Belle 

Belle 

As if I'm having an out of body experience, I feel my torso and limbs twist and turn in my sleep restlessly. 

The whispers won't stop. They are like a leaking tap irking me to get up and close it tighter. 

Belle 

Belle 

I open my eyes. Only when I hear myself panting I realize I'm out of breath, and am fully drenched in sweat as if I'd just come back from running a full day marathon. 

Belle 

Grabbing my hair and groaning out loud, I lift and thrust my limbs into the air. This voice won't stop calling me. I feel like I'm having a headache without an actual headache. 

"Belle, what happened?" Penelope says. 

Belle, the other voice in the room whispers again. 

Having enough of it I turn to the kid. "Penelope, is there anyone else here?" I ask her. 

The girl looks around, narrowing her small eyes at every nook and corner of my dark room, and looks back at me and shakes her head. 

I sit up, pressing my temples tighter while feeling wet and sticky, and just plain disgusting, from my sweaty body. The whispers won't shut up! 

 Belle 

"It's coming from outside," I say, looking up and suddenly realizing the voice has gone distant, as if the culprit had teleported out of my room to outside the house. I go to the window. Penelope follows me. She and I look out over at each side of the street. 

I don't catch anything suspicious except for the hefty raccoon that's sizing up our neighbor's trash can. "Do you see anything?" I ask Penelope. "No," she says, "what are we looking for?" 

But the voice sounds like it's coming from down the street. I can almost sense the direction it's coming from. But I see nothing where I'm looking at. 

I turn around, and go pick up my t-shirt and pajama pants from the floor beside my bed and start putting them on. 

Belle 

"Where are you going?" Penelope asks. 

"I need her to stop calling me," I say, tucking in my pants' drawstring into the waistband. 

"Who's calling you?" she asks. 

I pause and look at Penelope. "You can't hear her?" 

She shakes her head. 

I mutter to myself, "Dammit, am I really imagining things like Chris suspected?" Or maybe Chris jinxed me.

Belle 

After wobbly getting my feet into my house slippers, I open my room door carefully to sneak out. Penelope follows me saying, "Where are you going? Who is calling you?" 

I whisper, "There's a spirit outside, calling my name. She won't stop." I wince at the light creak the tread of the topmost step of the staircase makes when I step on it. 

"Why is she calling you?" 

I grab the handrail and start tiptoeing down the stairs. "I don't know," I whisper even more quietly, since the rest of the house occupants are on the ground floor. 

"Is she your friend?" 

"I don't know her." 

"What if she hurts you?" 

"Only one way to find out, kid." 

"I'm coming with you." 

"No! Stay here. Come to me if that spirit or something else comes into the house. Keep an eye on the others for me." 

"Bu—" 

I place my finger over her lips and shake my head. Her spirit feels so icy that my finger feels like it's burning from the coldness. But it's only a feeling. I never got frostbites from passing through spirits. 

With more metal latches, the front door of the house is a bit tricky to open silently. But I persevere and move the handles painfully slow while firmly planting my feet on the floor. 

My face must look like I'm having my menstrual cramps. I endure the stress till I successfully undo the last latch. 

Outside, in spite of the glaring street lights, and even with my werewolf vision, it's too dark. 

Belle 

It's coming from my right. 

I take out my phone that luckily was still inside my discarded pajama pants. Squinting my eyes, I tap on the torchlight control, and start to walk to my right. Shining the light across the pavement I half expect something terrifying to suddenly appear in front of me and say boo. 

But I keep walking with nothing in sight except for the quiet houses, parked empty cars, dead still foliage, and relatives of the raccoon visiting my neighbor now. 

Belle 

For a few more minutes, I continue to walk and hear those relentless whispers that make me wanna strangle someone now. 

"Where are you?!" I shout, steeling myself, and getting tired of playing games with this ghost. I'm ready for the confrontation. 

But it still doesn't appear before me. 

Belle 

"I hope I'm not going crazy," I say to myself, not realizing how crazy it looks to be walking on the street in the middle of the night, talking to myself. 

"What do you want from me?" I ask, trying a different angle of conversation. I will say anything right now to get a proper response from her. But the only thing I hear back is... 

Belle 

A minute later, I stop walking and grind my teeth. "I'm not doing this," I say, putting my foot down and giving her an ultimatum. She wants my attention? She's gonna need to do better than this! 

A sudden gust of cold wind passes to my left. I quickly shine my phone over there and see a shadow by the telephone booth at the end of the street across. It disappears. I walk over to where it was. 

I open the booth to look inside when another gust of wind guides me to the street on the right. 

Following the wind and shadow, I soon find myself standing at the side of the nearest highway. 

