My Lycan Boyfriend's Dark Secret

The beginning of the end

The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law. – Romeo, Romeo and Juliet

I’ve never given much thought to how I’d leave this world one day, but as I lie here on the cold wet floor of one of the many mysterious caves on the island I know that this moment is probably my last. At least I have known love during my short seventeen years of life, a love true and pure, looking past fault to find what is good. I have experienced a love worth dying for, a love that would survive past my death. Surely having found that, my life was full enough to be deemed worthy, and complete enough to wave goodbye without regret.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them – George Elliot

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*355 days earlier*

Goodbye bed, I will miss falling asleep on you... Goodbye books, I wish I could take you all with me... Goodbye room, I hope my new one will make me feel as safe as you have... Goodbye Bill, I will miss you the most. I sigh as I close the zipper of my bag with a heavy heart. Ugh... I don't want to attend a fancy Academy, and I wouldn’t go if grandmother didn’t write it into her will. She had left our pack with a wealthy sum of money upon her departure from this world, with the single condition that I were to attend the prestigious Full Moon Academy where admissions were only reserved for the children of Pack leaders. Thanks a lot Gran! I wouldn’t need to go if our Pack’s survival didn’t depend on me, or the funds that will go to much needed repairs and maintenance.

I would be happy to spend my life isolated from the rest of the world, reading a good book under the thick canopy of Yellow Wood trees as the happy little birds twitter above me. I would be happy if I didn’t have to leave it all behind to step into the scary unknown. My Pack is small, very small, only consisting of four families, ten members in total. We live a quiet and peaceful life here in the Knysna Woods, taking care of mother nature just as she cares for us, and looking after the many creatures that she houses. Like the elephants we have saved from being completely wiped out by the humans, a greedy and unthankful being. So undeserving of the limelight which they claim. I often wonder what went wrong in their creation, for them to be so malicious and unkind... werewolves are not like that, at least not the ones that I know. Not that I know many... I might add.

Only 365 days until I’m free again. 365 days and three hours to be exact. And I will be counting down every second.

I take a deep breath, letting the scent of rosemary and lavender fill my lungs as their cuttings hang on the corner of my bed. Ah! The smell comforts me, soothing me from the inside out. My mom, Hailey Burns, or Hailey Waters as she was know before meeting my dad, is our Pack Healer and an expert in Homeopathy. She has taught me so much about the different herbs and minerals that are given to us by Mother Nature in order to sustain us.

Lifting my heavy bag off of my bed I let it fall to the floor with a thud, DOEF, much like the heavy sinking feeling I feel in my stomach at this exact moment. I only have ten minutes left before I have to leave my home, and I plan on drinking up every last smell and sight before I go. I’m ever grateful for the wheels beneath my luggage. I would never be able to carry it all by myself if it weren’t for their help, not with my staggering 1.56meters in length. Will we be working with metric or imperial at the academy? I sincerely hope it’s metric, I am very bad with imperial. I am short for a werewolf, but not for a human though, I would easily blend in with their crowds. My grandmother, my mother’s mother, not the one I would be inheriting from, was half human and much my height. She always spoke of the horrors she had witnessed while living in the city with her mother, she was a lover of the ocean and despised the misuse and abuse of it by the humans in this world. Killing beautiful creatures for sport and pumping their filth into the water. I am told that I take after her, she is my namesake after all.

“Honey, are you done packing,” my mother’s gentle voice says from behind me.

“Yes, I’m all done,” I turn to smile at her. Having me leave is causing her so much pain that I almost feel too guilty to express my own, it will only add to her burden. It won't be fair.

“Let me help you with your hair,” she says with the brush and detangling spray in her hands. She loves doing my hair for me, and it is something I will miss as I hate doing my own hair. I have thick blond hair that to my dread curled into hundreds, or thousands, of individual spirals. What a blessing, I roll my eyes inwardly. Brushing is torture if not done right, but my mother is skilled in taming it, just like she is skilled in taming my father.

“What are you girls taking so long for,” I hear his thunderous voice call from or small living room. He was much too big of a man to be living in such a small home, out of place like a bull in a china shop, but he does it with a smile since he has everything he could ever need right here. Or so he would whisper into mom’s ear almost every night while they sit on the porch to drink their steaming cup of herbal tea. I look nothing like my dad, he has dark red hair that flowed into a big red beard framing his rough and almost leather-like skin, whereas I am blond and fair skinned. If not for the blue eyes I had inherited from him, I would be left to wonder if I truly am related to the big and mighty Timbre Burns, the big and boisterous Alpha of the Knysna Pack.

“It’s almost time to go!” he adds. My stomach churns at the sickening thought.

“Oh don’t let him rush you, it’s fashionable to be late,” mom whispers playfully into my ear as she finishes the last bit of the French plait she is doing for me. I am almost eighteen years old, a grown woman in many cultures, so why does it bother me some much to leave my mom and dad behind for school? Or celebrate by eighteenth birthday without them?

“I don’t want to be late, not on my first day of orientation,” I tell her, trying my best to hide the sadness from my voice and failing miserably in my attempt. As usual.

“Look at me,” she says spinning me around, holding me at arm’s length to look into my eyes, “You are Oceana Burns, the most beautiful and talented young lady I know... They will love you.”

“Thanks mom,” I say softly over her shoulder as she pulls me into a tight hug. Her words of encouragement would be more encouraging if I weren’t the only young girl in our Pack.