shuhaige
Chapter 11
Chapter 11
-Johan-
I awoke on a bed in some other part of the clinic. My mind raced to recall what had just happened. I sat
bolt upright and was confronted with a healer wearing red beads in her hair and large tortoiseshell
spectacles.
“Take it easy, everything’s alright,” she crooned, placing a hand on my shoulder, “We had to knock you
out there for a little. You were out of control.”
I allowed her to guide me back down onto the bed as I tried to organize my thoughts. “Dorothy went
into heat?” I asked, recalling her scent filling my nostrils and driving my inner-wolf into a frenzy.
The healer nodded. “Yes. Your pale friend had to pull you out of the room before could… well, you
remember don’t you?”
you
my eyes. “Godd ammit. Mavis is
It was all coming back to me and I flung my arms over my eyes. going to hate me. Dorothy is going to
hate me.”
I hate no idea how I was going to explain any of it to Mavis. I hadn’t answered any of her calls since
she’d left and I hadn’t gone home to her like I’d promised. I hadn’t rejected Dorothy like I had promised.
Ignatius’s words churned in my head; Weak. I was weak.
I turned to the healer. “I need to see Dorothy.”
The healer stood up, smoothing out her skirt before turning to leave. “That won’t be possible right now,
boy. Best go home, for now. You can come back later when she’s over this tough period.”
I wanted to protest but I knew she was right. Trying to break the bond whilst Dorothy was riding out her
heat would only end with me getting forced out of the room again. I wanted to hate Ignatius, for his part
in all of this, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
I sat up and dropped my head into my hands. I would have to leave, I had to confront Mavis. I was
furious with myself at the pang of fear that shot through me upon thinking of approaching Mavis with
my failure.
Ignatius was right. I was weak.
I left the clinic after saying a short goodbye to Dorothy and began the long walk home. I had left my car
at Ignatius’s villa but instead of heading that way, I strode off into the woods. I needed peace and quiet.
On top of that, I wanted to procrastinate as long as possible before facing Mavis.
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I felt like a coward, but I shambled along anyway. The forest was cool and shaded. The sunlight that
made it through the canopy left dappled spots of light on the wet ground and turned the leaves a
brighter shade of red and orange.
The color of Dorothy’s hair. I scowled. She was everywhere. The green of her eyes in the moss of the
trees, the fresh sweet musk of her scent was in the air. There was not escaping her.
I finally made it home and headed up the winding path to my father’s upper-class estate. My heart sank
when I noticed Mavis’s silver Porche parked behind the neatly trimmed hedges inside the front gate..
She was waiting for me. And she definitely wasn’t happy, I could feel her animosity like a dark cloud
looming over my head as I approached the front door. Stepping inside, I saw Mavis sprawled on the
couch, her long legs dangling over the armrest and her blonde hair cascading down the other. She
regarded me coldly.
“Hello, Johan. I tried calling. What took you so long?”
I scratched my neck, looking anywhere other than directly at her. “Hey. I’m sorry, my phone was dead.”
Mavis stood up and folded her arms. “Is it done?”
I stared at her in silence, the ticking of the grandfather clock down the hall was deafening at that
moment. I wasn’t able to look her in the eye. “No. Mavis I tried, I swear to g od I tried.”
Mavis didn’t say a word, fixing me with a gaze full of disappointment and resentment.
I fumbled over my words as I rushed to explain myself. “Dorothy, she went into heat. I had to get out of
there. We’ve got to wait until it’s over before we end things.”
Still, Mavis said nothing, watching me work myself up into an unraveled mess before her. “Look, I’m
going to go back later, okay? I promise. I had to leave, I didn’t have a choice.”
I walked up to her and tried to put my hands on her waist. Mavis stepped away from me and delivered
a stinging slap to my face. I paused in shock, my cheek aching where she’d hit me.
“You’re a coward, Johan,” she hissed through gritted teeth, “You’re weak and you know
it.”
She lifted her hand to strike me again and I grabbed her wrist, stepping closer to her so that our bodies
were touching, “I am not weak,” I growled at her, Mavis flinched at my tone but her eyes remained cold
and unforgiving.
promised me.”