I hide my phone's light when a car drives past me. I don't want to get caught alone on the road by some crazy highway driver. I've seen too many horror films for that. 

I see the ghost again. 

This time she's not a formless shadow. I see her clearly like how I usually see the spirits. Her form almost glows, letting me see her fully even in the darkness. 

I go to where she is, to the middle of the road. 

Even from a few steps away I can tell she's beautiful. She looks dainty with her long dark hair, small face, slender frame, and her thin linen dress; and by the wrinkles and shadows on her face, she looks my mother's age. "Who are you?" I ask her. 

She doesn't reply and her almond eyes stay on me. 

"Why are you following me? What do you want?" I ask. 

She doesn't say anything. 

I start hearing the whispers again. Unlike so far, there are multiple voices now, all talking gibberish. I can't make sense of anything they are saying. They start to get louder. I cover my ears tightly. "Stop it!" I shout at the ghost. "Stop it! It's too loud!" I shout again, when suddenly I feel a flood of light fall on my back. 

I turn around. Blinded by the light in front, I block it with my raised arm and close my eyes, and hear the wheels of what undoubtedly is a large truck approaching me with full speed, and the horn that starts to blast off from the vehicle. 

The truck's tires make a screeching noise. The driver must've seen me, and has now hit the break. 

But it'll be too late by the time the truck comes to a stop or my feet realize they gotta take me outa here. 

I brace for impact. 

But something large and quick moves me out of the truck's path in time. I felt something sharp and pointy grab my shoulder, lift and carry me, and drop me away from the road. Lying on the ground on the roadside, I look up at the face of Chris' large black wolf hovering above me. 

If it weren't for the headlight's reflection in his eyes, I wouldn't even have known the wolf is there. 

"Hey, kid, you okay?" I hear a man's voice shout from the side. A pot-bellied man in his 40s jogs towards me. He must be the driver of the truck that nearly crashed into me. He stops on his way when he spots Chris' wolf. He couldn't have seen the black wolf from near his truck. 

Chris' wolf growls at him. The driver cautiously backs away a few steps. "Don't," I whisper to the wolf. 

"I'm okay!" I shout back at the guy. "He's my pet!" I add so there's an explanation why something large is growling at him who is trying to help me. 

"A-Are you sure?" the man asks, maintaining the distance. 

"Yes, sir, I'm sure. I'm not injured. Sorry about earlier. I got lost. I can now go back home with my... dog." 

I'm not sure if the driver can tell whether it's a wolf or a large dog. But I'm hoping the wolf's pitch black fur camouflages itself so well in the dark that even ten years from now the driver won't be sure of what he saw when he's telling the story of this bizarre night to whoever will listen to him. 

"Okay, kid. Be careful on the road. That almost gave me a heart attack. Geez," the guy says, throwing his hand up, before he goes back to his truck. 

After he drives away, I look back at Chris' wolf to ask how did it find me here, but before I could do that, I pass out. 

When I open my eyes, I wince from sharp pains on my forehead and the shoulder that the wolf grabbed. I touch where it hurts, sitting up. 

Chris rushes to my side on the bed from a chair nearby. "Does it hurt?" he says, removing my hand from my forehead to check. "It's fully healed, though. Must be a ghost pain," he says, rubbing the spot that must've had a cut before. Chris then looks me in the eye and asks in a voice laced with concern and anger, "What the hell were you doing in the middle of the highway at that time? Did you have a death wish?" 

I would've panicked about him catching me there, moments away from becoming a roadkill, if I wasn't panicking about something else now. I slide to get off the bed but he quickly grabs me and pulls me back. 

"Let me go," I say, pushing my hands against his chest and trying to get away from him.

"Where are you going? You are hurt, Belle. Rest here." 

I try to crawl my way out his arms like a child refusing to be spoon fed some bland goop. "No! Let me go! Where did you bring me?!" 

"It's my room, in my parents' house," he says, swooping me closer to him to stop me from reaching the edge of the bed, from where I would probably fall down in my attempt to leave. 

That explains his acute scent in this room, and my peculiar and escalating reaction to it. I try to pull away from him, and break free of his embrace that's lighting me on fire, but his hand around my waist weighs me down and keeps me in place like a heavy iron chain tethered to me. 

"Just rest here for now," he says, trying to keep me on the bed. "My parents aren't home. It's okay." 

Oh, shit. It's not okay that no one else is home but us! "No! Let me go! I need to leave the room. Ah!" Suddenly the pain in the pit of my stomach peaks, and I curve in over his arm, groaning. 

I hear Chris stop his breath before he moves his face to the crook of my neck, causing me to tremble. He takes in my scent. I feel his lips smile on the skin of my neck. I bite my lips. 

