December 24th 2009: A few hints

It wasn’t hard to get out of the house. Serena had taken her own car here and ditching Liam was simple when he saw the pout that both Serena and I had given him. We jumped into the car and she drove off into the night. I told her where to drive to and she seemed confused by the final destination.

We were in the location of where it all began; the field where the bon fire had been. I jumped out of the car and breathed in the air. I looked up and saw the half moon it wouldn’t be long before the full moon would arrive and I would once again change. Serena was shivering and she was making a scene.

"Why are we here?"

"This is where I met Liam." She still was confused and it was obvious that I would have to give her more. "He is why everything is different."

My body shivered, I was walking a very thin line. My body wouldn’t give clear answers she had to understand and figure it out. Serena looked at me still cold and looking at me like I was insane.

"You said that nothing happened between you and him?"

"I didn’t say nothing… He’s really important to me. We never slept together. He…" I was searching for words in my mind that didn’t give her too much. "He saved my life."

She wasn’t sure what it all meant, it was the hardest thing to watch. Her mind was hitting all the wrong targets. She would always know something was up and that would annoy her more than anything, well almost as much as me not coming straight out and telling her.

"Please tell me what is going on. I’m not getting it? When did he save your life?" I could tell her this.

"Remember that I blacked out? Well I was in the car crash." She was shaking her head no and mumbling quietly enough for me to only pick up her saying Bramm’s name. "He’d lied. Come on we both know he’s really good at that."

Serena couldn’t understand what that meant but it did lead her down a path that could help her. She was shivering but now in deep thought stopped complaining about it. I grabbed the keys from her and got back in the car. I’d felt completely comfortable but Serena started to look like an ice cube with legs. She didn’t question where I was taking her next which I was glad about because I didn’t know either. She turned to me when I was at a stop sign and looked pale.

"How the frick weren’t you hurt? I saw that SUV. You would have been all types of colors. Bramm still walks with a slight limp." The wheels in her head started to ask a good question and my answer was going to cause even more questions.

"I was."

"How? I saw you the morning after! You were better than I was doing and I’d gotten home without a car crash." I couldn’t answer her. It would be impossible without breaking the "no telling" clause that was in the werewolf code of ethics. After an awkward five minutes of dead silent driving she thought of something else. "You can’t tell me? You marred a guy I’d never even seen before your marriage to him. You survive a car crash beaten up but in the morning you’re healed. Liam saved your life."

"Yes." I was proud that she added in the marriage to Lysander without my help. Maybe she would get somewhere tonight. "Anything else?"

"Greek?" She softly blurted out; I looked over at her unsure if that was a question. We were quiet for a moment again when she finally freaked out. "I need to go home, NOW!"

"Okay." I drove quickly to her house and parked the car on her drive way. This would be the last clue I would give her. She may not even get the clue and that made me sigh heavily. I hopped out of the car and looked over at her. She was slightly more confused.

"How are you going to get home? It’s freezing out here and your house is…" I cut her off.

"I’m gonna walk it. It’s actually kind of warm out to me. See you tomorrow night for dinner at my house." I turned on my heals without another word. She had her list of clues that I could give her. Though I pulled out my phone and texted her a warning, "Don’t tell Liam…"

I got home after staying on the roads; it was nice to stretch my muscles and feel safe in my own town again. I got home to Liam eating a large sandwich and Lysander sitting on the edge of the couch. He was worried but instantly better when I entered through the door. It was sweet that he was worried but I was a big werewolf. Lysander got up and followed me up the steps to his room. It really was pointless to have the room at the end of the hallway but I held back saying this because of Liam’s welcoming gifts.

"What did you two do?"

"Oh drove around, Ah talked, girl talk and all that. She asked me if I was pregnant. Is that even possible anymore?" I always thought one day maybe, if I met the right guy and I thought we were capable of not completely screwing the kid up. But now with being asked that silly question I wondered if it was actually possible to do that. Lysander smiled and blushed. I was shocked by his blushing, he was many things but shy and insecure where not him. He sat down on the bed and nodded.

"Ah with another were or a human man. Umm but if I impregnated a human woman bad things would happen." I looked at him puzzled and he continued after taking a deep breath. "Well a werewolf child changes in the womb during a full moon like we do. If this happened to you it would be normal you couldn’t tell the difference. If a human woman had gotten pregnant by a werewolf male then at first they wouldn’t be able to tell. At first then later it would tear them up on the inside. Teeth and claws are razor sharp while a baby. I’ve only heard stories but none of them end well for the human women or for the babies. It’s an unspoken law to not have relations with human women but there are many more males then females in the Were world."

"Yeah you told me." I thought about Serena and Liam. "Is it easy to get pregnant if you’re a human and were?"

He took a second to understand my question then he laughed. He stopped before continuing with an answer but a smirk was still slapped across his face.

"Liam isn’t going to… What is the term? Oh right, knock up Serena." I felt a little relieved. "But if he did get her pregnant I’d have to turn her. I think that’s the only way to save her but I’m not sure if that would kill the baby."

I let myself fall onto the bed completely at a loss for words. Lysander fumbled around for a few minutes and it was a calming thing to listen to. I closed my eyes and my mind kept drifting back and wondering if Serena would think back to the time I’d mentioned Lycanthropos. If she could think of that moment then maybe she could make a connection.

