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As night fell, I made my way through the empty house. Now that they were considered adults by werewolf standards, my sisters had gone to make alliances with the packs who'd come to the house for their party. I knew exactly how they'd be making those alliances, and I just hoped any cubs they had wouldn't inherit their mothers' predilction towards rudeness and downright bad behaviour.
It was getting on to tea time by the time I'd finished tidying the house up, and once everything was put back in order, I grabbed a tv meal from the freezer, popped it in the microwave, and enjoyed the first quiet moment I'd had all day. The party itself had been less a party and more an orgy as my sisters made their way through all the unmated males who'd come, and most of their time had been spent canoodling on the banana lounges or in the pool, with one or another sister often ducking underwater with their chosen male to spend some "quality time" below the surface away from prying eyes. This had resulted in more than one catfight between the girls, since they'd more often than not gravitated towards a lone male, with the end result being a nasty stoush. As the host, I should have been there to put my foot down and help break the fights up, but I suspected I wouldn't have done any good. So I'd stayed in my room, reading a book and listening to the sounds of the party going on downstairs, feeling both sad and relieved I'd been exiled from the event which marked the girls' transition to adulthood.
With tea finished, I knocked back a glass of water before going back upstairs and changing into my swimsuit. Two minutes later, I was underwater.
The peace was breathtaking, and down here, I wasn't the outsider from my own family. I could swim, dive and float without being called a freak, or a loser, or any of the other lovely names my sisters had decided to bestow on me today. On the surface, their words hurt. But underwater, they had no power over me. I dived down to the bottom, letting the water wash the pain away, taking my time before coming up for air, seeing how long I could stay under till the pain and pressure in my lungs demanded I take that first breath. But I was never long on the surface before going under again.
Eventually, I grew tired, and for a while I floated on my back, looking up at the stars. There was no moon tonight, for which I was relieved - werewolves were firm believers in the moon and her cycles, and they were more apt to get with cub when the moon was full. I didn't want the house to be overrun with little step-nephews and step-nieces, but that wasn't going to stop my sisters from fornicating their way through all the local packs.
That wasn't my problem - I was perfectly content where I was, listening to the cicadas as they happily chirped away, with the water cradling me like a mother's arms. Never more than now did I miss both my mums, and though it was getting close to midnight, I let myself go under one last time, taking what blissful moments I could snatch before things turned for the worse. For, as I sank to the bottom, I knew tonight would be the last time I'd get to have these sorts of moments to myself. Tomorrow, things would change. And not for the better.
I refused to dwell on that, though. Tomorrow was a problem for future me. Tonight, it was me and the secret underwater world no one, not even my tyrannical sisters, would be able to take away from me, locked as it would be in the deepest recesses of my heart where no one could go without my say so.
