Chapter 39
I was in the dark meadow again; the wolf staring hard at me from a few feet away. I took a few tentative steps toward her, watching as she surveyed me with shrewd eyes. When I was close enough to reach out and touch her, she let out a low growl, and I quickly retracted my hand. I stayed still as she rose to her feet and walked away. My steps faltered as I tried to figure out if she wanted me to follow her or not.
When she was a few feet away, she turned around, and stared at me, waiting for something. I shrugged and took a few steps forward. She seemed satisfied that I would follow and took off once again for the dark woods that surrounded us.
She made it to the tree line, and disappeared in the dark foliage, leaving me alone in the meadow. “Hey, wait up!” I called, crashing between the branches after her. I could hear the soft thump of her paws hitting the leaf-strewn ground, but couldn’t see anything. I followed her blindly for a few feet until I could hear nothing, but the total silence of the dead forest.
“Hello?” I called. Over, and over I yelled to the wolf, but she wouldn’t return. Finally, a blasting tone blared through the woods, and I had to cover my tender ears. The incessant sound continued until it woke me from my strange repetitive dream, and I realized it was my phone ringing.
I reached over and grabbed it. With only one eye cracked open, I saw Sexiest Man Alive displayed across my screen. “Hello?” I croaked into the speaker. “Abraham? What’s wrong?”
“I’m wondering that about you. Were you having another one of those dreams?” he asked, his voice heavy with sleep.
I sat up in bed. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“You were upset. I could feel it.”
I closed my eyes. “Aww I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”
He sighed into the phone. “It woke me, but it’s not your fault. Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Wanna’ tell me about it?”
He always wanted to hear about my bad dreams. I loved that about him.
He listened while I recounted what happened for him. “I wonder why the dreams have changed.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing. It’s like they’ve progressed. Like the wolf has warmed to me. But, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
I heard him yawn through the phone, and my gut clenched with guilt. “Your guess is as good as mine.” It was my turn to yawn next. “Why don’t you try to get back to sleep? You’ve got to work tomorrow, and then a long drive out to see me.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“I can’t wait,” I confessed.
“Me neither, baby. Try to get some sleep, and I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
I hung up with Abraham, and to my surprise, was back asleep within minutes.
If only the next day was that easy.
It all started when I slept through my alarm. I hadn’t replaced the phone on my nightstand after my call with Abraham, and had rolled over it sometime in the night, drowning the sound of my alarm in a mound of blankets.
When I finally woke up, I had to rush to get ready, and get to court before they dismissed my case. I hit traffic due to an accident, almost getting in one myself as I flew through the downtown streets.
Thankfully, I made it to the courthouse in time for my trial, but only because the case ahead of ours had run long. I did my job to the best of my ability, but had a strong feeling the jury wasn’t going to side with my client. And, sure enough, after only an hour of deliberation, they came back with a guilty verdict, ruining my months long winning streak.
After that debacle, I got to my car, and found a ticket on my windshield. “Aw, what the hell?” I yelled as I studied the sign I’d parked next to. Apparently I’d misread it, and the free parking wasn’t until after five pm. With a growl I snatched the bright orange envelope out from underneath my wiper blade and shoved it in my glove compartment.
When I finally got into my office, I had a request to meet in Mr. Hildebrandt's office as soon as I came in. I shot a quick text to Abraham before straightening my clothes, and steeling myself for the tongue lashing I was about to receive.
Thirty minutes later, I was dismissed from his office with a stern order to get my act together, and not lose another case anytime soon. We both knew losses happened, but also that this one should have been easy. It was apparent that my head wasn’t in the game, and that wasn’t something he could excuse.
I locked myself in my office after that and called Abraham to complain as I nibbled on the salad I’d ordered for lunch. It wasn’t until I was reading through some case files that the next hammer dropped on my crappy day. One second I was reading, and the next, everything went black. I blinked a few times, but remained blinded. Not even the smallest bit of light could penetrate the darkness I was in.
Soon after, my sight was back, but magnified many times over. I blinked again, and again, as I tried to concentrate, and focus my vision. I tried to continue reading the paper I’d been looking at, but instead of the words, all I could see were the little streaks of printer ink, and small pockmarks, and imperfections in the paper that I hadn’t been able to see before.
With a glance at my computer monitor, I saw each pixel that made up every inch of the screen, but couldn’t focus on any one thing in particular. In a panic, I called the first person that came to mind.
“Hey baby, what’s wrong?” Of course he’d know something was up already.
“I can’t see,” I wailed.
“What do you mean you can’t see?” My breathing was coming faster, and more shallow as my eyes rapidly glanced around the room, finding dust motes floating through the air, and more colors in the bright ray of sunshine than I’d ever seen before. “Calm down and talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes before I explained everything that had happened in the last couple of minutes. It was much easier to concentrate when I couldn’t see anything.
Abraham’s deep voice rumbled through the phone, calming my nerves with just its soothing sound. “Calm down, babe, you’re fine. You just got your sight is all.”
“This is what you see all the time?!” I yelled, making myself wince with the volume of my voice.
He laughed. “Just like everything else, you’ll get used to it.”
My eyes were still closed as I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Abraham, not this time. This is one too many for me.”
This was not the day for me to gain a new wolfy superpower. After everything else I’d had to deal with, this might just be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Elizabeth,” I sat up, and took notice. He hardly ever used my full name anymore. “You are strong, and capable. Nothing is too much for you. Just listen to me, and I can help you.”
I let out a lungful of air. “Okay, what do I do?”
“It’s simple really, the same way you ignore a dirty windshield or scratched sunglasses, you need to look past the small imperfections to see the bigger picture. You can train your eyes to not notice the small things over time. For a while though, you’ll have to concentrate to see past that stuff.”