I felt Lysander fall above me. He caught himself on the bed holding himself a half an inch above me, I opened my eyes, smiling. His blond hair fell forward and his blue eyes locked on mine, he waited for me to kiss him and I held out for almost a whole minute, trying to see if he’d break. His mouth tasted like mint and how I’d decided to make mint one of my favorite flavors. Everything felt easy between us now, he always wanted to kiss me and I always wanted to kiss him. I wanted more too, but I was so happy with kissing I didn’t know how to ask for more.

I was never good at making moves. I was good at other things. Talking about useless things, watching movies, talking about important things, being there, but I always felt like I wasn’t told what I was supposed to do. I’d hadn’t a lot of practice in this area, though my drama teacher golden rules was "Fake it till you make it!" I thought maybe I could take his advice and use it now. I rolled on top of him and started to remove my top. I felt my face go beet red as I tossed it to the ground but Lysander just looked up at my face and smiled lovingly and we continued to kiss. I took the lead for most of it because I decided that he wanted more too, but he didn’t want to push me into anything.

The morning after was perfect, he holding me next to him. It was almost like the cheesy chick flick movies until Liam barged into the room and then seemed appalled. I shhh’d him and stole a bed sheet and walked out of the room with him. He just stood leaning on a wall snickering at me as I tied off the top of the sheet so it wouldn’t fall off.

"Oh shut up." He grabbed my hand and led me down to the living room where a nice green fir tree stood fully decorated in perfect Christmas fashion. I looked down and saw that underneath the tree was a bunch of perfectly wrapped gifts. I hugged Liam who smiled at me.

"So you like it?" I nodded. "Lupa is a wiz at cooking so she’s handling this huge turkey. Things like as big as our heads combined. Serena is coming over in a few so you may wanna get some clothes on."

I rolled my eyes at him but followed orders and went up stairs to change into something more festive. I put a pair of jeans on and then a nice white sweater. I even put on very tacky holiday socks that had Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. As I slipped on the last sock Lysander grunted and opened one eye.

"Are you okay?"

"I’m perfectly fine." I leaned down and kissed him. He seemed at peace for the first time since I’d been attacked but I knew he still wanted to kill them and I did to, well more of them. I was tempted to just lie back down and forget about Christmas, because Lysander was my charismas gift and I wanted nothing else.

"I should get dressed. Serena is coming up the drive way." He said disappointedly. "All for the best, she’ll want to steal both you and Liam from me."

He smiled at me showing his teeth and making me think of the taste of mint, I blushed. Lysander was seconds from asking me why when I went back down stairs to find Lupa talking to Serena. Serena seemed happy enough and she had come to the house. She didn’t figure it out, I couldn’t blame her. I had given her almost nothing to really go on, I would have been shocked if she had figured it out. Maybe it was better but then again she wouldn’t understand when Liam and I disappeared and rapidly a knot built itself in my stomach. She smiled and waved me over, smiled back without thinking.

Lupa was peeling potatoes and talking about the weather, it was all to casual for me to stand. Poor Serena knew nothing of the danger she could be in if she pissed off myself or anyone else who happened to be living in the cabin of werewolf’s. She didn’t seem to willing to start a fight and just nodded along with Lupa’s comments on the snow that was apparently falling out side. I looked out the window and saw that it was falling fairly heavy and looked to only get worse according to the weather man Serena said, and I detected a faint hopeful sound in her voice when she would only get worse. I didn’t understand it but I could tell she would be happy to have the weather get worse. She hated driving in the icy slippery roads and it only made worse by having to drive it at night. I didn’t ask because I waited for when Lupa finally stopped her polite casual chit-chat with Serena, though through the never ending conversation I was an active listener by nodding and agreeing in the right places.

As I thought Serena grabbed me and pulled me into the still empty living room. We sat on the couch closest to the fire and stared at me. She looked me up and down and looked for something. She grabbed my hand and looked down at the scar I had gotten from Liam’s bite; I hadn’t given it a second thought because it stopped glowing or causing me pain. Serena bit her lip as if she was hoping it wasn’t there.

"Liam has one too but it’s more on his wrist then his hand. His bite mark or scar thing bigger." She’d stumbled on to something I didn’t even think to give her last night. I was more than proud of her and now I was worried. Just because she figured it out didn’t mean she would want to continue being my friend or Liam’s girlfriend. "Lysander has one two doesn’t he?"

I stopped it the night of my change when I refused to look down to their lower half. It was on his shoulder and it looked more like a wolf bite then what Liam or I had had. I nodded at her question, it didn’t give anything away to give her an answer. She leaned back in the couch and put her hand to her face mumbling to herself. Liam and Rollo came back into the room both caring logs for the fire and both covered in a pile of slowly melting snow. Liam put the wood down and walked over to Serena, Serena pulled him down and kissed him. A bit aggressively and Liam pulled as gentlemanly as he could away. Liam’s face had said it all, he liked kissing her but was slightly confused by the ferociousness of the kiss.

"I just missed you, I didn’t see you a lot last night." Liam took a second but accepted this as a good enough reason for the kiss.

"Well I have to go help Rollo outside still but when I get back." He smiled lightheartedly and followed Rollo back outside. I looked at her and continued to wait until she spoke uncertain what she would say about her kissing encounter just then.

"He’s hot."

"Okay he’s attractive." I agreed. No point in objecting this fact.

"No, well yes he is but temperature wise. He was overheated, like he was dressed like that in a tropical beach." She touched my hand again. "You’re hot too."