I let go of her wrist and dropped my hand to her waist. “And I will, okay? I will.”
Mavis shook her head, her upper lip curling in disgust, “If you really loved me you would have done it
by now. You would have done it the moment Dorothy approached you yesterday. But you didn’t. You
want her. You’re just too weak to decide.”
Her words stung. There was some truth to them and I couldn’t deny that. She could see right through
me. Mavis saw my expression and laughed callously. “So you do want. her? What a f ucking joke.” She
pushed me away from her and I stepped back, guilt weighing down on me.
“What about all the promises we made each other? What about all of our plans? We swore we would
stay together. Since we were children we swore it would be us against the world. What happened to
that Johan?”
–
I expected to see tears in her eyes but there were none only a vast burning hatred as she spat her
words at me.
“That hasn’t changed!” I cried, her expression making my stomach twist and turn in a bundle of knots,
“none of that has changed! Mavis, I love you, I swear I do. And I will reject her. Now just wasn’t a good
time…”
I trailed off. I was desperate to say anything – do anything to make her stop looking at me like I was
nothing but a worm on the ground.
Mavis wasn’t done with her chastising and continued to fling insults at me. Every word felt like a dagger
driving into my chest. Every insult made me feel smaller and smaller.
We continued our arguing all over the manor until I couldn’t even remember why we were fighting in the
first place, only that I desperately wanted it to end. Mavis threw a plant at me that I dodged just in time.
The vase shattered against the wall behind me and I roared at her in response.
Eventually, I had had enough. I caved, getting to my knees and running my fingers through my hair.
“I’m done, Mavis, I’m sorry. Okay? You’re right. I’m weak and cowardly and I’m a bad person for doing
this to you and I’m sorry.”
Mavis paused her shouting and stared down at me as I continued, “I’m sorry for all of this. I’ll go to the
clinic right now and reject Dorothy if that’s what you want. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
Mavis looked around at the mess we had caused in our arguing and scoffed. She stepped over to me
with her hands on her hips. I looked up at her, praying for it to be
over.
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When she spoke, her voice was jeering and infantilizing. “You’d be nothing without me. You know that.
You can’t throw all of this away for one useless girl that you’ve only known for a day. You’re not stup id
enough to do that. Prove to me that you’re not, Johan.”
Mavis knelt down in front of me and gripped my chin in her talons. I felt broken and weak as I looked
into her pale eyes. Mavis’s face was carved in stone, unfeeling and uncaring. “You reject Dorothy.
Today. You leave this house immediately and you head back there and you reject her. Or you’ll never
see me again.”
With that, Mavis let go of
my face. I could feel small beads of blood welling up where her nails had pierced my skin.
Mavis stood up and walked out of the front door without another word. I stared after her as she left,
slamming the front door behind her and leaving me on my knees in the wreckage of her fury.
I stared down at my rough palms as I listened to her car start up and speed away down the avenue.
The manor was quiet, aside from the loud ticking of the ancient grandfather clock down the hall.
Counting down the hours and the minutes and the seconds to the end of my sacred bond with Dorothy.
I sniffed and warily got to my feet. Taking one last look around the destroyed living room, I opened the
front door and left closing it gently behind me as the clock tolled out its midday announcement.
– Mavis-
–
I drove from Johan’s house, furious. After everything we’d been through together after all the promises,
we’d made. A part of him still wanted to choose her over me. It was unthinkable. I wouldn’t allow it. She
must have planned this out all along. She swayed. him with her fake kindness and pretty words.
Johan was weak-willed and too easily swayed. After all, I myself had heard the mating call on my
eighteenth birthday. I sensed my mate, far away from our small town. I knew he was somewhere out
there, but I had never bothered to find him.
The pull had never been a strong one. Maybe it was the distance but I remained convinced that it was
truly a sign that Johan and I were meant to be together. Even nature willed it to be so.
I shricked out loud. My frustration and fury bubbled over. Johan had been so determined only days
before that nothing and no one would shake his faithfulness to me. He had promised me when we were
children on the playground that he wanted me and only me.
That he always would. And yet here he was, my boyfriend – my so-called soulmate –
groveling for a girl he barely knew. An outsider. A nob*dy. Why did it have to be her of all people?
