Author's Note

Updates will be sparse on Wattpad for this book, and not just because I am posting on Radish. My life sorta got really busy all of a sudden. I'm taking a step back and sorta just enjoying my senior year 'fore I leave for college in August. Plus I have no idea what I'm going to be as an adult. 

Thank you for your patience. Please, please read on Radish. Chapter six is available now. :-) 

The bedroom suffocates Dove. From where she sits on the edge of the mattress, far enough to escape the body heat of a half-naked Eli stretched out and ready to sleep, she taps impatiently at her phone, writing text after text to Sonya, attempting to explain how everything about the manor-in-the-middle-of-nowhere inexplicably drove her stir crazy.

Greaaat so ur staying in a house full of wolves. BTW, what do I tell ur mom when ur gutted body is found tomorrow morning?

Dove holds her breath, reading over the dramatic text as she stands up. Eli doesn't even notice, instead, his focus remains on the smartphone inches from his face. With a quick once-over of the room, Dove realizes the two bright screens in each teenager's hand has become the only source of light in the room.

not funny. wolves aren't even that bad. God you sound like one of those speciesist old men from town.

The phone buzzes as Sonya replies almost instantaneously.

Wolf is not bad. Wolf is alone, wolf is not aggressive or territorial or jarred on by other murder machines. WOLVeS aRE LiTERALLY PACKS OF KiLLERS, DoVE.

The teenager rolls her eyes as she makes her way to the bedroom door, her hand wrapped around the original brass knobs that creaked at her touch. Sonya double-texts before Dove has a chance to reply.

GOD, ITS LIKE IM THE ONLY ONE WHO PAYS ATTENTION IN LYCANTHROPE I.

She manages a smile, because her friend is simply being dramatic for the sake of a laugh-- she thinks.

"Where you goin'?" Somewhere behind her, Eli's voice only asks out of boredom and not curiosity, watching her over the screen of his phone with blue eyes framed with dark circles. Maybe it's the hour of night. Maybe it's from recounting lies and fitting them almost-seamlessly together. Maybe she doesn't care-- so she doesn't answer, and instead, takes a step out of the room without offering anything to the other teenager.

Not fair, Lycan I was literally just added this year.

She hovers in the hallway, silent aside for the tapping of her thumbs on the screen, and sends another message before she crosses to the other side of the empty corridor.

plus he's cute. I'm doing this mainly cause he's sex on legs. if you were in my position, you'd be doing the same thing.

She doesn't even have the chance to take in the bathroom door in front of her before Sonya blows her phone up with an instant reply.

if i were in ur position i'd be praying to our lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Here, do you need some links to his word? The Bible is an app now, download it and throw ur phone at his perfect face-- see if he burns.

That manages to pull an air-light chuckle out of Dove's mouth; she shoves the phone in the hem of her underwear-- which is the only piece of fabric that covers her freckled, sorta-hairy-because-why-the-hell-not legs. She'll reply after she washes off the makeup on her face-- which, by now, seems like it's been glued on for three hours too long.

The bathroom feels freezing, which isn't surprising; as far as Dove can tell, modern air and heating is a concept that hasn't been introduced to the century-old manor. Her hands pat around the wall blindly before she finds the switch, and as she turns it on, she learns it's only a weak, flickering light hanging hazardously from the tiled ceiling on a thin wire.

Inside, the room holds a lone four-clawed bathtub, with the original brass shower-head and faucet, now green from oxidation. With tired eyes, she turns to the rusted mirror and takes in her reflection. Dark hair matted and wild from Eli's persistent tugging and the after-effects of driving down the highway with the windows rolled down; her foundation still holds up, even a bit of highlighter shines when the light catches her cheekbones.

She opens the mirror in her search for any kind of soap that looks safe for her face, and turns around to the cabinet above the toilet after her hands turn up empty. Dove is on the brink of giving up when she hears an almost inaudible conversation through the thin floors.

Quietly, she stops her search, and listens shamelessly, ducking her head down, coming frighteningly close to the toilet-lid as the voices filter through the wooden floor.

"--And we're in the middle of nowhere, now. No one has even lived here since Clayton, and he didn't-- he didn't bite anyone," whoever is speaking is a total stranger to Dove in every single way, male and deep and frightened.

Next, a female's, offering suggestions before she's interrupted. "What about children? He could've-"

"He had Rose, Ophelia," Silas's familiar voice makes itself known, sounding almost offended at the mere thought of the girl's-- of Ophelia's-- words. "He couldn't-- he wouldn't do that."

"Then who is it-- what is it, Silas? It nearly kills Cody, and it does kill--" Ophelia's tone becomes frustrated, reaching out for any kind of explanation. With each passing second, her tone becomes higher and higher-- frantic from thought.

"We shouldn't be talking about this. Not here, not with them--" Silas's words rush over hers, making the conversation even harder to understand for the eavesdropping teenager.

"The humans here? Or is it because of the girl?" Ophelia replies; this time, there is no interruption, and there isn't another word passed between them until the silence that settled over the conversation became uncomfortable.