I’d had an urge to say "thanks but I’m not interested" but I figured it wasn’t the time to make a joke. I was hot, but I was getting used to that heat. I almost enjoyed it being hot, it wasn’t unpleasant. She took more time to think but Lysander had come down the steps wearing his semi formal clothing. He walked in and looked at the fire and put another log in and then turned to Serena and me with smirk.

"How’s it going?" he was a master at seeming completely comfortable went entertaining company. "I think Liam’s chopping some firewood."

"Good." She looked at his skeptically. Lysander raised an eyebrow and left the room shortly after. "You’re not really married to him. Are you?"

I wasn’t sure. Technically it was both yes and no and well it was really annoying now to think about it. I didn’t feel like telling Serena about Sibel because as of now she had taken a stage left exit and hadn’t come back, yet. I hoped she never would but the True Alpha was taking his sweet time getting to us so I didn’t know if I would again. I shrugged this made her glare at me while she thought.

"You need to give me more. So far I’ve alimented a lot of things but I’m not close to anything. I know it." She threw hands up, she was more than frustrated. I patted her back and thought carefully about what I was going to say.

"You need to think about what I’d asked you about. Remember last night when you said Greek…" I was leading her and I found myself on the gray line again but this time I was starting to trip and I had a feeling I would fall on black. She started laughing and smiling at me.

"But that was stupid thought. I mean the only Greek thing we talked about was…" The laughing stopped and the smile faded into a wide eyed worried expression. She opened her mouth to say something when the sound of someone knocking the door broke the moment. I got up and walked over to the door, it was my mother who hugged me tight. I was happy to see her but her timing was off. She was overjoyed and pointed to sisters Ellen, Eden, and my brother Dean. My sisters both came up to me and Eden started tearing up. My dad and Dean started to take out gifts out of my dad’s oversized blue truck. Lysander came down the stairs and my sister’s looked at him like he was a criminal. He paused half way when he saw all of them.

"Lysander, these are my sisters. Eden and Ellen." My brother walked in and Lysander looked a tad worried. "This is Dean."

Lysander walked the rest of the down and shook Dean’s hand and got an awkward hug from each of my sisters. Rollo and Liam walked into the house. The next twenty minutes were filled with my family introducing themselves to Rollo and Liam. In which time Serena stared at me from the couch deep in thought. Liam managed to notice Serena’s mood and went over to the couch. I wanted to go over there and help but my sister’s forced me into mine and Lysander’s room.

My sister Eden was the eldest sister, but Ellen was followed shortly after, less than a year between them they were both ten years older than me. Both though where beyond beautiful, both slender and dark hair with green eyes. They could almost pull of being twins except for the height thing. Ellen was almost half a foot taller than Eden. I’d always been hard on myself because I judged my beauty off of them it didn’t help that my mother did the same thing.

Eden locked the door behind us and Ellen sat me down on the bed and looked at me. Ellen was a model but they both looked like super models. Even in the blissfully tacky Christmas clothing the no doubt where forced to wear by mom they seemed camera ready with perfect makeup and hair. Eden sat down next to me and then took a long breath before asking.

"Are you pregnant?" Eden said gently but I got the nagging feeling they were going to play good cop, bad cop with me as the already guilty convict.

"No." I blushed, I was always told by these two to never have a boyfriend yet here I was with a husband.

"Then why not wait?" Ellen chimed in. Both of them started touching my stomach. "Have you been working out?"

I was pudgy at one point, maybe they forgot that I had been losing weight but I nodded yes. They both stopped touching my stomach. I was grateful to not have them not touching me it was easier not to say something stupid.

"So? Why not wait?" Ellen repeated herself. I shrugged. "You could have done this after high school or college. Wait until we could have all been together and watched you."

Great, I thought to myself I get a guilt trip for Christmas. Family is a wonderful thing, I did feel bad that they didn’t get to see me in a wedding dress but I was glad to not have that pressure. I told them sorry and they started asking questions about Lysander. They asked every question that popped into their heads, not waiting until they had asked all of them.

"Umm well, his parents died. He’s wealthy enough. Liam is his younger brother who is dating Serena. I love him and yes he’s very well…" I faked coughed. Thankfully someone knocked on my door. Eden opened the door to reveal my mother who looked worried.

"The roads just closed down. Outside it’s getting worse." My mom said calmly. Lysander walked up behind them and walked into the room.

"It’s fine. You and your husband can take the spare at the end, and if you don’t mind you two can sleep in the other spear across from it."

"How many spare rooms are there?" Eden asked returning to the bad cop tone of voice.

"Three and both couches are pull outs." He said calmly with a dashing smile. Eden raised an eyebrow.

"That means you have five bedrooms? Only you three live here, why so many?" My sister Ellen asked. I suddenly hoped to be around when I meet her husband. I would make him regret saying "I do" to entering this family.

"Family visits, a lot. Like now." Lysander said. "Lupa was wondering if any of you ladies would like to help cook. She has more people to cook for and well needs a few extra hands."

My mother forced Eden and Ellen to follow her out the door and my mother closed the door behind them. It was a weird jester that was meant in the best way. Lysander dropped his big smile and relaxed he looked at me.

"Is it really okay that they stay?"

"Well not really… The roads are getting worse by the second. They could be closed for a couple of days."

"What’s wrong with that?" Honestly baffled by how this was an issue.

"You’ll have to change in a couple days." Lysander looked concerned and stopped talking to me. He took a long time to tell me something. "If they don’t leave by the afternoon of the thirtieth then they might all have to be changed."

