Chapter 5: Confusion
939 Words
Layla’s POV
“What the hell was up with you?” Chelsea asked as soon as they’d gotten outside after showing Alpha Drake and his beta and delta to their rooms. They were walking through the yard, Layla walking quickly towards the woods while Chelsea had to practically run to catch up. “And would you slow the f**k down? You know my legs are half the size of yours.”
“Sorry,” Layla muttered distractedly. She slowed her pace, but didn’t take her eyes off the treeline, needing to get away and let her wolf out.
“Seriously,” Chelsea huffed, getting in front of her and holding her hands out to stop her, “What is going on with you? The second Alpha Drake stepped out of the car, your eyes practically bugged out of your head and I’m pretty sure your jaw got to know the ground really well. And since then, you’ve been acting really strange. Tell me what the hell is going through your head, woman.”
Layla sighed, closing her eyes for a moment before looking down into her friend’s eyes. “Look, it’s really weird and I don’t honestly know what to think about it myself. I just need to go for a run and clear my head.”
She tried to move around Chelsea, but her friend stopped her once more. “Layla, just tell me what’s wrong. Maybe talking about it will help. But,” Chelsea said, cutting Layla off as she tried to interrupt, “either way, I will let you go for your run and give you some time alone as long as you tell me first.”
With a sigh, Layla nodded her head. “Fine. Just don’t tell anyone.”
“You really think I would tell someone? How long have we been friends?”
“You’re right, sorry. I just…like I said this is weird,” she responded, rubbing her face. “Okay. Okay, so the night before I turned eighteen, I had this dream. Only it felt less like a dream and more like real life. And in the dream, there was a guy that looked exactly like Alpha Drake. When I woke up, I figured it might be a sign of who my mate was, except-”
“Except your ‘mate’ was that little dipshit,” Chelsea hissed. Though Layla had tried her best to forget the debacle that was that exchange between her and Zach, Chelsea never had. While she had never started a fight with him like Layla knew she wanted to, as she’d made her promise not to, for her sake, she certainly wasn’t above giving him nasty looks and insulting him whenever Layla felt the pain from him coupling with Kelly. But she knew that if she ever gave Chelsea permission, she’d beat the brakes off of him in a heartbeat, son of the alpha or not. All of which, if she was being honest, made the pain of being his rejected mate seem a lot easier to handle. There were plenty of reasons she loved Chelsea as if she were her own sister, and the way she defended her was certainly among them.
“Exactly. So I figured it was just a random dream, maybe my mind dreaming up the perfect guy or something. And then seeing Alpha Drake, I just…I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Wow. That is weird,” Chelsea said, her eyebrows scrunching together in a thoughtful expression. “Had you ever seen a picture of him before? Because it’s possible your mind just brought that out from your memory even if you only glanced at it once.”
“I don’t honestly know,” Layla shrugged. “It’s possible. But here’s the thing, the thing that is really f*****g with me: he doesn’t just look like the guy in my dream, his scent is exactly the same. Like autumn in the forest, cinnamon, and the musk of his wolf.”
“Really?” Chelsea’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she stared at Layla in surprise. After a moment, the pensive look was back as she said, “Maybe it was a sign.”
“A sign of what, though?”
Chelsea shook her head. “I don’t know. But I think the only way to find an answer is getting to know him. I mean, he’s here to learn about how you’ve managed to train so many of us in partial shifting, so you could easily learn about him as well. I mean, you may not find any answers, but I don’t see another way for you to figure out why you had such a realistic dream about a guy you’d never even met, to the point you even caught his scent.”
“Yeah, I guess, but…”
“But what?”
“Nothing. I’ll try your suggestion, but he doesn’t seem like a very open guy,” she said, trying to push down her anxiety at approaching a man with the intent to get to know him. Especially one that was so damn attractive. God only knew how much she didn’t want to risk it, knowing, based on the fluttery feeling she got even just thinking about him, that she could very easily fall for him. If that happened, and she was rejected again…
“Just try. You just met him, he might be more open once he’s been around you a little more. And you never know, you might have more in common than you think,” Chelsea said, smiling reassuringly.
“I doubt that,” Layla scoffed. “But I’ll try, okay?”
“Good. Now go for your run, before you get all fidgety,” Chelsea laughed. Layla grinned, her friend knew her far too well. When she was really itching to let out her wolf, if she couldn’t get out there right away for a run, she did tend to fidget. A lot.
“Thanks.” Layla enveloped Chelsea in a hug before taking off into the forest to let the beast out.
- Writer
