Aaron Strong and Samuel White. While my brother was in the lead to become the next warrior gamma, which is the warrior leader, Aaron was in line to be the next beta (the second-in-command of the pack, while Samuel would be the next Alpha of the pack. It sure as hell was a power-packed bunch. “Hey, Clara!” Aaron spotted me first and I smiled timidly at him. He always treated me with concealed amusement as if I was extremely funny. I waved at him awkwardly and moved towards the cupboards to get my favorite cereal out. “Thank God, you’re ready. I wasn’t in the mood to wait for you.” Rob grumbled under his breath, and I glared at him. “You would have left me today? Even when you knew I had an algebra exam today,” I huffed and sat down at the table, across from the boys and started eating my cereal, grumbling all the way. “Stop talking or I will leave you to walk by yourself.” Rob mocked me and got up to discard his plate. “Then you will have to answer to Dad,” I harrumphed. Granted, not the best response when I was trying to establish my maturity but that was all I could come up with. “Is Daddy’s little princess going to cry to him because I didn’t give her a ride to school?” Rob laughed at me, and I felt my cheeks burn at his insult. He was always like that, taunting me and mocking me in front of his friends, trying to demonstrate how he and his friends were so far above my standards. I hated how he belittled me and how much it affected me. “Hey, cut it,” Samuel’s deep voice rang out in the entire kitchen, making me look up at him. From the moment, I had entered the kitchen I had tried to avoid looking at him even though a part of me wanted to just look at him all day long. I might have a teeny-tiny crush on him, and I had a hunch that he knew about it. He always made sure any interaction we ever had was in front of a group of people and was extremely careful about not giving me any wrong signals. I was his best friend’s little sister someone he could kid around with but could never be friends with. He was three and a half years older than me, soon to be eighteen years old, a year more than the day he was eligible to find his mate. He was as unattainable to me as possible. Even if there had been no other obstacles, like me being his best friend’s sister and the seemingly huge age gap between us, I probably still wouldn’t have been visible to him because he only had eyes for one person and I sure as hell wasn’t her. *** This place had stopped feeling home by the time I had decided to leave it but as I watched several familiar landscapes, waves of nostalgia hit me in the gut. I could try to pretend this place didn’t exist, but the truth was that this place was a huge part of me, this is where I had grown up and it played a major role in making me who I am today. It had been a bitter journey but today, I am a proud mom of three brilliant children and except for having Brad beside me, I wouldn’t change anything about my life. Not wanting to come off as upsetting or nervous to my children, I straightened in my seat and drove behind Aaron’s wolf toward the pack house. I had grown up here and still remembered all the twists and turns of this place and I had told Aaron so but he had just shrugged and asked me to follow his wolf. So, that’s what I’m doing, following orders because even though I did grow up here, it wasn’t my pack anymore. I didn’t belong here and a part of me craved to go back home. #