fourteen

"Hi, Amoret," I heard someone whisper, soft yet deep and familiar. Fluttering my eyes open, I looked up to see a figure of a man, a shadow really, standing next to my bed.

"Oh, I only closed my eyes for a minute," I mumbled, wiping sleepily at my eyes with the back of my hands.

"A little nap, huh?" He asked and leaned closer, grinning enough to show off a dimple in his left cheek, barely a dent.

Then it registered, Flynn!

I jumped up as fast as I could, tumbling around as I wrapped my arms around his neck, "It's you!"

"Yeah, it's me," he laughed, wrapping his arms around me in a loose hug. "So, get into any trouble while I was gone?"

"Not that I know of," I joked, pulling away from him and started tapping my lip as I faked thinking about it, watching as his eyes brightened, the golden specks in them almost twinkling, at my teasing. Before he could say anything else I stopped and pretended to be completely serious, widening my eyes and lowering my voice, "but I think you have a wolf twin."

The corner of his lips pulled down a little at the corners, his dark and full eyebrows furrowing, "And why would you think that?"

"Because there was a wolf in the woods, and he had the same eyes as you, identical," I explained and crawled off the bed to stand up next to him.

Oh, this is different.

"Flynn, did, uh, did you have a growth spurt?"

•

I was eating my grilled cheese, the one Flynn offered to make for me and I had to admit, he was really good at making grilled cheese.

Maybe he did that to stop me from asking any more questions? Oh, I don't really know.

"Do you think it's too late for grilled cheese?" I asked him once he sat in the seat next to me and placed his own plate of food down.

Glancing out the window, I was able to see the bright, glowing and almost full moon.

"No, not really, I'm more of a night person anyway," he shrugged and bit into his sandwich, cheese oozing out as he pulled it away from his mouth.

"It's not good to play with your food," I giggled as I watched him struggle with breaking the cheese off.

"I can't help it," he complained with a mouthful of food, trying to take in more bites of the cheese. Dramatically, he looked up to the ceiling and asked, "Why is it doing this to me? What have I done to deserve this?"

"This is gross," I groaned and covered my eyes, "you're such a messy eater."

He stuffed the whole thing in his mouth after getting fed up with it, "You look like a chipmunk," I laughed.

He looked over at me and quickly tried to finish eating, nearly choking in the process. "Anyway, I have an invitation for you."

"Oh?" I paused, "What for?"

"Well," Flynn started, his hand moving up to scratch the back of his neck as he stared straight down at the tabletop uncomfortably, "I don't know how you'll feel about it, but, uh, I've been kind of ordered to invite you to the party."

"A party? What party?" I asked and leaned over, my elbows resting themselves against the table as I watched Flynn squirm uncomfortably in his seat.

Macia did mention how she goes to parties, she told me once that she would take me to some.

"The Celebration of the Wolves, uh, it's that fancy party I told you about," he paused, his eyes searching the room like he was trying to find something. Looking at him, I could tell he was trying to find a way to explain, racking his brain, turning his thoughts around and around as he tried to find the perfect way to say his next words. He placed his hand on his forehead, sighing as he continued, "full of werewolves."

I thought back to the werewolf I met in the woods, the one who reminded me of Flynn.

"I-I do-wait-I just-" I stumbled over my words, "I don't know what I'm saying."

It felt like someone was tugging me by both of my arms like I was getting pulled by one side just for the other side to fight back as though they were both fighting over me. In this case, it was just a war with myself. Part of me wanted to go, experience the werewolves but then the other part took Mama's warning to heart and wanted nothing to do with anything that involved beasts.

The Celebration of the Wolves, definitely not a human thing.

"You don't have to go if you really don't want to, you can stay here," Flynn insisted, "it's not something you really need to go to."

"But, Flynn, why was I invited in the first place?" I questioned. Pointing to myself and frowning, "Human."

"That's easy to explain. I told my Lu-" Flynn coughed awkwardly, "-sorry. I told the Luna of the pack that I take orders to that you helped out with her dress, and she thought that it would be a good idea to meet with you, to thank you."

"Oh, that's nice of her," I thought aloud, "does she do that often?"

"Yes, she's like that," Flynn smiled, "she's very social, you could say, she always invites Macia, but she can never go because this time of year is busy with the whole clothing business, I guess. I don't pay too much attention to it if I'm being honest."

"Sounds like you, Flynn," I teased, leave it to him to tune out those parts. "Well, I'll think about it."

"I'll be leaving the day after tomorrow, Amoret," he told me softly, "if you want to go then you can come with me, I'm sure that'll be better than you leaving on your own."

Flynn stood up, reached into his pocket and pulled out a bent envelope with a sleek, red wax seal. "Here," he smiled and pushed it into my hands, I took it carefully, gently holding it between my fingers.

"Goodnight, Flynn," I whispered, knowing very well that he would hear me.

He turned just before he went out of my sight, "Oh, and, Amoret," I looked up at him, "don't go petting random wolves in the woods, they can easily rip your hand off if they wanted to."

W O R D  C O U N T : 1156

I wrote this chapter on that long drive and I just finished editing it.

Anyway, since I'm trying to make this book go faster, because it's a little slow at the moment, I'm going to be working on chapters more because I don't want to just throw it together.

Basically, I'm going to have Thursdays as my updating days!

Hope you enjoy this chappy!