"What?"

"Well I can’t kill them!"

"WHAT!?"

"If they see us change those are the options we have." Lysander looked down at his feet. I went to the door and slowly opened the door. "I’m sorry. I didn’t think."

I continued walking down the steps and walked down to Serena and grabbed her and pulled her outside. She had just enough time to grab her snow coat. She wasn’t unhappy to be talking to me because she wanted answers but I could tell she wished to be somewhere with a heater.

"Finally... Okay umm… So you’re…" Serena couldn’t say the word. "Greek."

"Lysander is." I made it clear that Lysander not Liam was Greek. Serena took a few moments to through the facts in her head.

"Liam’s not… Greek."

"He’s German and Jewish. He might have a tiny trace of Greek." I said. Serena nodded.

"There not really related then?"

"They are, just a bit of an age gap." I laughed at my joke, she didn’t get it. I didn’t blame her to not get it but she was starting to frown and be cross with me.

"What is it? Just say it!" She knew, I could tell. Maybe she wanted to be in denial but I couldn’t lie to her anymore or tell her the truth.

"I can’t. You have to figure it out." I paused. "You have to guess."

"There’s no way. No. Can’t happen. They aren’t real." I knew what she was talking about and she was scared and panicky. She paced around me making a large circle around me in the foot deep snow. She stopped and took deep breaths and I stayed calm hoping my best friend would try and kill me in my sleep after she said it. "Liam and you and him… How? It was a story! No."

I waited feeling the snow melt threw my jeans, she needed to think and me talking wasn’t going to help. Though I wanted nothing more than to tell her and just get it over it. Serena finally just feel into the snow and I hopped over to her. She was smiling now, I held my hand out to help her up and she pulled me down.

"Okay. Your…" she laughed again. "A wolf? No you’re a werewolf? And so is my boyfriend and your kind of fake husband."

She laughed so hard as if it was all a big joke. she laughed for a long time and felt like she waited for me to join in her laughter. I couldn’t make myself laugh at the matter. She stopped and looked at my face and could no longer laugh so she sat up. She wasn’t done yet though she looked serious and said something really stupid.

"Prove it." She cocked her head to the side an put her hands on her hips.

"I can’t I’m new at it." I said without a worry. "Liam or Sander because then they would have to change you."

She stopped talking and thought for a moment about it. Then a smile went across her face and she nearly jumped and did a cheer.

"Why not? Liam and you are and it’s…"

No, this isn’t right. I held up my hand to stop her from finishing her sentence. Didn’t she realize what she would have to give up? I would love to have my friend with me as a werewolf but she was smarter than me and had a bright future that would never need to involve a transformation into a wolf.

"You mom, your family in Greece these are just a few things. This may be the last time I’ll get to see my sisters and my brother. So please think about what you’ll have give up before you ask for this. Plus you have to be…you have to take your close off to… change." I said awkwardly, I still didn’t like that aspect of it but not much I could do about it. Serena just stood there and made a scrunched disappointed face. Liam walked into the house and sat in the snow next Serena and swung an arm around her.

"What up? You’ve been acting weird all day." Liam said trying to be a good boyfriend and I liked him just a little bit more like it. I did on the other hand feel a spike of fear if Serena blabbed that I had led her to find out what he was.

"School, just worried about grades." She lied and Liam could tell but he held back saying anything. What surprised me was when Liam looked up at me and saw right threw me, as if he’d been listening in and knew are big secret. I slowly breathed in a big breath, counting the seconds as his stare gained intensity. As I let out the breath I saw the fog rise and disappear, still counting the seconds. I continued to count till he lowered his gaze which was a grand total of one hundred and fifty eight seconds, making over two minutes. It seemed strange to me those two minutes felt as if I had spent the time drinking pure adrenaline and then asked to sit still.

"Serena? Love…" he’d said love for the first time with a long lost German accent that fit him. "What were you and Eve here talking about?"

I stopped breathing in that moment, his fist clenched as if he had had noticed but I had barely made a sound. Serena was beyond quiet herself making it much more obvious that I had made a much bigger mistake then I had thought this was. Liam swallowed hard as if holding back words and saving them for later. I could tell words would come later; probably much worse would come later according to Liam’s cold rage. Serena started shaking and Liam’s attached went to her, he picked her up and took her into the house. Though soon after, as if this day couldn’t get any weirder, Dean and my father were walking out of the house with Lysander and Rollo.

It seemed too odd to see the difference between them. All of them carried an axe, but Lysander and Rollo held there’s easily as if the axes where made of balloons filled with helium and Dean and my father held them like heavy axes. Dean was a young college dropout who has always tried to be too much like our dad but never managing to the cruel mean parts which I loved him for. We never spoke much but somehow I’d always known he carried a heavy weight on his shoulder after partying to hard and losing his baseball scholarship. He wasn’t a talker before it had happened and that incident pretty much made him take a vow of silence. He waved with an his only empty hand and gave me a smirk/smile that he’d made his own personal trademark and followed the group.

Lysander smiled a secret shy smile that only I knew what it meant and I smiled back at him. Rollo nodded in my general direction in a polite way and then there was my father. My dear old dad didn’t even manage a nod. He walked right past as if I’d be made of a vile mixture of manure and or vomit. I shrugged it off as only years of practice had taught me to do and walked over to Liam’s motorcycle. It had been smashed up and scraped up from hitting a group of Fay, now it looked brand new as if he’d just bought a new one. I knew he’d be back out here to yell at me at any moment. It had been my father’s MO and surely it would be Liam’s next move as well. I had done a very stupid thing; I know that now after seeing Serena’s delighted face. I wasn’t sure I’d been a very good friend by making her aware of what I had become and what her boyfriend was since before both of us were born. Liam never came out I’d waited for another ten minutes before entering the house hoping it wasn’t the wrong choice.

