The Oracle

CHAPTER TWO: LIFE IS PERFECT!

(Eighteen years later...)

Synthia’s POV 

“BOOOOOOO!!!”

I jumped from the bed wide eyed and clutched my chest in alarm hearing the scream while my blue eyed, blond-haired devil of a best friend cackled maniacally like an evil witch.

“What the fish, Sophie! What was that for?” I snarled at her angrily while she stood there smiling like it was raining unicorns.

Well, everyone couldn't be a morning person like her, right? I loved my beauty sleep and tended to speak in snarls and grunts until I have my first cup of coffee, aka heaven on Earth… with loads of sugar and cream!

While I was getting off track dreaming of my sweet love, Sophie rolled her eyes at me.

"Good morning to you too. I wouldn’t have had to scream like a banshee had you, my darling bestie, who couldn’t even swear properly, had woken up like a normal person the last 10 times I tried waking you up like a civilized person. But no, you just mumbled 'five minutes!', rolled over and went back to la la land. Did you forget that school is starting after vacation today? We are so gonna be late now! Be glad that I didn’t dump a whole bucket of water on your sleepy head like I did last time," she said.

I couldn’t help from blushing beet red after hearing her teasing me. I shook my head to wake myself up properly and glared at her.

"Still, that was uncalled for, Sophie.. Wait until I get back to you," I warned her.

She rolled her eyes again.

"Whatever! Get ready. See you at breakfast!" she said, brushing off my warning.

With that, she skipped out of the room humming happily while I sat there grumpily plotting revenge. This was nothing new for us, pranking each other and pranking others together. After all, we weren’t called 'The prankster twins' for nothing.

"Get up from the bed, you lazy ass!" Sophie screamed from downstairs.

I groaned and stood up from the bed. She knew me so well.

"Wait for it babe, I am gonna get you! You don’t think that you could mess with Synthia Williams and escape unscathed, right?" I muttered to myself.

Then, I looked at the clock and saw that it was eight o'clock already.

"Monkeycakes! She is right! We are going to be late!!" I swore.

I blushed, remembering my silly swear word and how Sophie teased me about my swearing habit.

Well, I couldn’t help it. My stupid doodledum brothers made me deposit one dollar each time I swore. When I was a raging, swearing teenager at age fourteen, all my pocket money went into the swear jar. Then, I had the genius idea of inventing crazy, silly swear words of my own and it worked, but the problem was that now that I turned eighteen, I couldn’t break out of the habit... It may have been cute when a fourteen-year-old uttered such things, but from an eighteen-year-old, it was plain stupid. Hmm... I would have to work on it!

I sighed and went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and took a shower in record time. After blow-drying my hair and letting it loose to hang down in waves, I wore my favourite violet T-shirt, which made my violet eyes pop as my friends and family used to say and paired it with black leggings. I wore my black low-heeled shoes. I put on mascara and lip gloss and I was done.

I looked at the mirror. A girl with big violet eyes framed with dark long lashes, a straight nose, red pouty lips, and glossy waist length black hair stared back at me.

I had an hour-glass figure and an average height of five feet seven inches. I had lean muscles from all the training we had in the pack. I knew I was pretty, and I was not going to be modest and claim to be average or anything. I looked pretty, so what? Looks don’t matter. Or at least, that was what I believed.

I knew that I was an orphan, found from the jungle as a newborn, on the day that there was a rogue attack, which was still a mystery to the pack. My birthday was celebrated on the date I was found since I was a newborn, and everyone thought that I must have been born the same day. It never left any psychological trauma on me as many would believe because I was given so much love from my parents, brothers and everyone in the pack. They never treated me as inferior or an outsider. I wouldn’t deny that I was curious about my biological parents or their reason to abandon me, but it was not enough to hinder my love for my parents. They were my parents, even if I was not their biological daughter, and that was the end of it.

I went downstairs and everyone was at the dining table. I greeted them and jumped to have my cup of coffee with cream and 2 scoops of sugar… ha, nirvana!

Now that I had my coffee, I felt more like a human and not the snarling wolf I used to behave like but was not supposed to be.

The pack house housed the superior ranking wolves and their families with their staff. The Alpha family, Beta family and the Gamma family stayed in the pack house, but it was so enormous that each family had their own wing. We met each other only during mealtimes and such. I went and sat in the seat between my mom and Sophie. Next to Sophie was Jared, my second brother. My elder brother Dominic, who was the current Beta, winked at me. He sat near the head of the table where the Alpha was supposed to be.. My heart skipped a beat, just like every time, when I thought of our Alpha.

Aiden Black, six feet two inch tall, with dark brown hair, emerald green eyes and a killer smile with dimples, when he deigned to smile, that is... All this to top a body that would make a male model weep with envy. Well, he was an Alpha. It came with the territory.

Sophie smirked at me, seeing me glancing at the Alpha’s seat in longing. She never missed an opportunity to make fun of my 'major crush' on the Alpha. Little did she know that it was not just a crush or infatuation but soul deep love that I had for him.

It may seem to be silly, but I have always loved him. I never knew when it began, but if you ask me, I would say, from the very first glance when I was just a newborn baby brought to the pack house. Unbelievable, but that is what my heart said.

No one knew how deep my feelings for him were because I just buried it with my crazy antics but everyone knew that I had a crush on Aiden, well, except himself that is. Couldn't blame him, though. Being the only heir of the Alpha, he was groomed to take over the position from an early age and he spared no time on anything else.