"No," it's a lie, and it's not well hidden. Denial in a way that isn't meant to be taken seriously, only spoken for the sake of trying to deny it. "I just--"

Dove presses herself closer, waiting for Silas to explain himself, until a heavy knock on the bathroom door interrupts her. As if it cut off the congregation downstairs, the entire home seems to go quiet aside for the obnoxious knocker.

"C'mon, Dove," Eli's tired words tumble through. "I gotta piss."

She pushes herself away from the floor in frustration, unwillingly leaving the conversation beneath her.

*

There is a way to the world-- or, there was. Dove thinks all of these things, believes there is a natural diffusion of the good and the bad and the somewhat questionable, but really-- did she actually know anything about anything? What gave her right to even think she had the slightest clue about the world around her?

The world had been flipped upside down. Men weren't simply dogs anymore, they could become wolves if their desire was strong enough. And that wasn't the part that terrified Dove. It was the simple fact that things which weren't supposed to exist, creatures her mother assured were only part of a terrifying imagination, thrived right in front of her face; mocking man with dull teeth and sharp smiles.

They could lie. They had been lying, for years-- for centuries, for millennia. The ability to convince others of their humanity came to them as easy as breathing. In a way, Dove envied them. Sometimes, she mourned for the lack of consciousness they must possess. Then, she remembered how most people seem to lack what was supposed to make them human in the first place.

Maybe that is why she is the opposite of shocked when Eli's phone buzzed on the mattress with more than one unfortunate girls' names. Multiple notification after notification, proving every doubt and thought and oh-I-fucking-knew-it to Dove as she laid beside him, careful not to wake him as she watched the screen light up the entire room.

In the moment, she can't even find the energy to be angry at Eli. She didn't love him. His companionship was convenient and his dick was mediocre. He bought her tacos every other day, and that was the most worth she could find in him. And how stupid. How stupid it was to waste and pinpoint and give all of her time to a boy who used just as much energy on other girls.

It's only one in the morning, but Sonya is long asleep. No angrily texting her, asking for advice on how to handle the man that is literally sleeping with his hands gently wrapped around her waist. Because Sonya always had answers, she made sense when Dove made too much sense.

She settles on glaring at him in the dim light of the room, the darkness carving out a harshness she had never seen when she slithered up against his body and allowed him to touch all of the wrong places.

God, she feels so fucking stupid. And she hates that the most, being made an idiot when she had believed all of the control rested in her hands. Trusting someone enough because they smiled a certain way in just the right light.

Because there was an understanding, a silent agreement. What they possessed was a complicated thing, friends with benefits who only saw each other. He doesn't do this with anyone else, and she won't either.

When his phone finally began to ring, actually ring with the familiar face of a girl from a few towns over, Dove pushed away his hands and decided she would deal with it in the morning after she finds a separate room to sleep in. Simply being in his vicinity made her ill.

Unconsciously, his hands go out for her, clutching on her hipbone before she rips it harshly away, not particularly caring if he woke up from his REM cycle. Unfortunately, he remains on the pillow with an annoyingly placid face that makes even a liar look sweet.

She grabs her phone from the nightstand on her side of the mattress before she glances around the room to grab extra pillows and blankets. She's going to demand out of here, but Dove is more than prepared to sleep on the damn floor of the hallway, even the bathtub if that means being away from him.

When she stands, the sick feeling of being proved wrong settles in her stomach, one of the worst things to ever swallow for the prideful. Dove pushes away any thoughts of the idiot sleeping in the bed and makes her way out of the room.

Outside, the hallway is dim with only one light in the middle of the ceiling, which hangs above a hardly-open door. With a pillow under her armpit and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, she makes her way towards the door, sporting her most intimidating expression known to man, or at least, to Dove, and enters the bedroom without another word.

*

Inside, nothing but stray moonlight offers any kind of visibility, although it made no difference for Silas. He sat on the edge of his bed, body pointed towards the window, where his dark skin caught the attention of the stars behind the glass-pane.

He attempted to clear his mind, to simply forget all of what was around him, but the house hummed with life, his distant family creating tangible energy simply by being in the same vicinity of one another, and the girl in the next room. Silas was trying to pull himself far from her, to mute out her even breathing, to forget how the covers rustled when she unconsciously curled her hands into the fabric and woke up every other ten minutes.

She felt the pull, too. Not in the same way, but something was there. Something was undeniable.

"Silas, oh-- I um, I didn't mean, to, uh," She sneaks up on him, and how the hell did that even happen. How is that even possible?

"Um," he stands, bare chest obvious as he blinks back at her with little embarrassment. This was a natural state, a preferred way to keep him from feeling restrained in the hard denim of jeans or the annoyingly tight fabric of a cotton t-shirt. Luckily, he hadn't stripped himself of his boxers, leaving at least a bit of modesty in the presence of the teenager. "I'm sorry, hold--" he lifts up one hand as he searches the room for a t-shirt and bottoms.

