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"What are you going to do when you graduate?" Amber asked me as we relaxed by the pool. It was another hot summer's day, and most of the pack were playing in the water to escape the heat. 318Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3nLIalKIiP
I shrugged. "Don't quite know yet," I admitted. "Mum wants me to be a florist, but I'd rather fix cars."
Amber smiled. "I want to fix motorbikes," she said, "but Mother insists I become a ballerina. I've told her so many times I've got two left feet, but she tells me every single time that it'll 'come to me'." She snorted to show what she thought of that. "I told her good luck, but she'd have a better chance of putting a dress on Father and making him dance. She didn't like that at all."
Amber's mother was a seriously strict, controlling woman, as was her grandmother; that Amber had turned out decent despite having her life mapped out for her from day one was a miracle. "I'm surprised she let you come to Reading," I said.
"I'm an adult," Amber said, "and Mother knows I can lay her out on the carpet any day of the week and twice on Sundays if she really pushes it. It burns her up that you and I are friends despite her being at loggerheads with Candy, when it was Mother who turned her back after Father rejected her, and you know she's been a pain in my arse ever since you and I were cubs."318Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbXGWRo6RNV
I knew that all too well; Gemma hated my family for no good reason, and Candy had mentioned on many an occasion that she suspected Gemma's friendship with her had been an act, dropped when Jethro rejected Candy at her sixteenth, having been lured to Pearl, Gemma's older sister. Pearl and Jethro hadn't lasted; two months after they got together, Pearl had accused Jethro of cheating on her with Gemma. Ironically, this had been a self-fulfilling prophecy; Jethro had turned to Gemma for comfort, and they'd hooked up, much to Pearl's disgust. She had gone on and found another mate, but the sisters had never been friends again.
I'd first met Amber when I was a cub, and we'd hit it off, much to Candy's delight and Gemma's disgust. Gemma had tried to throw all sorts of roadblocks in the way of our budding friendship, and Candy had told her off in no uncertain terms, telling her she had no right to interfere in her daughter's life. Georgia, Gemma's mother, had weighed in on the fight, and as a result, Amber and I had often gone long periods without speaking to one another, and it wasn't until we'd entered high school that we'd been able to reunite. Gemma had placed strict boundaries around Amber as a result, but Amber had told her to go pound sand, and our friendship had blossomed as a result, to the point we considered ourselves sisters in all but name. In some ways, having Amber around eased the constant pain that gnawed at me night and day, a pain caused by my own family, the scars of which were still raw even now. 318Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB0s1VhjFU4
The cause for that pain was my grandmother on Dad's side. He and Candy had been close growing up, but their mother, Wanda (who I refused to call Grandmother), had constantly interfered in their budding relationship, sending Dad away after catching him kissing Candy. David, his father, had gone so far to threaten him with death if he ever returned to the family packhouse in Blackpool, but Mum had seen from the start that Dad and Candy were one of the rare couples whose love was destined to be from the start. The upshot was that we went to Blackpool, where, after a few false starts, Dad and Candy had finally become mates, which was about the time when my baby brother Zach was conceived. At the same time, Wanda revealed that she'd never wanted Dad and Candy to get together because Dad was a "mutt", and mother and daughter had parted on bad terms, with Candy vowing to never let her parents meet their grandcub. 318Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDqJHMRd0dK
Except, they had; when Zach was two, Wanda (a widow after David passed away a year prior) had pulled some diabolical legal strings to get Zach taken away. How she'd done so was a mystery to this day, but Dad believed she wanted to save Zach, despite him being more a "mutt" due to his parentage. Mum's belief was that she wanted to somehow "eradicate" Zach's so-called mutt blood by mating him off to a female of higher stature. Wanda herself had refused to answer all calls, and no matter how many times our lawyers had tried to fight for a hearing so Candy could have a chance at getting her son back, Wanda had managed to stay one step ahead of the game.
Zach would be turning sixteen this month, and, as I'd so often wondered lately, I found myself wondering just what sort of a female Wanda would have chosen for him, and how willing he was to go along with it. In the brief time he was with us, I'd grown close with him, and he'd been fiercely attached to me. Mum, Dad and Candy had all agreed that there was a bond between us, a bond I'd felt when I'd met him not long after his birth. Even at age two-and-a-half, I'd felt there was something special, and when I'd gotten a little older, Mum had told me that a predestined bond had formed the moment I'd laid eyes on him. Werewolves these days generally chose their mates through conventional methods, and it was a very rare event for a couple to have their love ordained from the start. Zach and I had been such a case, and now, as I looked back, I wondered if Wanda had sensed it, and had thus acted to head us off at the pass, so to speak. The joke would be on her; like Dad and Candy, Zach and I were meant to be together. No force on earth would be able to stop us from making that crucial first connection. And damned to the man, woman, child, plant or animal who tried to tear us apart. 318Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ04XuGm1SO1
