“Anna.”
Her eyelids slowly fluttered open, eyes squinting at the blurry dim sight of the room. Blinking, she realized she was laid down upon her bed. Her Grandmother sat beside her, her face traced with worry and concern as her hand reached to stroke Anna’s head. With her motherly touches, Anna felt so safe and sound.
“Grandma,” she croaked. “What happened?”
“Sweetheart,” Lola softly murmured, her eyes drawn with such care and love. “You fainted.”
“I did?” she asked weakly, seeming to have forgotten what was the last thing that happened before she was blinded by darkness.
“Yes.” After awhile, Lola sighed, it seemed out of frustration. “Anna,” she softly murmured, “Do you remember.. those stories I told you when you were still a young little girl?”
Anna frowned, trying to remember the memories of the old fairytales.
“Do you remember.. those stories of fairies, elves, werewolves, and vampires?”
“Yes.”
Lola took a deep breath. “Those stories are true, Anna. Fairies are real. Vampires are real. Werewolves are real. Sometimes, things aren’t always what they seem.”
Anna sat up from the bed. “Werewolves, Grandma? Vampires?” she asked.
“Anna, you came from a long line of a werewolf family through centuries. You have werewolf blood running through your veins. But you’re human. You remind me of myself. You see, I used to be a young maiden, too. I used to be an innocent human. But I met this man. He was the most handsome yet the most domineering and possessive man I’ve ever met.”
Lola smiled slightly at the memory. It seemed only yesterday when everything happened. “But he was also the sweetest. I fell in love with him and I felt like.. it was everything I ever wanted. It felt like he was the universe that existed around me. So he gave me a home. And I gave him everything. But.. I was so shocked to find out he was a werewolf. A fearful creature. A beast. I could have left. I could have left him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. He was a part of me, a part of my soul. So I accepted him for who he was. And he gave me more than everything I could ever want. I loved that man. Until soon, we had a son: your father.”
Anna briefly looked at her Grandmother beneath her eyelashes. “My father was a werewolf?”
“Yes, Dear. And so are your cousins. And so are all the people in your School.”
Her eyebrows furrowed, mind struggling to gather all the information in one piece. “Grandma, why are you telling me this just now?”
Lola exhaled a shaky breath. “I wasn’t sure you were still ready at the time. You were still young, Anna. And I will always see you as the innocent little girl you were many years ago. But time flies so fast and then you’re turning eighteen in a few more days. Time left me with memories to treasure. But I knew I have to go back here. Back to the McQueen Mansion. Back to where you belong. Where your heart belongs. Anna, this is who you are.”
Anna was silent for a moment. Lola touched her hands and held them tightly in her hands. “Anna.. Have you ever felt like.. there are these prickling and mildly stinging sensations crawling under your skin and running down your spine whenever you touch someone?”
She looked at her Grandmother, as if in a flustered expression. Yes, she felt it. And she realized there were more to it than what she felt. “Yes,” she muttered under her breath, almost in slight hesitation.
“It’s a sign,” Lola said. “That whoever makes you feel things like this, things you never felt before, feelings that you never thought you can feel, is your mate.”
“My mate?” she echoed, remembering that Keira mentioned the same word.
“You see, werewolves don’t choose who they are destined to be with. The Moon Goddess chooses their fate. Destiny is not in our hands, Anna. But the path is written in our palms.”
“Grandma,” she said, “I’ve been.. having these dreams. Strange dreams. Ever since we got here, I see a shadow. I see a man.”
“It’s your vision. You are seeing your mate in a foresight.”
She looked at the dark corner of the room as if lost in a thought. “But he touched me,” she whispered, remembering the sensations she felt when their skins had touched.
“Then he did,” Lola said. “Dreams aren’t always fantasies that the mind creates while sleeping. Sometimes, dreams do come true while you’re asleep.”
Anna’s heart throbbed inside her chest. Her cheeks flamed slightly at the steamy memories but she was glad it was slightly dark in the room. Only the dim brightness of her lamp provided light.
Just then, her stomach growled, breaking the silence that stretched on afterwards. Lola sighed. “Alright, Dear. I’ll prepare your dinner and some chocolate milk.”
