.jpg)
x
In between caring for my sisters and working my buns off to keep the lights on, I took a few moments to myself here and there, whether it was a walk down the High Road, or a visit to the market. As the girls grew older, I felt more confident leaving them on their own, and they'd developed their own circles of friendship, giving them plenty to do on weekends, so long as they had their phones on them at all times, something they readily agreed to. I never left them to their own devices without making sure they were with a trusted adult, since werewolves were still somewhat of ananthema to the general public, despite years of co-existence with the mortal world, and there were those who believed all the superstitions surrounding the supernatural, and beings not of human origin still came in for nasty words at best, and outright assault at worst.
Luckily the girls' friends were all very accepting of their nature, and their parents were just as welcoming. More often than not, they would all gather at one or another friend's house for pool parties, and the weekend was wasted where they hadn't spent hours playing, splashing and swimming about. This left me more leisure, and it gave me a chance to make a few friends of my own here and there. The end result was that we would all be out of the house entertaining ourselves in one fashion or another, and it was a refreshing break from near-sixteen-year-old teenage girls who were starting to show a wee bit more attitude than I liked. They'd all learned to shift, and had found their wolves, and I was growing a bit more wary of them. Luckily, local packs provided a good way for the girls to meet potential mates, and as their sixteenth birthdays drew closer, I decided to have a party for them, whilst also seeing if mingling with their own kind might tame the beasts that were slowly, but surely starting to surface.
117Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlEHwL5EZeJ
The day of their party dawned clear, bright and hot. The eight of us had turned the place inside out to put it in decent condition, and I was pleased with the result. "It's okay," Charity said dismissively. "It could be better."
Prudence snorted. "I'll say," she said, throwing me a slanted look which carried more disdain than I'd ever seen from her. "Oh well. That's what you get when you have a human doing only half the work."
I resisted the urge to bite back; Prudence was good at digging, but I'd learned a long time ago it was better not to engage. Prudence was also good at playing the innocent victim when she wasn't getting her way, and she'd already gained a bit of a bad reputation among some of the local packs around Seven Sisters. "Let's get ready," I said instead. "Your first guests will be arriving shortly."
Chastity sneered at me. "You mean we should get ready," she said. "You're not a part of this, remember?"
"There you go, thinking you've got a say in this household," Temperance added.
I stared, openmouthed in shock. Never had they been this rude to me, not even when they'd first moved in. All of them were giving me looks of pure loathing, and for the first time since they'd come into my life, I suddenly felt like the tables had been turned. No sharp words were going to save me now. "Right," I said, taking a deep breath. "There you go, then. Go get ready, and I'll be on hand to ..."
"No," Faith said sharply. "You are going to stay out of the way. This is our day. You might have set this up - and done a piss poor job of it, by the way - but now it's our turn."
I took another deep breath, about ready to deck them as they stood there. "Fair enough," I said. "If that's how you want it, then I guess that's how you'll have it."
Hope sniffed. Patience and Charity turned their backs on me and flounced to their room, and soon I was left on the landing, feeling as if the earth had just dropped out from under my feet. It was not a nice feeling, but, truth be told, I knew I was always going to feel an outsider today. Even so, as I made my way to my room, I felt a bit saddened. My sisters had been almost decent in the years following Dad's and Angela's passing, but now they'd taken the reins, and as I shut the door behind me, I suspected it was only going to get worse.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
