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Chapter Quote:
“You’re a freak for not being terrified of me.”
~Calla from Nightshade
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Chapter 10: Red Rose

“Your… what?” Ren demanded in shock, eyes flitting between Arya and the picture he held.  He thought some of the people in it were younger versions of some of her pack now.  The two guys that were most likely brothers resembled Dmitri and Rigg.

“My pack now… they haven’t always been my pack,” Arya said quietly, not looking at Ren. “I was ten when they died.  In fact, that picture was taken a week before everything spiraled out of control.” She scooted next to him so she could point to the people. “That’s me.  My dad told us we were going out of town soon, for a break, so I was ecstatic.  The boy next to me is Loren Hess.  He was a few months older than me.  He was my second.  The two boys right there, the blondes, they were brothers: Dean and Sam Fray.  And then, that girl standing next to Loren is Casey Gray.  She was my best friend.  The girl with the pixie cut is Tracy Stein.  Feistiest girl in my group next to me.  Not very level-headed though…  The other girl with black hair is Reyna.  She was the fashionista of the group.  If she were still here today, she would not approve of my wardrobe.  She would claim I had too many pairs of jeans and not enough skirts.  The second guy with black hair is Jake Johnson.  The guy with brown hair is Tony Parker.  That was the pack I was supposed to lead.  I didn’t know it, but the ‘vacation’ my dad talked about was actually us being rescued by the Searchers and going to the Academy.  The Keepers somehow found out.  They took all of us.  Lumine tortured me with wraiths for-” Arya fell silent, counting something on her fingers, “two months.  In that two months, I watched each of my pack mates die.” Her voice was just above a whisper.  Ren could barely hear her. “I couldn’t do jack about it either.  I screamed for them.  I screamed at the Keepers to stop.  I screamed at them to kill me too.  But no.  That was my punishment.  That was my parents’ punishment.  I had to watch my pack die, and my parents had to watch their daughter go through agony and learn that not only was I being tortured, but genetically altered; the Keepers messed with magic to get me to change coat colors.  Their experiments caused as much pain as the wraiths.  One day they got it to work.  They ordered me to change my coat color and I was so out of it, I just did as I was told.  How the Searchers found us, they never said, but I remember people breaking me free, carrying me in their arms, and me sobbing for my lost friends.  They brought me and my family to the Academy.  I had my own room.  Everyone tried to get me to come out, but nothing worked.  I was depressed.  My parents threw themselves into rescuing other Guardians.  You wonder how my parents’ pack came to be?  Well they rescued Shiloh, Carrie, and Ray’s parents along with the kids.  From what I was told, Shiloh, Carrie, and Ray met the other members of our pack when they got to the Academy.  Apparently, except for me, the others had been there for years.  The process to genetically alter us was different for each wolf.  Some of their Keepers were really good at figuring out the spell, others, like Lumine, sucked.  But, because of our shared experience, we bonded instantly.  I was the last person to meet everyone.  I hadn’t even known there were other wolves besides my family there.  Shiloh found me.  He convinced me to as least meet the people.  I reluctantly agreed.  We all ended up grouping together.  We were inseparable.  When I was… sixteen, the Searcher’s moved us here.  No Keepers controlled this territory.  The people had burned the last one that came in.  About seven people died in doing so.  Keepers tended to avoid the area after that.  The Searchers thought it safest for us to be here, so we did; they kept a Weaver with us at all times until the war ended though so in case we had to make a quick getaway.  The townspeople were about to burn us out of our houses, because some figured out what we were, until mountain lions started terrorizing the town.  It’s the same one that hurt Shiloh.  We’d been walking downtown.  I noticed a little boy had lost his parents so I ordered my pack to keep going.  I had been asking what his parents looked like when a growl sounded behind us.  I turned around and two of the three mountain lions were there.  My pack had caught the cats’ scent and came running back in wolf form.  I got the boy out of there while my pack got rid of the cats.  The townspeople who knew about us accepted us.  They know we’re not here to hurt them.  But that’s my story.  My pack now is the pack I would die.  They’re my family, just like my old pack was.  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I got scared.  We’d already been through a bunch of crap and with past experiences of telling others what we are, meaning we can change coats, I panicked.  I thought you’d think the same as them and leave.  I didn’t want to risk it.”

“What did people call you?” Ren asked.

“Mutants, abominations, genetic freaks, and those are the nice names.  I won’t go into the more colorful ones.”

“You’re not any of those,” he promised, continuing to stare at the picture.

“Those are the only two secrets I’ve been hiding from you, I swear.”