I cracked one eye open, and then the other, struggling to do as Abraham had instructed. I started with my computer screen and found that squinting helped. With my eyes partially closed, all the pixels blended back together to form the images and words on my screen. I sighed with relief.
I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke next. “Are you okay now? I have to get back into a meeting, but I can stay and talk to you longer if you need me.”
Guilt ripped through me as I realized I’d interrupted his day whining about something he’s been dealing with practically his whole life. “No, I’m good. Sorry I interrupted.”
“El, nothing’s more important than you.” His words both warmed and calmed me. “I can’t wait to see you,” he murmured.
I smiled. “Me too. Talk to you later.”
We hung up, and I forced myself to practice seeing past all the fine details to the bigger picture. By the end of the day, I was sporting a huge headache, and wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in Abraham’s arms.
When I got home, Charlie came barreling at my shins like always, but instead of meowing for me to pick him up, he hissed loudly, and fled to his cathouse. “What the hell is wrong with him?” I asked no one in particular.
Del came out of the back room with her bag in one hand, and guitar slung across her back. She frowned and sniffed the air a few times. “You smell different. Did something happen today?”
Shocked, I told her, “I got my sight.”
She nodded. “That’s what it is. You smell more like one of us.”
My shoulders slumped, and I stepped out of my heels, eager to be changed and on the road. “Do you think that’s why Charlie ran away from me?” I called from my bedroom.
“Probably. Don’t worry, if he’s gotten used to us, he’ll get used to you too. He’s probably just confused.”
But he hadn’t acted confused, he’d acted scared. With troubling thoughts about my pet swirling through my head, I changed out of my skirt suit, and into a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. I grabbed my suitcase and pulled the door closed behind me.
“Bye Bubba, that nice lady will be by to feed you. Behave while I’m gone,” I called to Charlie as I closed the door behind me.
Several hours later, we finally pulled into the long drive that led to the lodge. I bounced in my seat, eager to see Abraham for the first time in almost a week. When we got to the massive house, he was standing outside waiting for us. As soon as Del brought her cherry red mustang to a full stop, I was out the door, and in Abraham’s arms.
He pulled me so tight to his chest, my feet lifted off the ground as he dug his face into the crook of my neck. Breathing deeply, he kissed the patch of skin beneath my ear. “Hi.”
I laughed into his broad shoulder. “Hi.”
He pulled me back far enough to lean down, and capture my lips with his, kissing me long, and hard as his sister laughed from nearby. “Nice to see you too, Abey.”
He took a hand off my waist to wave at her, but then tangled it into the hair on the back of my neck, using it to tilt my head, and deepen the kiss. His mouth moved against mine, strong and forcefully, like he couldn’t get close enough, deep enough to satisfy himself.
Soon that turned to more tender motions as he licked and nibbled on my swollen lips. When we’d satiated our immediate appetites for each other, we pulled apart, breathless, but smiling widely.
He looked so different now with my newly enhanced vision. His beautiful blue eyes were the first thing to capture my attention. I realized they weren’t a simple blue color, but every shade of blue I could name swirled within their depths. My eyes scanned the rest of his face, cataloguing every crease, freckle, and stubble of hair.
He was gorgeous.
“I’m so happy you’re here. That had to have been the longest work week of my life,” he said.
“I’m happy to be here too. This has been the worst day I’ve had in awhile.”
He frowned, reaching behind me to pull my bag out of the backseat before entwining his fingers with mine, and pulling me toward the lodge. “Tell me about it.”
I recounted the series of things that had gone wrong, starting with waking up late, and ending with my cat rejecting me. My nose burned as I talked about Charlie, and Abraham stopped outside my door to pull me into his arms.
“Hey, it’s okay, please don’t cry, you know what it does to me.” I sniffed back my tears, but knew they were just beneath the surface. “Charlie will come around. If he can get along with me, a big bad alpha werewolf, he’ll get over the changes you’re going through.”
A watery laugh escaped me. I slapped his chest and turned to enter the room that was mine while I stayed here. “You’re not a ‘big bad alpha’, you’re more like a big puppy dog.”
He laughed, following me into the room, and closing the door behind us. “That’s just what you think.”
I rolled my eyes and unpacked my things as Abraham tried his best to distract me with his wandering hands. It was only a few minutes later when a loud knock sounded at the door before it was wrenched open.
Evey stood there, one hand over her eyes, the other held out in front of her, as she walked into the room blindly. “If you’re naked, please stop so I can see my friend.”
I laughed loudly at her. “We’re not naked, Evey.”
She slowly removed her hand from her eyes, and took a look around the room, only meeting my gaze once she was certain there were no naked bodies to find. Next thing I knew, I was wrapped in her strong little arms, the scent of vanilla and brown sugar enveloping me.
A small sniffle escaped her lips as she held me. “I missed you. Never get mad at me like that again.”
My heart bottomed out into the soles of my shoes as I hugged her back just as fiercely. I’d spent all this time worrying about my relationship with Abraham that I’d forgotten he wasn’t the only one I’d hurt when I stormed out of here two weeks ago. My nose burned again as she rocked us back and forth.
“I’ll leave you two alone. I have some things I need to take care of tonight anyway, but I’ll see you at dinner?”
I nodded over Evey’s shoulder as I comforted my distraught friend. It had taken me a long time, but I’d finally found a family, good friends, and maybe even love. After the day I’d had, having this reminder was exactly what I needed to snap me out of the self-pitying mood I’d been in all day.
Evey finally pulled away, and looked up at me, her blue eyes bright. “Now, tell me everything!”