"You're getting into heat," he says in a raunchy tone that leaves me no doubt that both our minds are in the same gutter at the moment. 

My fingers dig into his arm that's holding me in place. His embrace weirdly feels both safe and dangerous at the same time. A part of me wants to cling onto him forever like a saran wrap, another wants to run away as far as possible. 

His lips brush over my neck as I bite back a moan. The heat of his body feels like it's burning my skin. 

"Bet it didn't feel like this when you were in his room," Chris says, tugging my neck's skin with his teeth. 

This annoying son of an Alpha! This is not the time for your ego trip, Chris. "Chris, I need to leave!"

"Or maybe... it's time we give in," he whispers. When he kisses my neck, I feel the sharp ends of his fangs. My toes curl as I hold onto him tighter as if my life depends on it. My own fangs want to come out and pierce his hot skin. His crunched up t-shirt in my fist is at its stretching limit. Of all the times I've seen him shirtless... why couldn't he be so now? My body wants to be all over him. But my mind is trying to find a way out. 

He starts to move me down to the bed but I pull up, knowing once I'm down under him, where my whole sexual existence is dying to be in, I might not want to get out of there. "No, Chris, I'll kill you! Get me out of here!" 

He rests his forehead on my shoulder and sighs. I hear his heart beat as if it's throbbing against my eardrums. I don't even know anymore which one of us' reactions are leveling up this whole exchange from PG 13 to R 18+. 

His large and rough hand slides up my thigh. My spine arcs up. "Chris," my voice trembles, both from the pleasure his hand on my thigh gives and my pleading for it to not venture further up on my body at the moment.

He squeezes my thigh, then moves away, picks me up off the bed and takes me to the living room couch.

My breathing starts to become normal once I'm out of that deathtrap of a room. Although I can still smell his scent, I'm not drowning in it like I was in there.

I catch my breath in his arms, while he still keeps me close to his body. I don't try to move away either, as the warmth of his body and the rhythm of his heartbeat helps me calm down and lessen the abdomen pain. I can't believe, for a second there, things almost took a dangerous turn. I should've just put on earplugs and stayed in my room, instead of channeling Nancy Drew.

Chris moves away my hair to the side of my face and tucks it behind my ear. "Better now?" he asks.

I nod. His voice sounds good. As good as my mom's voice feels like whenever she takes care of me while I'm sick.

"Now tell me what were you doing on the highway?" he says, not forgetting the event that brought me to his lap at this moment, and could've led me a while ago to scream his name while getting fucked by him on his bed. 

"I don't remember," I say, hiding my lying face in his chest. 

"You don't remember or you won't tell me?" he asks, knowing very well hiding my face is not going to make my lie any more truer. 

I hug his torso tighter, feeling lightly drowsy, and barely whisper, "Won't tell you. Not yet." This almost gives me a déjà vu vibe from when he told me last time he can't give me all the answers yet. 

He caresses my cheek. "Fair enough. But you'll be sleeping in my room from tomorrow." 

I chuckle tiredly and move my head a bit to find the right spot on his ripped arm for the base of my neck to comfortably stay in. I like the shape of his bicep. "Yeah, not happening," I say. 

"Then I sleep with you in your room," he says. 

My eyes look up at him, and he looks serious. "I almost lost you today, right in front of my eyes," he says. 

"I'm not that weak of a werewolf to die from that." 

I am, though, but he doesn't have to think that. Even in the best case scenario for me in that accident, I could've become disabled. 

"No," he says, "I'm not leaving you alone at night with your nightmares. Talking in your sleep is one thing, but sleepwalking? If I'm with you all night I won't let you wander off like you did tonight. I can protect you from those bad dreams. I'll protect you from everything." 

I muster some strength in my arm and gently touch his face, grazing my thumb below his lips, and smile. "I promise. Nothing bad is going to happen to me. Now let me sleep," I say, letting my face rest fully on his chest. I'm exhausted from lack of sleep and a near-death experience. 

I need to fall into a slumber and not wake up till my body is rejuvenated to its full capacity, so tomorrow I could use all my energy to hunt down that bitch and send her to hell for trying to kill me. And it wasn't just me she put in danger. Chris could've gotten hurt, too, while saving me. 

Grabbing me by my thigh, he pulls me closer. Every inch of his muscles are large and firm enough for my scrawny body to cozily rest on. It's like he's shaped to be my ideal mattress and pillow. After adjusting me on his lap and chest, he slides down on the couch, and soon, we both fall asleep. 

———— 

A/N 

Hey guys! I need a favor: 

Even though I proofread the chapters, I might not catch all the mistakes in the writing every time. So if you ever spot a typo, or some other error like that, let me know in the comments :) 

See you next week 💕 — xx, Auctorsam