“Who was supposed to be your mate?” He looked up at Arya.  Her cheeks flushed.

“I didn’t have a designated one… everyone simply assumed Loren and I would get together.” She shrugged, as if she didn’t know what to think of it.

“Did you… love him?”

“At the time, I hardly knew what love was, so I guess I thought I did but now…”

“Now?”

“I realize I loved him as a friend.  I’m older, wiser, and smarter.  I know what love is now.”

“Nunc scio quid sit amor,” Ren murmured.

“What?” Arya looked at him curiously.

“Nothing.  Something you said reminded me of a Latin phrase.  You say you know what love is now.  What do you mean?” he inquired, trying to change the subject.

“I’ve met a lot of people in my life. Hell, I’ve dated a few guys in town.  But… when I tell someone I love them, I don’t mean it as just affection.  I don’t love people easily because in my experience, people come and go all the time.  I don’t want to get attached to someone and have them leave.  So when I tell a person I love them, it means I would die for them.  I’ve only ever told that to my pack, my parents, and you.  I love my pack and my parents as family because that’s what they are.  But you’re a different type of love.  You’re not family, but you’re someone I want to be family.”

“You mean marriage?” Ren’s stomach flip-flopped.  Had she thought about it just as much as he had?

Arya blushed. “Maybe that’s what love is.  When one person loves another person so much, and they’re not family, but they desperately want to be?  I don’t know.  But I know I love you, and I would die for you in a heartbeat.  I’ve kept stuff from you, I have a crazy overprotective father, I’m a mutant; if you don’t stay, I won’t blame you.  Hell, I probably would.”

“No, I’m staying.  And never let me hear you call yourself a mutant again.  You’re not.  You’re just… different.  And sometimes different is better.  Yes, your father is overprotective, but that can easily be dealt with.  In fact, I already have.  He and I talked earlier.  He apologized to me… after I gave him a bit of a mouthful about what he caused between us.  You kept stuff from me, yes I was angry, but you’ve explained it now, you’ve explained why you kept it, and I understand.  I am not leaving you Arya.  Get that through your head.  I love you so much,” he said sincerely.  She smiled.

“I know.  Let’s go back to bed.  It’s cold out here,” Arya insisted.

“I can warm you up,” Ren told her impishly, which earned him a kiss on the cheek.

“Then let’s hurry home.” Arya put the pictures of her old pack back in the metal container and buried it back in the ground.  The two shifted into wolves and ran back to the Compound.
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The next night…

“Hurry up!  She’ll be back any minute!” Ren urged the girls.

“Ren, you don’t need to panic.  Arya’s parents will keep her busy for a while,” Carrie insisted. “Go get dressed.”

Ren listened, tripping over himself to get to the closet.  That earned a laugh from the girls.  While he put on dark pant suits and a dark blue button down shirt, Ren heard Leyla and Katrina shouting they were going to take pictures of their handiwork.  He smiled.  Soon, he was going to be a part of this pack officially.
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Arya 

Four wolves ran out in front of her car as she drove up her driveway to their garage.  She honked her horn angrily at it.  The wolf transformed into four grinning boys; sticking her head out of the window, she yelled, “Shiloh McKay, Michael Jackson, Frank West, Walter Mendel, I could’ve killed you all just now!”

“But you didn’t love!  See you at home!” Shiloh countered.  They shifted back and ran into the woods.

“I’m going to kill them,” Arya muttered.  Her parents sat smirking at the Lightwood pack’s antics.  She continued driving up to the driveway with no more wolf incidents.  They got out, taking the elevator up to the Compound.  Everyone, save for Ren , was outside, messing around or talking.

“Oh!  Arya!  Can you come here for a minute?  I have a sundress that doesn’t fit me so I wanted to see if you wanted it,” Taki said. “It’ll be really fast I promise.”

Arya wanted to go up to her room and drop off her purse but knowing her friend, Taki wouldn’t be patient.  She agreed and went up to her pack mate’s room where a strapless, white sundress lay on her bed.  There were blue embroidered flowers on the bottom.  It was beautiful.

“Here, try it!” Taki insisted, nearly shoving it into Arya’s hands.  She went into the bathroom and switched into it.  Miraculously, it was a perfect fit.

“Well let me see it!” Taki yelled.  Arya walked out of the bathroom, smiling. “Oh.  My.  God.  You look incredible!  You have to go show Ren!”

“Okay, okay, geez, Taki, what’s gotten into you?” Arya laughed as her friend pushed her out of the room.  She walked outside where a few of her male pack mates wolf whistled at her, to which she promptly rolled her eyes at.