My mother was re adjusting the Christmas tree to her liking while Lupa and her where chatting about raising babies, more to the point me and Lysander as babies. Once again odd, Lupa was nowhere near Lysander as a baby according to Liam’s journal she was much younger than him but it had felt so real so normal. My mother ushered me over to sit on the couch next to Lupa, Lupa threw her arm around me like a mothering figure and I just smiled halfheartedly to make things easier for the time being.

Luckily the conversation between the two mother hens took up all the space in the room. I was able to sulk in my own self stupidity, why did I need to tell her? If I could have kept it to myself in a few years all she’d have to do was morn a dead friend alongside my family. Now after my fake death she would know and she would hate me for it. Even more because I would take Liam away from her as well, she’d fallen hard for him in her own way. She looked over at him whenever possible just to look at him; if he caught her doing this she would blush and giggle. She wasn’t in the room and neither was Liam but I understood why when I leaned back to look in the kitchen. My sisters had decided to talk to him, or play another game of good cop bad cop. They always forgot about the good cop part though according to the annoyed constipated look that most guys got after five minutes alone with the both of them. I had a growing suspicion that Liam would take that anger with him to our conversation that would take place later but I also had a reason to believe that maybe I could go talk to her.

I had ducked out with the excuse of my jeans being wet and only my mother was worried, spouting out things about hyperthermia. I ran up stairs and sniffed the air. I knew she was upstairs but which room? I sniffed by Liam’s door and opened it quickly and quietly. Serena was tugging at the loosely fitting clothing that I recognized as my own. I blushed because I envied her body type, she was smaller than me and her wearing my clothes that looked like rags on her made me concede to the teenage girl in me and feel fat and instantly insecure. I somehow found the will to shove those useless emotions to the side and leaned against the closed door.

"I browed some of your clothes. Sorry I didn’t ask." Serena tone was filled with resentment.

"I just need to know what you told him." I said it very weakly as if I was about to lose my voice. Serena sighed and sat on Liam’s bed knowingly and took a long breath, I had a urge to scream at her to speak but like the feeling I had before I shoved it to the side.

"I told Liam that I figured out what you all are. I asked you and you panicked and said nothing." She laughed to herself. "In other words I told him the truth. I did figure it out alone and you gave me nothing other then reminders and little hints. How old is my boyfriend."

It was the way she claimed him that made me pause. It was a subtitle mixture of skepticism and dread over the answer that I was considering giving. She hung her head bracing herself for the answer.

"Seventeen." I had said finally. "Well more like seventeen and three quarters."

"When was he changed?"

"I can’t tell you that." I wanted to but it felt like a personal thing to say. Even mine, I don’t know if I could ever tell her about my night. I was so cold Liam had to lie next to me to keep me alive like a heating blanket that breathed and looking back it wasn’t something you would talk about with someone who was human. They wouldn’t get it, she wouldn’t get it. She frowned at my answer and I shrugged my shoulders.

"Why not?" She demanded.

"It’s like when you get your first period. There’s not wrong about it, it’s natural, but you wouldn’t want people talking about it behind your back about it." I shook my head again. "I can’t risk losing his trust… again."
"He’s my boyfriend I have a right to know." I shook my head no.

"If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you. It won’t matter because you may have to be changed anyway." A small smiled crept up on her face. I rolled my eyes at it.

"Why?"

I explained to her what might happen and then I told her what I was going to have to give up very soon. Her smile held on for a while but disappeared when I said I would have to convince my family that I had died and if she joined our "pack" she’d have to do the same. Also to have to lie to everyone you know isn’t any more.

"How old his Lysander?" I blushed awkwardly and held my breath in. "What happened between you two?"

I finally got to have my best friend back and I got to tell her what had happened between us. She even owned up to doing things with Liam, we both laughed until my sisters found us.

"You two have cute guys. Sadly the both passed out tests." Ellen said with her trademark pout that was in most of her modeling photos.

"Sadly?" Serena asked.

"They passed which means we don’t get to torture them as badly as we wanted to. Oh by the way Liam is really into you. I told him I would totally make out with him under the mistletoe and he said no thanks." Eden said slightly shocked.

"No worries little sis Lysander passed too." Ellen said trying to comfort me. I had never laid a hand on my sisters but I was pretty sure that Serena and I were considering this but we both knew better then to do this. I found myself taking slow breaths to control myself.

"Both are really cute though. You know if they got any more of them?" Eden asked causally.

"None that I know." I said. Knowing I didn’t know them, but I knew of them. Ah another half truth what a wonderful life I lead. "I think you two should cool it though. They are both really sweet."

"Is that why you two got married? Because he’s sweet?" Eden said sarcastically while poking a button inside of me that I never knew was inside of me. I loved Lysander, he meant more to me than they did. Which instantly felt bad for thinking because they where my sisters but Lysander had always defended me and cared for me so deeply. I didn’t understand why he did but I understood why I loved him. Besides his good looks he was protective and loving and asked for nothing in return. He never asked for my love in returned but I gave him that anyways, I my heart to him the first time he’d caught me from face planting into the ground in front of the cabin, before I knew what I had become.