Anna smiled at her caring Grandmother. The woman knew her too well. Who could ever love chocolate more than she could?
“Thank you, Grandma.”
Lola left her bed and walked out the room, silently closing the door as she did so. Anna leaned back to the soft pillows of her bed and took a deep breath. She was quite stunned at everything that was revealed to her. Did that mean John, Ben, Bea, and all the other guys were werewolves? she thought to herself. Then after realizing everything, she felt like she had been so out of place. Like she had been left out in the dark all this time.
Orlando High School was basically an institute for werewolves!
She closed her eyes and sighed. Could she really accept who she was? Was Zachary Harrison her mate? All the feelings she felt whenever she was with him. All the things that happened. All her dreams. All this time, Zach had known her ever before she knew him. Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted once the door opened. Lola entered with a tray of food in hand. She placed it on Anna’s desk beside her bed and kissed her forehead.
“Eat, Dear. I will leave you time to think of everything.”
Anna smiled faintly. “Thanks, Grandma.”
“Goodnight.”
Once again, she was left in her room. Not feeling like eating, she took the chocolate milk from the tray on her desk and gulped down the whole glass in seconds. She laid down comfortably on the bed but just as she was about to fall asleep, the sound of scratching echoed from her window. Bare feet and in her PJs, she stood up on the floor and walked towards her window, noticing that her kitten was scratching her paws on the glass.
She looked between the black kitten and where it was looking outside the window. “What is it, Luna?” she asked, opening the window.
As she did so, the kitten went out the window and climbed up. Anna poked her head out the window and turned her head upwards to see that the kitten was making her way on top of the roof. Always the curious, Anna carefully crawled her way out the window and climbed up the roof. There, she found the black kitten on the peak of the roof, sitting calmly and devilish eyes staring at the surroundings.
Anna reached the peak of the roof and carefully sat beside the kitten. Heaving and feeling slightly cold from the wind, she hugged herself and looked down at the kitten, her eyebrows furrowing curiously as if trying to figure out what the cat was thinking of.
But then, she realized, the cat’s thoughts were far more than what she could predict and its eyes could see further than what she could ever seek.
So Anna turned her head and pointed her gaze at the distance, where tall dark trees were clouding the borders of the Mansion. Everything was seen from there. Everything looked so beautiful. The night sky was a sea of lost stars. The half moon was the light of the skies. The cold wind danced with the breezy motion of the trees, leaves shushing into the blow.
“Luna,” she softly muttered under her breath, breaking the silence of the atmosphere, “Do you believe in magic? Do you believe in werewolves? Do you think vampires do suck blood out of people’s veins? Do you believe in fairytales?”
Silence.
“I didn’t think so,” she answered for herself. “I don’t think I can ever understand the reality of such things. The world is such a strange place to live in, you know. It’s like every time I slow things down, everything tends to go so much faster. And I just realized, I have met my mate.. in a dream. And he turned out to be the scarriest beast I’ve ever witnessed. And then.. I fainted.. I fell asleep.. Is that supposed to make things easier?”
“It doesn’t have to,” a deep voice said.
She jumped back to her left, almost pushing the kitten off the roof, as she looked at her right to see Zachary Harrison, in all his half-naked glory, standing at the roof at least two meters away from her.
She stood up warily. Her eyes darted down his naked chest as she flushed, cheeks flaming. He smirked to himself and walked towards her, his bare feet taking long strides. And in each step he took, she took a step back until she was almost about to fall off the edge. But he caught her in time. His hands snaked from around her waist and pulled her to him, bodies crashing against each other.
She took a sharp intake of breath at his proximity. His naked musclar chest pressed against her, any spaces within them being eliminated. She looked up at him beneath her thick lashes.
“Kitten,” he murmured huskily, his hand grabbing the back of her head and slamming her lips to his.
He kissed her sweetly. She was surprised at first at the sudden movement but she felt the tingles covering her body in the heat of the moment. She closed her eyes and slowly kissed him back, her hands caressing the defined muscles of his back. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She felt like she was lost in the kiss. But this time she knew, she wasn’t dreaming.