The Princess And The Wolf

How it all began

"I know what you're doing, or more like trying to do, so you better stop." Lucas warns me.

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. I know what I need to do, and although I'm not happy about it we don't have much of a choice. Surely he must know that.

"Look, everyone knows tha..."

The loud noise of a door being slammed interrupts me, and I have to do a double take, seeing as I now find myself alone. What the f**k? Did he just leave like that?

I glared at the door, hoping that Lucas will come back just so I can slam the door in his smug, annoying face.

Shit! I will need to feed soon, all this stress in making my thirst for blood steer away from the schedule.

Laura didn't come back to our room the whole night. After Lucas left I took a much needed shower and changed into my pyjamas before doing my nightly routine.

I tried busying myself with unpacking the rest of my things, but soon enough I had no energy left in me, so I curled up in bed, doing breathing exercises to calm down. I planned on waiting up for my roommate, but sometime around 3 in morning exhaustion got the best of me and I must have fallen asleep.

I woke up about 5 minutes ago to a room just as empty. I guess I'll go ahead and have an awkward first day all by myself, then.

And awkward this day is... luckily today is more about orientation rather than having to attend lectures, so I joined a tour that showed new students around campus and informed us about the various clubs and facilities, before I joined the mile long queue in from of the Admissions office.

When it was finally my turn, I approached the desk and a mousy older man asked for my name. I just stared at him for a moment, not knowing what to reply.

"Miss Ellis, I see you found the office." Patrick approaches from the side.

"First name?" The man behind the desk demands with a bored expression, seemingly not caring about small talk, and just wanting to get to the next student.

"Uhm.. Claara..." I look at Patrick for confirmation and stop when he shakes his head.

"Clara Ellis yes, here you go." The mousy man hands me the timetable, my schedule and a thick folder, before shouting 'next' and not even bothering to acknowledge Patrick. I see he's adjusting well in here, not!

"Thanks, Pat." I murmur once we were far enough from the office. I blanked out and completely forgot the name. It takes some getting used to, I guess. Now shoo!"

Patrick chuckles and walks away after telling me that he's going to the dealership to buy me a car. I just give him a thumbs up and a guilty smile.

As I walk towards the dorms, I have this nagging feeling in my stomach.

Fuuuck, why do I have to be a good person? I curse and mutter to myself while I go back to the queue. Once it's finally my turn again, I ask nicely if I could also take my roommate's schedule and welcome pack.

The man behind the desk takes a second to recover. I must have messed up his roll by returning, but gladly hands the things over to me, happy that he can cross one more name of his long list. Thank God I remembered Laura's full name better than mine.

Lucas Knight. The name keeps swirling in my head, making me dizzy and craving some blood.

When I got back to my room I could already sense Laura's presence. A moment after I closed the door behind me, she came out of the bathroom, took a long look at me, which made me incredibly uncomfortable, and then sighed hard like she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and I just added to it.

"Uhm, peace offering?" I say handing her the things I picked up from the University's office.

She takes the schedule and the big folder which was the welcome pack and sets them on her bed, then comes to me, invading my personal space and pulling me into a hug. I stiffened, not knowing how to react or what to read into it, but eventually hugged her back, not wanting to seem like a cold hearted monster.

"How are you feeling, are you alright?" Well, for one I'm confused as f**k, I feel like I'm missing something big here, but I'm not going to say it out loud.

"I'm OK, are you?" I cautiously respond.

Laura pulls away from the hug, her hands still gripping my shoulders like she is about to shake the life out of me.

"You don't have to pretend and put on a brave face in here. I know everything, so you can cry or break stuff if you want, I'm not going to judge. Do all you have to do, so you won't snap and have a meltdown outside that door." I get pulled into another hug when it finally hits me, my mouth forming an 'o' and my eyes bulging out, this time unrelated to Laura's tight hug. God, I'm so slow lately! She thinks Lucas and I broke our bond.

Before I could dig myself even deeper into this hole, my phone chimes, alerting me that I have a text. I peel Laura off me, resisting the urge to chuckle at her pitiful stares.

'I got your new car, C. It's in the car park outside, key's on the front right tyre. DO NOT CRASH IT.' The text from Patrick read, and I let out a squeal of excitement.

"Should I be concerned?" Laura asks while eyeing me suspiciously.

I think about it for a second, before answering truthfully. "Probably. My new car is downstairs." I grin at her.

"OooK, well I guess that's one way of getting over this." She joins me to go and check out my car.

"On second thought, maybe not." Laura whispers when we make it downstairs and see the only car which looks brand new and untouched compared to all the others. "Is that yo..."

"God, I hope not!" I say more to myself, even though I know she heard me.

Making my way towards it, I take a deep breath and crouch down next to the tyre Patrick told me, and stick my hand in the gap between it and the car body.

As my fingers touch the keys, I feel like screaming. f**k, I'm going to kill Patrick.

"This looks like the standard model, my brother's is all customised, from the engine to the body work, so really, it basically is a different car." Laura rambles, trying to make me feel better.

I know why Pat did this, it's his way of scaring me into not driving. I bet he feels really smart for thinking of this plan. 'Oh, let's get her the same make and model as the car that nearly run her over. That will scare her off driving.' I get that I am not the best driver, truth be told, I crashed a few cars before completely giving up on this sport, but I's not like I can go walking everywhere, especially when I have stuff to carry, and a chauffeur would be just weird. I'm trying to blend in, not alert the whole world of my whereabouts.

Laura is still muttering some stuff about fate and playing with the Goddess' wishes, but I choose to tune her out. Seriously, she seemed freaked out when she saw the thing and realised I had no idea that was the car I was getting.

"It's just a car, Laura. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. There's students with way crappier cars than this one." I say as we make our way back to our room.

"Yeah, 'crappy' is not the word I would use, since I know how much my brother paid for his, but fine, you're right. I guess the Goddess could have shown you her disappointment in a much worse way."

I could have told her that me and Lucas are still very much bonded, but I will tackle that conversation... hopefully never. Right now I have to go find Patrick and tell him just what I think about his little plan. I bet him and my dad agreed on this while my mom warned them I might retaliate.