"You don’t know him!" I spat with venom. It took both my sisters back, I’d never talked back or stood up against there threats or cruel comments or back handed compliments. This was too much though, I was eighteen maybe not as mature as some but defiantly more than them. They were twenty eight and acted like mean playground bullies who needed to feel big because they felt small. "I love him and your mind told you to flirt with him? He married me! He would never cheat on me and yet you felt it in your power to do some backstabbing to test the waters?"

"He didn’t but we would have never…" I stood up and sadly I stomped one of my feet like a tantrum throwing child.

"You’re the reason I couldn’t talk to Bramm! You slept with him you b***h!" I stumbled backward from the severity of the words I just yelled. I felt like a weight had been lifted. Eden looked over to Ellen. Ellen looked shocked and looked down from my gaze. "I liked him and you did that. If you touch Lysander, you too Eden, I’ll…"

"You slept with my boyfriend!?" Serena had suddenly appeared out of the corner of my eye. She had disappeared in my world for a brief moment when I looked over to her, Serena’s face was red with rage and I found myself remembering that I never told her this tid bit of information, sparing her the details but I had been the one to tell her Bramm had cheated on her just never with who.

Ellen had come home after a photo shoot had gone bad. The photographer told her, her but had gotten too big for the dress and it made it look like a lump of badly draped fabric. She had never been told such horrible things and rushed home to be told by our mother that she was beautiful but got instead was a pep talk to go back to school. Ellen stormed up into her room and Bramm who was over at the house had seen her tear filled face. That’s when he decided to ask if something was wrong. Ellen told him and Bramm being who he is told her what she wanted to hear. Then she and he started to do things. I had been down stairs getting snacks for us when I walked up stairs and passed my sister’s wide open door. There was Bramm and my model sister, Ellen doing something that was not on my list of things to see. I was so hurt and scared by the incident that I merely walked to my room and waited for Bramm to come back to work on project for our theater class. He’d walked back in with a large smile on his face and mumbled something about a bathroom break. I knew and he knew that I knew better but I forced myself to allow this lie because it was the only thing stopping me from crying or becoming violent. We got a D on that project because our scene lacked the usual fiery chemistry we’d been known to have. I told Serena and she cried and then got mad. She bounced back fairly quickly and I admired her for it and bonded with her because even though she didn’t know it we had both been betrayed.

"It was all a big mistake! Oh my god, it was the lowest point in my life, believe me." Ellen had simple stated as if saying something about the weather being cold.

"Your ten years older than him! You where what twenty six and he was sixteen? That is illegal! What’s wrong with you?" Serena was getting madder by the second and her fists were starting to shake.

"First, I was twenty five and he was sixteen. And second I told you lowest point." Ellen said calmly even yawning as she said part of it. "Will you relax? I did you a favor… You have Liam now."

"Ellen you need to leave." I was standing between them. Ellen stood up but did not leave.

"Why should I have to leave?"

"El, maybe you should." Eden spoke up softly; it reminded me of our mother for a minute. "I never thought… We need to talk El."

"Eddy this was two years ago. My career is on track and I haven’t even spoken to boy." Ellen said defensively. Eden stood up and took Ellen out with her. Once the door closed behind them Serena turned to look at me.

"Why?" She transported her emotions right back to the moment I’d told her he cheated.

"Did he do it? Because he’d felt like it. Why didn’t I tell you? Because, I was taken advantage of by my best friend and my older sister. I couldn’t deal with it." It was honest.

"You’ve kept a few things from me haven’t you?" I had but I left that out because it wasn’t the details of the act but the act itself. Would it have really mattered if he had cheated on her with my sister or some other nameless girl? I spared her the image in her mind that would be forever branded in the back of my head. Was that what she was now imagining to make her this upset? I found myself loathing my stupid mouth again. A week ago I was in a coma and life was simple. Serena sat on the edge of the bed and looked at a blank space in the corner of Liam’s room and said nothing else.

"I’m sorry I didn’t tell you." I couldn’t find any other words to say to her. I wished I could help but words to help where to far away to think of. There was a knock on the door, Liam walked into the room.

"Eve you me need to talk." He said it as if under a blanket of calm being near Serena. He looked over to Serena and noticed something was a miss and it wasn’t the baggy clothing. "Serena? What’s wrong?"

I became the third wheel in the room and walked towards the door slowly. Liam kneeled down to Serena’s level and held her face in his hands gently. Serena said nothing as I opened the door and Liam didn’t take his eyes off of her when he turned his head towards me as I started to close the door.

"You go to Lysander’s room and stay there!" It was said in his rarely spoken alpha voice which was something I couldn’t ignore and walked into Lysander’s room and sat on the bed and looked at Liam’s journal sitting on the nightstand. I wanted to give it back to him. I wasn’t interested in knowing more about him anymore. I couldn’t keep so much to myself. Serena knew I held back secrets and information about so much now that I couldn’t stand to keep any more from her. I waited almost twenty minutes before Liam walked into the room without knocking.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"How much did you tell her? I know you know that she knows." I paused a moment to long for Liam’s short fuse. "Tell me, Gottverdammt!"

"Umm." It took me a moment to recover from the German word that was just spat at me. "I told her that word that Lysander was using to give me hints about what I was and my scar. Before I changed and knew it was against the rules. She noticed your bite too."

