Page 43 of Escaping Wildfire

Amora was beautiful. She was a gray wolf, like both of my parents and brother, except she had white legs and a yellowish underbelly. She jumped and pranced around in excitement as I watched through the mirror.

I was happy, but I was also sad. I laid down and set my head on top of my crossed paws. The boys were supposed to be here for this…and my parents and all of my other pack mates.

Rory set aside the mirror sensing my sadness. “I’m sorry you’re sad,” She sat beside me and patted my back.

‘Rory has a good heart.’ Amora pointed out.

‘Yes, she does.’

‘She’s sad, too, though.’

‘Yes, she is.’

“We should eat now.” She reached into her basket once more and pulled out a shirt and leggings for me and pointed to the tree she used. “You can change over there.”

I shifted back, quickly changed, and headed back to Rory.

“Thank you, for being here, and helping me through this.”

“You’re welcome, I’m glad I could help.” She passed me a cupcake, and we ate, then she walked me back to my room giving me the third cupcake for me to have later.

19 Step Two

GEMA

I opened the door to my apartment and was surprised to find Larkin pacing up and down the living area.

“Gema,” He sounded surprised and ran his hand through his hair. He was no longer wearing his suit and looked freshly showered.

“I’m sorry I missed your shift.” He sounded genuinely apologetic, which for some reason upset me. If he was truly sorry, why didn’t he just make it? There were a lot of people sorry to not make it, who didn’t even get the choice to be there or not.

“I didn’t expect you’d be there.” I shrugged.

“You’re my fiancée, why wouldn’t you expect me there?”

“I didn’t think we were taking the whole engaged thing all that seriously. After all, you didn’t even ask me to dance at my birthday party.” I put a hand on my hip, and I felt the anger rise in me. I didn’t really care about Larkin being at my shift or not, but he gave me something to direct my real anger towards, so he got the brunt of it.

“You left without even saying anything to me. Where did you even go?”

He looked nervous and cleared his throat. “I…I just needed to clear my head, so I went for a run.”

“A run? Isn’t that just great? My wolf had to take her first run in a practice field, but you went off and ran through the forest to your heart’s desire.”

He had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I can take you on a run through the forest another time if you’d like.”

‘Gema, I know you’re upset, but taking it out on Larkin won’t get him on our side.’ Apparently, Amora was going to be my voice of reason from now on. I took a deep breath before answering him.

“I’d like that, thank you. I’m going to shower and head to bed now.” I changed my tone, realizing that I was being too harsh with him.

“I’ll sleep on the couch out here,” He called out to me as I went into the bedroom. “Good night.”

NOAH

We were supposed to have headed back home last week, but as far as anyone was concerned this was home now. We had yet to find a contact for the cats, who apparently didn’t want to be found. Aaliyah hadn’t arrived as expected and instead called her brothers and told them she was staying through the end of the month. No surprise there as she was likely avoiding Jordan.

Alpha Kedrick had finished the training program for us as he was confident we would get Cobalt Falls back, but I wasn’t feeling very hopeful about that, not tonight when I was supposed to be with Gema during her first shift.

I was busy wallowing in my pain, lying in bed staring up at the ceiling when Cristian barged into my room. “Get up and get dressed.” He slapped my foot and threw a shirt at me.