She remains quiet as she watches him clumsily jump into a dirty pair of work jeans and an inside-out t-shirt. A rogue brow shoots up, as if disapproving for the sudden loss of skin, but Silas hardly takes note, simply intoxicated by her mere presence.

"Yes?" He asks her when he's completely straightened out, he realizes Dove is standing in the sweatshirt she had arrived in and a pair of underwear. In a word, she looked absolutely and painfully breathtaking. "Is there anything you need?" Because he would give her anything, in this moment and any second after.

She doesn't hesitate before she responds. "I wanna go home."

But that. Because that was the opposite of everything he wanted to hear come out of her mouth. Of course, it was a more-than-likely outcome of this short, accidental, a bit-too-convenient stay at the home. But... so suddenly, in the middle of the night, with a pleading tone that made Silas want to dutifully follow any question asked with doe-eyes and a quivering lip. He almost grabbed the nearest keys to a working vehicle.

"Because?" He whispered back, dark eyes following where her own stayed caught on her hands which folded over and over again in the blanket around her narrow shoulders.

"You ever been heartbroken?" And Silas never imagined her to actually answer without a flickering beat in her chest to prove she was lying. At most, a 'just 'cause'. An excuse that didn't feel the need to be explained, not an actual explantion.

"No," he pauses before he goes on, thinking carefully of his words, knowing that all of her attention is on him even though she stares at her own fingers from nerves. "Not in the sense I think you are speaking of."

"I ain't either," she admits not even a second later, a note of bitterness in her low voice. "Been disappointed, but it's all startin' to feel the same. It's all just running the same color, and now anything I feel is beginning to resemble a muddy gray."

He remains quiet, because Silas has always been a man of a few words. What he was didn't need words. It felt weird, to use his voice, in this fashion, in the soft murmur of a late-night conversation with the potential of going miles deep or staying above sea-level.

"Y'know, it's hard," Dove continues without his assistance, and finally, her eyes find his in the darkness, two glimmers aligning perfectly with his own, making his chest constrict in a way that reminded him of a lazy day spent in the warm light of the sun and the nearest bed. Familiar and comfortable and rare.

"What?" His words are so careful, so soft, so important. These are words to a being that holds all of the air in the room, demands all of Silas's attention, pleads for it.

"Pretendin' not to care so much that you actually don't," she takes a ginger step closer to him, the teenager's feet are unsure but he recognizes the ritual immediately, sees the unconscious tilt of her toes and the way her hips jut underneath the blanket's cape. Mating dance.

"You begin to look at someone long enough and you realize that if they were to say goodbye... you'd hold the door the open for them," Dove finishes, now only two steps from where he stands, both of them mirroring one another's hesitance.

"If someone wants to leave," Silas whispers back, even though whispering is pointless in a house that hears everything. "Close the door, lock it-- only allow them in... when they crash the door down, not when the knocking gets annoying."

"So you're tellin' me..."

"Is someone wants to leave, let them, Dove."

"Ironic," she smiles, her frown softened by the upturned tilt of her lips accompanied by a dimple and a half. "I told you... I wanted to leave," the teenager continues when he doesn't fill in the blank himself, focused on the way her eyes look when they're caught between a smile and a smart comment.

"Oh," he stammered. "No, not-- I mean, do you really have to leave?" Because that doesn't apply to him. If she wants to leave, he'll deal. He will, eventually, in his own way. But for now, he's too enamored to remember holding on too tightly cuts off circulation, breaks knobs, collapses doors.

And he doesn't like that. Doesn't appreciate the heavy-heady-too-much-too-little feeling that comes when he's in the direct presence of this virtual stranger. What made her so frighteningly perfect to him? What allowed him to build an entire future off of the way her feet shuffled on the wooden floors and how her voice sounded like an old favorite song he forgot the words to?

"You really can't go home, though," he reminds her. "We'd have to walk, and it's... dangerous at this hour."

She takes a subconscious step forward, leaving less than a foot divided between them. Here is unknown territory Silas allowed her to trespass on. "I know," except it didn't sound like the answer to his particular question.

He lifts up a brow, a silent gesture for her to move forward in the conversation, but instead she remains silent with a smile that told him she knew everything before he even had the chance to open his mouth.

Dove leans up, the moon spilling over her face, erasing any harsh shadow on her skin. "Danger ain't always a bad thing, Silas," she taunts as she rises to the tips of her bare toes.

Maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he should. Maybe he returns the distance with a ducked head and hands that clasp either side of her jaw, leading her towards him until the pesky space between them becomes nothing but something that once existed.

"I never said it was."

He only decided he liked the taste of danger when it came with the idea of Dove.

Author's Note

Do I got a plot twist coming straight for u guyz lolol. 

Thank you for reading, I appreciate every single one of ya taking your time to support my writing. 

Comments are appreciated, literally tell me anything you liked about the book, plz I am desperate for feedback. 

Again, CHAPTER SIX AND SO FORTH WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE ON RADISH BEFORE I PUBLISH ON HERE. MEANING, CHAPTERS WILL BE ON RADISH MUCH EARLIER THAN ON WATTPAD.