Liam paced around the room thinking very hard to the point where it looked painful for him to continue. He looked at me and suddenly was on top of me growling showing me his teeth which now looked sharper and more pointed. I closed my eyes tight and every muscle I had tensed up so tightly that I shook from it. Liam grabbed my face and made me open my eyes.

"You don’t lie to me. You lead her to this conclusion and now…" He went on a long spitting of what sounded like German swear words until the door opened and Lysander pulled Liam up and off of me by Liam’s neck.

"What are you doing?!" He said. Liam started speaking German very quickly. I’d never heard German spoken so quickly or this much in all my life. Lysander nodded and his face seemed to frown in to Liam’s painful thinking face. I waited in hopes that an English translation would appear eventually. Lysander sat next to me and looked over at me.

"Did you lead her to this? To knowing about what we are?" I hadn’t lied to Lysander yet. I bounced around ideas in my head to not lie to him. I decided on the truth that I had given Liam. I did lead her to re think the past but all the hints that really made her realize where the things that I had told her before I had changed. Lysander held his head down his breathing became slow and almost invisible, he became a life like statue of himself. Liam was now sitting in the fetal position on the floor by Lysander’s dresser. I looked out the window to see that the snow was still falling. Lysander followed my gaze and his face became even more worried.

"Lysander what is it."

"Liam you will tell her to keep her mouth quite. You got that? No talking about this until out relatives in law leave and then we will answer any and all questions." Lysander said it with a heavy heart every word seemed to make his mood drop even more. "I will decide based on her reactions to whether or not…"

"No!" Liam jumped on to his feet. "Please. No."

"You begged for this girl to be changed!" He bit down and shut his eyes tight as he caught my eye after saying, this girl, as if I had meant nothing and then continued. "You carried her in and placed her near the fire like a super hero and you didn’t even know her! Why not this girl?"

"Because I couldn’t stand to have to kill her if…" He couldn’t finish his sentence for a second but stuttered it together as if fighting back emotions he didn’t understand or know how to control. "She turned out like Sibel. I saw what it did to you and how it affected you even after a thousand years. Can you truly ask me to risk that?"

"Unfortunately Serena has made this decision for us and without a proper amount of information. She is a smart girl and perhaps we where a tad reckless with our ways but if you ever lay a hand on Eve like that again I will do on to you as you do on to her. Are we clear?" Lysander did not go into his Alpha voice but Liam nodded as if he had. "Now you go to her and tell her what I told you tell her."

Liam left the room and things became quiet as if we both had something to say with no way of truly saying it. I didn’t know if he’d truly believed my half truth as Liam hadn’t. Lysander lifted his arm and put it around me gently as if he’d given up on words and hoped I knew what he meant by this jester, I wasn’t sure if I did but I placed my head on his shoulder trying to think how I could have put my friend in harm’s way. If it were Serena she wouldn’t have told me to protect me, at least that what I think she would have done. The quiet filled the room more and more with each passing second but it wasn’t pain or anger filled quiet it was a newly acquired quiet that was fill with thinking and self refection.

At long last my mother opened the door slowly as if hoping not to walk in on something and maintaining the knowledge that the room was quiet so highly unlikely anything hormonal was happening. She poked her head in and smiled and I smiled back without removing my head from Lysander’s shoulder.

"Dinner’s ready and Lupa really did a good job." She said as if advocating for Lupa as a world cooking champion. Maybe she was sucking up to Lysander by complementing his "aunt" to perhaps soften the comments made by my father during the dinner. My mother left without waiting for a reply from either one of us. I was glad because despite the momentary break in the silence Lysander and I were still calmly thinking. It was nice and I knew that we faced a lot once we left our quiet room to the drama filled dining table. Poor Lysander wasn’t even made aware off the offence made by my sister that was sure to add spice to our dinning experience for the night. He gently stood up taking me with him, though my head slid from his shoulder to his arm him being taller than me but it was still a nice place to rest my head on. He let me do this until we made it to the stairs I lead him to the table. We were saved seats next to each other. The seating arrangement ended up being Lysander, me, my mom, my father, Dean, Serena, Liam, Rollo, Lupa, Ellen, and Eden who was next to Lysander. It was a round table and space was fairly cramped but it made it easier to hold hands with Lysander and have it be noticed.

Dinner was filled with stress and yet caulk it up as a Christmas miracle no one spoke of the ill will at the table. Though maybe it didn’t need to be spoken because all you had to do was look at who was staring at whom to know who had drama with whom. Liam was upset with both me and Lysander; Serena was equally upset with Ellen and me. My mother and Lupa where apparently cut from the same cloth when it came to filling up empty spaces with conversation. My father said nothing but grumbled to himself plenty as he glared at Lysander who didn’t seem to notice or care. Eden was staring at Ellen without a definite feeling behind it and Ellen smiled a little too sweetly at Rollo for Lupa’s taste but said nothing about it but her and Rollo’s hand holding took place above the table as a silent statement. I shook my head when I looked over to poor clueless Dean. I felt as if he’d been total left out of the loop, maybe he preferred it that way because he made no effort to find out why only Lupa and our mother had kept the non threatening dinner conversion going with very light peppering of intellects coming from everyone else at the table. The perfect dysfunctional family having the perfect Christmas feast I wonder if this is what God had in mind when it came to spending the holidays with your loved ones.

