Chapter 12

"You okay cupcake? You hit the ground pretty hard." My eyes fluttered open; my head was spinning yet again, the entire room was a blur.

"You are quite clumsy for such a pretty little face."

"I am going to fucking kill you Devon, she just woke up and you are already trying to get in her pants."

"Yeah, you need to cut the crap, Devon. Go get some of the soup I made and bring it here. That is all you are useful for."

"No shit Rose, why do you think I was trying to, I don't have a girlfriend for that exact reason."

"Finn, go with him and make sure he doesn't spike it or some shit."

"Sure beautiful."

I hear two walk away and the other two stay beside me, as the TV is blaring into my skull and sense that I am now in the living room. I still fight to keep my eyes open, and when I could finally see, I realize why I fell in the first place.

It was him, the guy from my drawings, yet in color, alive, breathing. He has black hair just like I imagined, but his eyes are more green than my dreams. I think I am in one right now, I have never seen him in my life and yet, the same person I kept drawing was here in front of me.

I would not be surprised if they think I am crazy, I can feel my mouth is wide open and so were my eyes. Maybe if they knew why I was like that they would understand exactly why I looked so stupid.

"You alright Angel? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Yeah, the ghosts of my past. I gain composure and look at my hands, I was not daring enough to make eye contact. The two who left are back and hand me a white bowl with chicken soup. I try saying thank you, but no words come out.

I grab the spoon from the bowl with shaky hands and take a bite, I could sense them all staring at me. It was only then I realize that they smelled unhuman, it calms me just a little, there was a witch, vampire, wolf and one I couldn't point out. Oddly enough, the one from my dreams is the scent I can't figure.

"Boys, you're scaring her, go."

"But-"

"No."

"Can I at least-"

"All of you, out now!" Footsteps fade and I sense one in the room, the wolf, or from what I could recall, Rose.

"I am so sorry about them; we have not acquainted with strangers in quite a while. They are getting excessively horny." She stifles a small giggle, and I can't tell if she was trying to lighten the mood or had a natural sense of humor.

The stiffness vanishes the room and I finally get the courage to look up. She looked just like the guy I drew, but she had curly fawn hair. Her Emerald green eyes perfectly match his, and the bright smile as well. They had to be related, somehow.

"I see someone finally has a sense of humor. I'm Rose." She was extremely friendly for a wolf, but she doesn't seem to have a pack as I. She had a kind of happiness in her, one that I would seem to never have.

"Stella." It was barely a mumble, but better than the last time I tried to speak.

Rose tilts her head, scrunched her eyebrows, and raises her mouth, "Well, Stella, how does a wolf-" she abruptly stops to sniff, "-with a bit of witch blood like you end up in the middle of a street in New York city?" Her question did not have an answer, I wanted to ask her how I got here, and how she could tell I had a bit of witch in me. Now I know I won't get the answers I wanted.

"I-I don't know." At least it was mostly truthful, I know why I am here, obviously, but of course I couldn't tell her I was the future queen of the New York packs.

Maybe this was exactly what I need though, nice people who do not know who I really am, I can finally act as normal as possible. I don't want to lie to them, so I figured I would just leave the royal part out but tell them the rest.

"I was with some of my friends and I don't know what happened after." I was halfway done with the soup, and I didn't even realize I was eating it. I had to give her some credit; she makes amazing soup.

"Micah found you lying in the middle of the street, it makes sense you don't remember anything. Is this your first time in the city?" Rose looks at me solemnly, her eyes were pure kindness, I could see a faint hint of her wolf, it was male.

-

For wolves, it is fairly unusual to have the opposite gender, but not unheard of. Wolves choose us, dating back to the earliest we know. Our wolves are centuries old, when the person the spirit bonded with dies, they wait until they find the next one to connect with.

The reason wolves can't just bond with humans is because they are not strong enough to take two sprits in one body. Our ancestors, both wolf and people, have dated back to about 1287.

There were five royal families, and one night when they were all together, something changed them, and nobody knows what. From that day on they were all wolves.

There are only four families now, and like the mysteries of how wolves came to be, we do not know what happened to the fifth.

My family and I are one of the four, West, Rain, Pine, and Moon. We don't know the fifth name, but like the others, it has four letters.

We rule the New York packs, while the others reside in California, Florida, and Canada. There are smaller self-run packs in other states of the U.S, but we hold the main ones.

Our ancestors came from England after all their kingdoms were overtaken and came to North America to lead in semi-normal lives. From what we know, the five families started here in New York and spread as they found other wolves.

Each family has ten royal wolves, our family has Koa, Sky, Lark, Snow, Clay, Shadow, Forrest, Dawn, Alder, and River.

Midnight was the 5th King's wolf, and when the family disappeared, their wolf ancestors moved to other packs. We get rumors about him all the time, he sometimes roams the other packs, but there have been no official sightings. Midnight is the only ancestor of the 5th family that has yet to move to another pack and make new bonds, until now.

That means Sky has yet to bond with anyone, until me, and even further, there was a love between two Kingdoms. Maybe that was why the 5th disappeared.

-

"Yeah, it is." I do my best to keep my breathing steady, after what I just realized, I felt faint, again.

"Hm, makes a lot of sense. You smell of the forest. Where are you from?" She seemed to have amazing smell, I was surprised she couldn't smell where I was from, "Wait, are you from the packs?" There it is.

"Yeah." She smiles at me, and reaches out for the bowl, "Oh, sorry, I can clean it." I try to stand, but begin to fall back, until someone catches me.