While I was pondering this, the man himself appeared and everyone except the elder Alpha couple stood in respect and the jovial atmosphere changed due to his demanding presence. He sat down in his seat and the breakfast began.

I couldn’t help but steal stares at him dreamily, and suddenly Sophie kicked me in my shin. I cried out and everyone stared at me while I smiled sheepishly.

I gave the evil eye to my bestie while she was choking on her laughter. That was strike two, miss! Suddenly, I smiled and turned casually to Jared.

"Jared, didn’t you tell me last night Gina asked you out for the party this weekend?" I asked him.

Jared, who was wolfing down the pancakes, pun intended, nodded his head absent mindedly while Sophie fumed behind me. Jared was Sophie’s mate. Werewolves could recognize their mate after both of them turn eighteen. Two months ago, on Sophie’s birthday, while he was giving her the gift, they realized they were mates.

It was a shock to everyone since true mates were very rarely found and only three couples were there in the pack, including my parents and the Alpha couple. Only one in a hundred found their mate. Also, they had an age gap of ten years, which was also rare for wolves.

He had watched her in diapers since we both were the same age and we grew up in the same house since she was the only daughter of Adam and Stephanie, the Gamma couple. But, after finding out that they were mates, nothing else mattered. The mate bond worked like that.

Their mating ceremony was going to be held next month, which was equivalent to human marriage.

Sophie was like a raging bull now. Suddenly, Jared came out of his food induced stupidity.

"Wait, what?" he blurted out. He turned to Sophie.

"No darling, nothing happened," he explained hastily. Then he glared at me.

"What was that for?" he asked me.

Realizing that I had tricked her, Sophie glared at me. I smirked and raised my brows as if to say that she had it coming. She shook her head as in it was too much and I shrugged. I couldn’t mind link like all the others here, but we didn’t need it.

After breakfast, we headed to the school. We went to the human school in town, and the werewolves mingled with the humans, keeping their strength in check. Werewolves had superior strength, heightened senses and the ability to mind link and they had to keep these in check.

On reaching the school, Sophie was complaining about how we were late and how we were going to be chewed out. 

"Don’t worry, Mr. Shawn is going to be in the first period and he is going to be later than us since he is stuck in traffic," I replied absent-minded.

I turned and saw Sophie staring at me weirdly. I realized what I said and sighed. It had always been like this. I knew random things that I was not supposed to know, such as hidden gifts, when someone was going to do something and so on, like vague premonitions. Nobody could sneak up on me unless I was sleeping like Sophie did in the morning. This was usual for me, and Sophie also knew it. I knew that what I said was true, though.

After keeping our books in the locker and receiving our timetable, we reached our class. Mr Shawn indeed came later than us and apologized for being late, saying that he was stuck in traffic.

The rest of the day went by without any events and we came back to the pack house and went to training. It was mandatory, and I was not spared for being a human. In fact, I was one of the best fighters and I had good instincts, speed and strength higher than the normal humans, somewhat on a par with werewolves; maybe because I was raised with them, or maybe because of the early training.

After the training, I showered and changed into my pyjamas. Suddenly, Sophie barged into my room, swearing profusely. I raised my brows and waited. Finally, she heaved a sigh.

"Who does she think she is? The evil witch! How dare she flirt with my mate?”

I waited for her to go on.

"Gina! That bimbo asked Jared to go with her to the party!" she said with frustration.

She glared at me.

Oops! I said that during the breakfast. Still, it was not my fault, sis!

"He obviously turned her down. Good for him! But how dare she!" she continued her rambling.

I smirked.

"Time for the prankster twins to rise and shine!" I said in my best evil tone.

We did a high five and began plotting.

Afterwards, we both waited with bated breath outside Gina’s room.

"Wait for it... wait for it," I muttered, and there it was! A loud scream rivaling the banshees. A blob of green darted out of the room screaming and we laughed maniacally.

Green dye in the shampoo; not an original idea, I know, but it worked, didn’t it? Good luck getting it clean, you stupid tweedledum! What pretty long green hair you have!

We went to dinner and the elder Alpha couple as well as my parents were beaming happily. I eyed them, confused.

After dinner, James, Aiden’s dad, stood up.

"We have an announcement to make," he said.

He looked at me.

"Synthia dear, we all love you. We never cared that you are a human," he said.

He turned to Aiden.

"Aiden, it has been three years since you stepped up as Alpha. You haven’t found your mate yet, and it is obvious that she is not in this pack. Since you wouldn’t be able to travel around searching for her, due to your Alpha duties, it may be futile waiting to find her. You are the alpha and you need to have a good Luna who would love everyone in the pack. We want to see you stable and settled, son. So we have decided that we would fix your marriage with Synthia since she turned eighteen this month," he said.

"We have always treated you as a daughter and now we want you to be our daughter-in-law," he said to me.

I felt as if my heart would burst out of my chest. 

Was I dreaming or was my marriage really being fixed with the man I love?

I nodded and looked at Aiden to see him sitting stoically.

"I would do what is best for the pack," Aiden said, then stood up and left. He didn’t seem to be enthusiastic about marrying me. 

So what? Love can come with time. I would give him all the love in the world so that he would have no choice but to love me back. 

I always believed that he was my mate and even checked by ‘accidentally’ touching him after my eighteenth birthday, hoping for the telltale sparks, but nothing happened. I didn’t care. He was my mate in my heart and soon, he would accept me and forget about true mates.

I smiled dreamily. I had my perfect family, a best friend who was more of a sister, a good life, and now, the man I loved was going to be my husband.

Life is perfect! Or so I thought…