Somehow the never ending awkwardly angered filled dinner ended without the loss of life or the spilling of blood. Then we all went into the living room and watched a really cheesy Christmas movie that from what I could make myself watch was about cherishing the time you have with your loved one because you never know what could happen. The lesson did not sink in and I was glad when my father said he was turning in early. I told him I would show him to his room and he followed me up the step and to my room which was really just an extra guest room.

"Thanks." He said gruffly and I turned around to leave. "I thought you would be the one, the one who does the school thing. I never thought you’d pick such a hard path."

I turned back around. I had every urge telling me to back talk and throw back something mean he’d thrown at me threw my life but found none that fit just right. I took a small breath before leaning against the door of the room.

"I didn’t choose this. I didn’t go out of my way to find this path. It all just happened so fast and so far I don’t regret saying yes to Sander. I don’t want anything else from you other then you being polite to him." I smiled for a moment before saying something. "You don’t have to like him because I love him and nothing else matters."

I closed the door because my father had nothing to say and nor did I anymore. I paused before walking away from the door though. I had felt better, now when he finds out I died sometime in the not to distant future he could know I was happy. Maybe that would be enough. I walked to the stairs and thought about going back downstairs and sitting in the cramped living room and my head suddenly felt heavy. I decided to just climb into my bed and sleep.

My head hit the pillow and I thought about this Christmas. When did I lose my child like wonder over Christmas? If I thought real hard I can still remember baking Christmas cookies and hanging ornaments on the freshly cute pine tree. The house would smell like Pine and cookies it was my favorite smell and would only add to the anticipation of Christmas. When did I lose the smell? With my better nose it should be more intoxicating, shouldn’t it? Yet I found myself lying down on a bed not caring what was under the tree and knowing that if the snow didn’t stop that I would be trapped with my family for a very long time. Dean and my mom, maybe, would have made a good werewolf but the rest of them? Changing Eden, Ellen, and my father was like begging for three aggressive Sibels. I had lost my Christmas mojo and worst part didn’t really care if it would return. If this was my last Christmas with my family then it was and that was okay. Maybe next year I could try on Hanukkah and celebrate Liam’s side of things or maybe December would become a month like any other, like June or August.

"You alright?" It was not the voice I wanted to hear, it was Serena’s. I didn’t want to be made to feel any worse than I had already felt. "Look Ellen did cheating and I know I wouldn’t want to talk about it if I had walked in on a sibling having sex with your boyfriend. But I am still mad that you’ve been keeping a lot from me."

"What would you like me to say?" I asked simply and Serena took a long time to say anything if it weren’t for her smell lingering near the door way I would have thought she left.

"Liam told me to not talk about it until after everyone leaves. I get the feeling that something else is going to happen besides a Q and A. Liam won’t tell me though…" She paused. "You owe me."

"I almost died, I couldn’t move my legs and then Liam saves my life. For no other reason than he’s a good guy. I owe him by not telling him the whole truth earlier I owe him even more. He saved my life and I can’t remember if I’d even thanked him." She still stood in the doorway and I still laid on the bed not willing to move or sit up.

"But…" She wasn’t able to give a good come back or reply. She and I were in a strange standoff and I didn’t know how it was going to end.

"After everyone goes to bed ask Liam. He’s your boyfriend and he loves you. If he hasn’t said it yet then forget I said it but don’t act like you don’t love him either. It so obvious that it’s ridicules that he didn’t tell you himself."

She left without saying good night and soon after I heard the almost nonexistent footsteps of Lysander. He closed the door and the room was so quiet I heard his shirt fall to the floor. He got on the bed and threw his arm over me. In the pitch black dark of the room it felt like a different kind of light had flicked on. I could see the finger prints that where on his hand hairs that where on his arm. I turned around and buried my face is his chest listening to his calmly beating heart. It was a soft reminder to me that everything would work out because it had to.

The next day past smoothly because Liam and Serena left outside to go ride sleds down a nearby hill. I knew that Serena had convinced Liam for answers but only away from the prying eyes of the humans and werewolves. Lysander hired a privet snowplow to drive down our drive way and all the way down to my family’s home. It must have cost a bundle of money but when I asked him he simply stated that it was worth every penny. So after a Christmas breakfast made by Lupa and my mother they left somehow taking with them a weight that had been placed on all of us.

We didn’t open presents together because most of my family’s had been left at the house. They had only brought mine and Lysander’s. So when they left I opened mine. Liam had gotten me a leather bound blank journal with a fancy feather pen. It was a pretty peacock feather and I loved it. My parents had given Lysander and I a check for a thousand dollars, in the memo section of the check it said it was a wedding/Christmas gift. Dean and I never exchanged gifts so I wasn’t surprised to find nothing from him. On the other hand when I noticed a stocking labeled Eve filled with something I pulled out a rectangular box wrapped in tissue. I took off the tissue to find a pregnancy test.

"Why does everyone think I’m pregnant?!" I said as I held the box in my hand. I rolled my eyes. It had to be from my sisters because only they would think that was a funny gift to give. I tossed the test back into a stocking and walked away. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and feel to my knees as if someone had just stabbed me. Lysander ran out of the kitchen and helped me up. Something was wrong we both felt it. We told Rollo and Lupa to stay in case it was a false alarm but we all knew better. I was having flashbacks to the run in I had had with the Fay.

I ran outside with Lysander to go find Liam and Serena. We ran to the hill where Liam had supposedly taken Serena. It was less than a mile away and took only ten minutes to leisurely walk to and took less than four minutes to run to. We got the hill and found not Liam and Serena playfully sliding or talking.