Changed (2 page)

“
Okay.” I sighed. I pulled away and tilted my head up to press my lips against his. There was something he was hiding from me, something that he didn’t think I was ready to know. I had been able to sense it these last couple of days. It came off him in tiny waves. This must be what people meant when they said animals could sense your emotions.

CHAPTER TWO

I’m wearing a baby blue satin gown. My hair is spun into curly ringlets that bounce around my shoulders. Slipping into a pair of silver high heels, excitement bursts through me.

“
Don’t forget the glitter!” Rachel exclaims from behind me.

I smile and turn to face her. She’s dressed in a deep red, strapless gown of her own. Her dark hair is pinned into a neat little bun with tiny ringlets framing her face. “Not too much, okay? I don’t want to walk in looking like a disco ball!”

“
Too much? You can never have too much glitter,” Rachel insists.

I grin and stand still while she dusts me with a glitter-filled powder-puff. Movement outside my bedroom window startles me. “What was that?” I wonder out loud.

“
What was what?”

“
You didn’t see something moving outside the window?” I ask, staring fixedly at it.

“
Nope.” She shrugs.

I bite my lip as fear begins to dance through my veins. Something is wrong, something is off. Rachel doesn’t seem to notice or care, but I do.

“
What color corsage did you tell Jace to get you?” Rachel asks, unaffected by my panicked state of mind.

“
Silver,” I whisper, just as I see something shifting in front of the window again.

My feet slowly move forward as I walk away from Rachel and toward the window, pulled by curiosity and fear. A low growling noise makes me pause mid-step. Before I have time to wonder about the type of animal it came from, the window in front of me shatters as a wolf springs through at me.

I tumble backward , falling flat on to my butt. Rachel screams behind me as three more wolves leap through. Four wolves stare at me—one golden, one a lighter brown, one black, and one white.

The golden one stares at me, unmoving, while the white one snaps its jaws at me. I hold up an arm in an attempt to shield myself from them, while stumbling to get back to my feet.

“
Run, Rachel!” I shout.

I get to my feet and rush to Rachel, who stands immobile, gaping open-mouthed at the wolves. Before I can reach her, a spasm ripples through my body and the beautiful gown I’m wearing rips and falls to the floor around me, creating a silken puddle of ribbons.

I transform into what we are running from—a wolf.

Rachel stares at me with pure horror etched into her features. Fear rolls off her; I can sense it. Taking a small step backward, Rachel slowly begins to retreat from my room. I stalk forward, forgetting about the others, in an attempt to calm my best friend. But what Rachel sees is me pursuing her.

She runs.

I dart after her and pounce in an effort to keep her still while I explain. As she flails her arms beneath me, my claws shred her delicate flesh. At the sight of her blood, I move back, feeling horrible for what I’ve done.

“
Tessa, you’re a monster!” she screams at the top of her lungs.

* * *

I woke out of breath and drenched in sweat. The alarm clock on my nightstand read 4:25 a.m. Holding my head between my hands, the thought occurred to me that no matter what I did everyone besides Jace would think I was a monster once they found out what I had become. My chest tightened. How long could I keep something this big a secret?

I lay in bed wide awake, thinking. I’d been so consumed with all of the strange changes I was going through and worried about how changing into a wolf once a month was going to affect my life, that I hadn’t really thought the entire situation through. I hadn’t thought past myself and the bigger picture.

Jace was like werewolf royalty; he was the Pack Leader’s only son—the rightful heir to his position—and he had chosen
me
to stand at his side. I had been chosen to be what, his Alpha Queen? His parents practically thought I was an abomination, if this was what
they
thought of me, then what on Earth would everyone else in his pack think?

My mind circled around itself as more questions bubbled to the surface. By the time my alarm clock went off at 6:50, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I pressed the button on top and sat up in bed, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

* * *

Weaving my way through the crowd of people talking about their weekends, I headed straight for the English building. I’d noticed Rachel’s red Jeep in the parking lot, but didn’t feel like searching for her. My senses were on overload, and I could swear my skin was moving, readying itself for the change.

As I stepped into the classroom, Rachel was just taking her seat and talking with Gina Brown. Gina was a short, redheaded girl who sat beside Rachel and who I’d never seen her talk to before. But here they were, laughing and chatting away like they were best friends.

“
And when he burned the popcorn
twice
I finally just got up and made it myself,” Gina said as I slid into my seat. “I mean, there are only three bags in each box!”

Rachel laughed hysterically and turned to me with watery eyes. “Oh, hey! I didn’t see you come in.”

“
Hey.” I smiled. “What are you guys talking about? What’s so funny?”

“
Just something from Mark’s house on Saturday night,” Rachel said.

“
Was there a party or something I missed?” I asked, wondering why the two of them had been hanging out.

“
No, I just started dating Mark,” Gina said with a tiny, proud smile. “So, I happened to be there when Rachel and Kyle stopped by.”

“
Oh, cool,” I muttered.

“
Yeah, it’s been pretty awesome so far; it gives me someone to talk to whenever Kyle and I go over there to hang out now,” Rachel said.

“
Awesome.” I didn’t know what else to say. Jealousy reared its ugly head inside my mind; I felt like I was being replaced.

The tardy bell rang and I slouched down into my seat as Rachel and Gina finished up their conversation before class started.

English ticked by slowly and I found myself feeling more lost about what we were studying as the minutes dragged on. Apparently I had taken three full pages of notes on Friday regarding Shakespeare and his masterpiece
Romeo and Juliet
, but didn’t remember writing the first word. Where the hell had I been lately?