I couldn’t let her get away with it. I wouldn’t allow it. Dorothy would have no peace now that she’d tried
to take what was mine.
I was seething by the time I had made it to Claudia’s place. She had heard me pull up. my car leaving
tire tracks in the short green grass of her family’s front lawn. She trotted outside to meet me, wearing a
pastel pink two-piece and a look of confusion on her face
“Mavis? What are you doing here what’s the matter?”
–
“Dorothy,” I snarled, “she’s gone too far this time.”
Claudia still looked lost but she leaned on the windowsill and co cked her head, twirling a swirl of
nutmeg hair around her fingers, “What do you need?”
“Call Lana and the others. Head for Dorothy’s house and jump her when she gets home. If she doesn’t
turn up there in the next hour, find her at the clinic.” I locked eyes with her, gripping the wheel until my
knuckles turned white. “She dies today, Claudia.”
Claudia blinked at me for a moment. “You want us to… kill her? Mavis, that’s crazy, they’d trace it back
to us immediately we’d be kicked out of the pack!”
“Make it look like an accident, get her lost in the forest or something, I don’t care.”
I was aware of how crazed I sounded but Dorothy had it coming.
“Do you really think anyone in this pack will give a s hit about her being gone? She’s not one of us.
They’ll forget about her before the end of the season. Nob*dy cares about Dorothy.”
Nob*dy except my very own boyfriend, and his relentless best friend. I growled at the thought.
Claudia thought it over for a moment, tugging on her curls and pouting with cherry- glossed lips.
“Mavis, I don’t know… we’d be down for giving her a bad beating but that might be taking it too far. I
don’t wanna risk not getting a good job someday because of some stu pid loser.”
I kicked my car into gear again. “Just. Do it.” I hissed at her before driving away at breakneck speeds.
In my rearview mirror, Claudia stood for a while and watched me go, before turning and slipping back
into her home.
She would follow my orders, I knew she would. She knew better than to disobey me. All
of her current popularity was thanks to me. All of her designer clothes were my hand- me-downs
although she made me swear not to tell a soul. Claudia had too much to lose by disobeying me.
She was hesitant but she would finish the job and she’d convince the rest of the girls too. I knew Lana
wouldn’t need telling twice, She’d had it out for Dorothy from the moment she had joined us on the
playground as kids. Lana liked to hunt and Dorothy was the perfect prey.
I sped out of town, leaving the auburn forest in my wake as I headed towards the
nearby city. I needed to clear my head. I needed to get as far away from Johan as 67
possible for at least the next hour so that he could get on with doing what I’d told him to. He would
reject her. He had to.
As I drove my rage subsided gradually and I let the cool breeze blowing in from the window ruffle my
hair pleasantly. I headed towards a coffee shop that I and the girls had visited a few times after late
nights out in the city.
I flashed my fangs at a driver attempting to steal my parking and he revved away real fast. After fixing
my hair and make-up I strode inside and ordered an Irish coffee – I deserved to spoil myself, all things
considered.
The young waiter at the bar stammered and fussed before me like a little scared pup, smoothing his
hair down and trying to act cool. I paid him no mind and made for a table by the window, reclining in the
comfortable leather-clad chairs and thinking about Johan.
While I sat, waiting for my order, a sudden strange feeling came over me. It was a familiar phenomenon
– I had felt it before. Although I couldn’t quite place where. Moments later, the doors to the coffee shop
burst open and I sat bolt upright in my chair.
Along with the person stepping through the doors came a scent so intoxicatingly pleasant that it left me
trembling and weak at the knees. The smell of peppermint and dark chocolate, so rich I could almost
taste it on my tongue.
I stared open-mouthed at the man who had just burst in and was now staring straight at me. Blue-green
eyes under a heavy brow and a jawline that could cut like a knife through butter. Curling brown hair fell
around his shoulders and over his eyes. Exclusive content from NôvelDrama.Org.
–
The man approached me slowly, warily a stark contrast to his frenzied arrival. I could do nothing but
gaze at him with wide eyes as he sat before me and smiled.
“Hi there. Forgive my intrusion. But I think you’re my mate.”