“Ren?” Arya called out.  If he was in the house, he didn’t respond.  She jogged up the stairs.  Candles lined the hallway.  The smell emanating from them was delicious.  She didn’t know what the flavor was but it didn’t matter.  She entered her room.  The place itself was spotlessly clean.  Candles, different sizes were placed about the room.  On the bed lay multiple roses, all different colors.  A picture was attached to each of them.  Some were hand-drawn by an amazing artist, others were actual photos.

The first eerily resembled Arya and Ren’s first meeting; it was hand-drawn of the two sitting across from each other in the exact positions they’d been, the exact same clothes.  A yellow rose was attached to it.

The second rose, or roses, were light pink, medium pink, and dark pink.  With it was another hand-drawn picture of the first breakfast the pack had had with Ren.  The artist, whoever they were, made Arya laugh because while everyone else looked happy, Shiloh looked extremely pissed.

The third rose was orange.  The picture, now an actual photo, showed Arya in a dress she had tried on at the mall when they’d gone shopping for clothes for Ren.  It also showed Ren’s appreciative face of getting to see her in the dress.

The fourth rose, a yellow one tipped with red, was paired with an actual photo of Ren and Arya bounding through Estes Park in wolf form.  Their tongues lolled out of their mouths.  They were smiling, even if they were wolves.

The fifth rose was lavender.  It had another hand-drawn picture of Arya and Ren in front of Ansel, holding hands with snow swirling around them.

The sixth rose was a creamy white, and the photo showed Arya being carried bridal style by Ren.  They’d been up in the park at Bear Lake.  The place had still been closed to visitors, so they group frolicked in and out of the water.

The seventh rose was red.  The photo was of Ren and Arya kissing under the mistletoe during Christmas.

But what did all this mean?  Her answer came to her when the smell of leather and sandalwood drifted from behind her.  Arms wrapped around her waist, a head rested on her shoulder.

“A yellow rose means joy or gladness.  With the picture attached, it means I was glad to have finally met my savior.  The pink roses mean appreciation.  With the picture, it means I appreciated what you did to incorporate me with the pack.  The orange rose means desire.  I think the picture speaks for itself.  That’s when I started wanting you to be my girlfriend.  A yellow rose tipped with red means falling in love.  The night we ran through the park, I started falling hard for you.  A lavender rose means enchantment.  Besides Shiloh beating the tar out of me, that was a pretty enchanting night with all the snow and getting to kiss you for the first time.  A creamy white rose, also called Bridal White, means happy love.  I have never been so happy loving someone before, so I guess the definition of the rose explains everything.  And finally, a red rose means I love you.  I just liked that picture of us so I put it with the rose.  And now, for the finale,” Ren began, pulling away.  Arya followed him.  He pulled out a massive bouquet of red and white roses.  Each white rose was intertwined with one red rose. “Do you know what these two colors mean together?”

“What?” Arya queried, looking up at him.  Her heart kept trying to pound its way out of her chest.  She wouldn’t let it.

“It means unity.  There are thirty-eight roses here total.  Each one represents your pack members agreeing to me being the alpha male of the pack.  Now, the significance of the roses intertwined means-”

“Marry me,” Arya finished in shock.  She’d read up on the meaning of roses before, and for some reason, out of all the things she remember about roses, two intertwined meant ‘Marry Me.’

“Well I was going to ask but if you want to ask me, I’ll take that too,” Ren laughed as he got down on one knee.  He pulled out a red velvet box.  In it lay what had to be a four carat, princess cut diamond with two smaller diamonds flanking it. “Arya Lightwood, would you marry me?”

She sank onto her knees, her mouth agape. “Are you serious?”

“No, this is all a prank and Ashton Kutcher is about to come bursting out of our closet.  Yes I’m being serious,” Ren chuckled.  A few seconds later, his face started to fall. “Do you… not want to marry me?”

She kissed him, breaking off any other thoughts he was having about her saying no. “Hell no, that’s not what I’m saying.” She smiled into his kiss. “And Ren Laroche, in answer to your question: yes.  Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  And yes in any other language you can think of.”

Ren grinned in happiness and relief.  He took the ring out of the box.  Before he slid it onto her ring finger, Arya stopped him after getting a glance of an inscription on the inside of the ring.  It said: “Nunc scio quid sit amor.”

“What’s that?” Arya questioned, studying it curiously.

“It’s Latin,” he answered.

“What does it mean?”

Ren slid the ring onto her finger, covering her hand in his.  A radiant smile lit up his face. “Now I know what love is."
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