Narrative P. O. V.
“What did you just do?” Daniel asked, waving his hands above his head.
He had been standing outside the kitchen door, listening to what Cain had said to Ella. Now he was pacing back and forth in Cain’s office, ranting like
there was no tomorrow.
“First you try to kiss her, which was stupid.,” Daniel said, pointing a finger at Cain.
“Now, you’re going to tell her that trying to kiss her was a mistake? You’re going to give the poor girl whiplash.”
Cain stood, leaning against his desk with his arms crossed.
“Your parents are coming in a week,” Daniel reminded him.
“What do you think they’re going to say about this?”
“I don’t care,” Cain said. “That’s why I don’t have any plans on telling them.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “You have to tell them you have a mate,” he said.
“So they can convince her to leave?” Cain asked angrily. “I don’t think so.”
Daniel looked at him incredulously. “You’re the one pushing her away,” he said.
“She’ll leave before anyone gets the chance to convince her to.”
With that, Daniel turned around and left the office.
Cain took a deep breath and turned to finish signing the documents that needed his authorization. He sat down, grabbed a pen, and stopped. Cain looked down to see his hand shaking. He let go of the pen and clenched his fist.
He let out a shaky breath, trying to keep himself from smashing the table into splinters. While he would never admit it to Daniel, Cain wasn’t happy with
what he told Ella. The look on her face when she asked him why he hadn’t kissed her assured him that she had wanted him to.
Why he hadn’t kissed her then and there was to be blamed on his lack of confidence in his self control.
What Cain knew then was exactly what he knew two nights before: if he kissed her, he was putting his mouth much too close to the one place it wanted to be but never needed to go: her neck.
He felt the ache in his gums just thinking about it.
But no, regardless of what Daniel or anyone else had to say, if keeping her at an arms length was the best thing for her, he was damn well going to do it…
… No matter how much it hurt to do so.
Ella’s P. O. V.
What have I done?
I watched the flames dance in the hearth of the fireplace. They climbed the brick walls, only to be pulled back down into the coals that glowed beneath the logs. That’s how I felt, like I’d been floating on the highs of my daydreams and suddenly yanked back down into reality.
I couldn’t believe I had been naive enough to believe that Cain had liked me. It was a hasty assumption that I made based on one action he’d later admitted that he regretted making. I couldn’t believe that Zak was right. I shouldn’t have followed those men in the car that night and I never should have left my home and family to chase ghosts.
It’d gotten me nothing but a concussion and false hopes. There was only one reason that I still sat in Cain’s dark bedroom on the couch staring into the fire. That was to assure myself that I wasn’t lousy enough to bail on something just because my
emotional investment in it had backfired.
Taking interest in Cain was a stupid move. I was there to find my grandfather. I wasn’t there to get a boyfriend or fall in love. I needed to focus on finding him and when I did find him, I was going to leave and not look back.
My grandfather’s books sat next to me on the couch, where they had been for several days. The green one on Lycanthropy proved to be an amusing read.
However, it wasn’t something I would have ever thought my grandfather would have taken interest in. It wasn’t the fantasy novel I had expected it to be. It was an anthropological perspective on the social and biological aspects of creatures otherwise known as Lycanthropes.
What surprised me the most was how convincing it was, like the person who wrote it actually believed in what they were writing.
There were diagrams sketched out of the prehistoric creatures they’d evolved from and even timelines dating back to the late-Cenozoic era.
Supposedly, Lycanthropic evolution from early Cans species began a few million years after humans began to evolve from primates. Eventually, as the race Homo sapiens formed, the descendants of the first wolves were killed for their fur.
To survive, the Lycanthropes became nocturnal animals to better hide themselves from the world that wanted to kill them.
This was when the book began to lose its credibility.
According to the author, the Lycanthropes learned to disguise themselves as humans.
Over time, their skin had developed the ability to shed its fur almost immediately when exposed to sunlight. However, when the moon rose and the sun set, their fur would grow back to protect them from the cold nights.
But, their furry advantage wasn’t the only evolutionary privilege they earned. Gifted with the ability to morph into their prehistoric figures when in fear, Lycanthropes turned the food chain upside down and began to hunt the very things that had
once hunted them.
This, I assumed, was where the fairytales drew their inspiration. To help eliminate the risk of extinction, Lycanthropes lived in packs like their sister species, Canis lupus, otherwise known as the wolf. Also like the wolf, Lycanthropes remained very community-oriented when reproducing.
Ultimately, this led to an underground society that grew rapidly, unchecked. Hundreds of thousands of years later, Lycanthropes still roamed the earth, disguised as humans and could morph from man to
monster at will. To look through the book and see detailed explanations of physical traits such as immense strength, one could be persuaded to believe that what the author was saying was true.
If I believed in conspiracy theories, I might would have considered believing it myself. I sighed before closing the book. No matter how much I tried to distract myself with fairytales, I couldn’t keep my mind from wondering to Cain.
If I was honest with myself, I needed to focus on finding my grandfather for more than just the purpose of finding him. needed the distraction. Which is why, for the next week, I disregarded the doctor’s warnings against cognitive stimulation
and I worked on finding him.
I went up to Cain’s office every morning before anyone got there and looked through the documents that contained information vital to his recovery. I studied them until I knew them word for word.
This distraction, however, was not a very good one.
I couldn’t help but feel extremely disappointed that Cain had disappeared. I hadn’t seen him since that night in the kitchen.
I knew this was a good thing. But, there was a part of me- admittedly a large part of me-that wanted to see him.