Leaning into Livingston, I soak up the warmth of his body, missing the intense heat that rolls off my kind.
Every relationship I’ve had outside of the pack has felt subpar. Still, I’m able to be in charge. It’s a tradeoff I’m willing to make to keep my power.
Out in this world, I’ll never be the one at a disadvantage. No one can force us to submit like before.
The thought appeases my she-wolf, who settles. She remembers what being under the thrall of my aunt felt like.
I was only a puppet for her to use as she saw fit. Even Cinderella had more choice in her situation than I did. Desperate to forget the memories, I dance harder.
All that’s behind me now. The pace changes as a slow song comes on.
“Boo,” Kez jeers. I nod my agreement, amused, as she grabs my hand. “Time for a restroom break, boys,” she calls over her shoulder as we leave the center of the packed floor.
Admiring the high ceilings, black and white photos of former members, and expensive carpeting laid over what I smell are wooden flooring, I long for the Victorian home I grew up in.
“It’s fancy in here, isn’t it? Shame they don’t appreciate it,” she slurs.
“You went hard in the paint tonight, huh?” I issue a sideways glance as we walk past the long line of people waiting for the downstairs powder room.
“I needed some air,” she explains. We step out of the backdoor and onto the wooden back porch.
The tall brunette man smoking a cigarette nods at us from his perch at the far end of the left side of the porch.
Kez leads me over to the porch swing and plops down. I follow suit, pushing off from the floor and setting us into motion.
“You know I love you, right?”
I smile and snicker. “I love you too, babe.”
She grabs my hand and squeezes. “I mean it. You’re the sister I never had. Growing up, life was a cold, lonely place. I.” her voice shakes. “I did what I had to do in order to survive.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” I silently beg her to stop her admissions, when I can’t give her the same truth.
“But I do,” she insists.
“I’m here to listen, but there’s no need for it to be now Kez. We have plenty of time.”
“Right.” She gives me a shaky smile. “You’re right. Sorry. The alcohol is loosening my lips.”
She lapses into silence as we enjoy the moment of togetherness outside of the chaotic party raging inside. It’s a last moment to say goodbye to our youth together.
These are the moments I dreamed of when I plotted a way to escape my uncle’s and aunt’s rule. It’s why I referred to the laws to govern myself and bargained with the Alpha to leave the fold.
This is what freedom looks like.
CHAPTER TWO
I’ve done the impossible, escaped the pack and those relatives who sought to keep me under
their thumb.
I hold my head high as I wait my turn in the endless line of college graduates meandering across the stage in alphabetical order.
I, a female beta wolf placed at the bottom of the food chain, set out into the human world outside of our town and rewrote her destiny. Pride blooms in my chest.
Clawing my way up from the bottom of the Thostenson pack, I fought against the archaic, chauvinistic laws to escape the cruel landscape of the small town in Wyoming to be here in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee.
I peer through the tall windows in the back of the auditorium and admire the tall oak and maple trees that stand as sentinels to the forest I often wander.
Humid air threatens to double the size of the natural curls I straightened and add dew to the faces of the women around me. In the south women don’t sweat, we glow.
Proud faces stand out in the crowd, reminding me of what I don’t have. To get here, I exploited forgotten laws cashed in a chunk of my inheritance, and burned bridges.
Every risky move led me to the raised stage, making it all worth it. As they often do, my thoughts drift to my family.
Mom and Dad always encouraged my affinity for art. Running my thumb over the burn scars on my wrist that match the rest of my body, I fight the water threatening to flow from my eyes.
Survivor’s guilt is a concept I understand logically, but will never completely work through.
Sorrow rushes in like a wave. Grief is a funny thing. Never fully over, it ebbs and flows. I hope you’re proud of me wherever you are.
Sara Elizabeth Esham. A group of olive-skinned men and women wave cheer loudly, waving banners with Sara’s name.
A twinge of jealousy and pain hits me. I lost my family before I understood how precious they were. As children, we take so much for granted, because we’ve yet to know the agony of having those we care about ripped away.
I’m not the only one in the pack. I think of all the friends I’d lost to the illness targeting women in our people.
What comes on like a cold, can quickly turn deadly. Friends who had been fine one day were being buried in the weeks that followed. I learned more about death in my early years than some knew in a lifetime.