After managing to make it through English, even though I felt like I was suffering from some severe case of amnesia, I gathered my things quickly and exited the room under Rachel’s radar. I hung my head low and headed straight for Mr. Walter’s chemistry class.

A lifetime ago, when Sam and my breakup had been fresh, chemistry had been my most dreaded class of the day. Now, not so much. Things had mellowed out some. Sam and Darcy were still a couple, but it didn’t repulse me as much as it used to.

“
So, are you and Jace going to Samantha Moss’s party tomorrow night?” Sam asked, as he slipped into the desk behind me.

“
Tomorrow night? No, I don’t think we’ll be able to make it,” I said. Nope, there was absolutely no way we would be at Samantha Moss’s party tomorrow night, because tomorrow night I’d be changing into a wolf for my first time along with Jace.

“
Oh, too bad. I heard it’s going to be pretty wicked,” Sam said, and I couldn’t tell if he was gloating or genuinely bummed we couldn’t make it. Maybe after two months we were finally on track to becoming friends instead of enemies. “And here I was hoping to finally get my rematch with
prince charming
… guess I’ll just have to continue to wait.”

I shifted in my seat to face him. “Seriously? Are you ever going to get over that?”

Apparently us being friends was
never
going to happen, a realization that did not bum me out whatsoever.

Sam sneered at me and stuck the tip of his eraser into his mouth. “Eventually, after I pound his face in.”

“
Yeah, like that will ever happen.” I rolled my eyes and turned back toward the front of the room.

For the remainder of class, Sam tapped his foot against the metal bar underneath my desk to annoy me. He succeeded. When the bell rang, I dashed out of the classroom and toward the cafeteria, not stopping even when I heard Rachel calling my name.

I grabbed a cranberry-grape juice and a pack of peanut butter crackers; I wasn’t feeling very hungry today. Instead, I actually felt sick to my stomach.

“
Hey, didn’t you hear me yelling for you?” Rachel asked as she cut in front of someone to stand behind me in line.

I glanced around her to see if the person she’d cut in front of cared. It was some baby-faced freshman boy who came up to her boob. From the look on his face, she could have trampled him on her way to me and he wouldn’t have cared.

“
No, sorry,” I lied while paying the lunchroom cashier.

“
Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “So, what are you and Jace doing tonight?”

I stepped aside and waited on her to pay for her bag of Doritos and bottle of water. “Nothing, I have to work. Don’t you?”

Rachel shook her head and handed me her bottle of water so she could open her Doritos up. “No, I pulled a double yesterday. I’m off tonight.”

I handed her back her water as we made our way out the double doors in the cafeteria and toward the cement picnic tables outside. It was a mild 58 degrees today, and I was so thankful it wasn’t raining because I didn’t know if I could handle being in that cafeteria for another second.

“
Oh,” I muttered.

“
I told you about this the other day,” she said, licking the cheese off her fingers. “Remember, the concert that’s coming up, the one with the crazy band Kyle and Mark want to see?”

I nodded like I’d just remembered and knew exactly what she was talking about when in actuality I didn’t. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.”

“
Geez, you’re like seriously spacey lately. What’s your deal?”

I took a sip of my juice and chuckled. “I don’t know.”

The truth was I did know, but there was no way I could tell her because there was absolutely no way she’d understand what I was going through. Hell, there was no way she’d even
believe
me.

And then it happened. The one thing I thought would never happen between Rachel and me. We lapsed into an awkward silence while she finished her Doritos and I finished my peanut butter crackers. Neither one of us could think of a single thing to say, because over the last few weeks we’d slowly began to drift apart.

And now, here we were, sitting beside each other, struggling to think of something to say. Our friendship had been cracked, and I didn’t know how to piece it back together to make it whole again.

Up to this point I’d never kept a secret from Rachel, and now that seemed like all I was doing. They just kept stacking up on top of each other, forming a leaning tower.

I felt like it was a matter of time before that tower began to fall.

CHAPTER THREE

Work was horrible. Since Rachel wasn’t there I had to hustle alongside Janis—a tall, skinny woman in her mid-forties, who I swore was hyped up on something. There was absolutely no way possible a person could be as energetic as she was and not be. And, as if working with Janis wasn’t bad enough, there was a new girl, too: Allison Cable, a tiny sophomore at Breckwater High and now also the new cashier I had to train.

“
No, right here… this is the button for extra pickles,” I said for the third time tonight.

“
Right, sorry,” Allison insisted. “Okay, it’s $5.62.”

Wade, a guy who worked across the street at the farmer’s market, smiled and handed Allison a ten dollar bill. I watched as Allison punched in the numbers and mistakenly added an extra zero, making the register deduct $5.62 from $100 instead of $10.

Allison’s face flushed red as she scrambled to do the math in her head. “Sorry, math has always been my worst subject.”

“
It’s all right, sweetheart. Take your time,” Wade said, chewing on his toothpick.

I stood there smiling while I figured it up in my head. Seconds ticked away while Wade and I both waited for Allison to figure it out. I didn’t want to seem rude, but I wondered if I should hand her a calculator or just simply get Wade’s change myself.

“
$4.38, here you go,” Allison finally said, and I breathed out a sigh of relief.

“
Are you okay for right now? I need to go check on my tables,” I asked after Wade had pocketed his change and walked away.

“
Yeah, I’m fine.” Allison waved me off.

Flashing a forced smile, I scooped up a pitcher of sweet tea and began making my refill rounds. Allison was a sweet girl, but I just was not in the mood to be training someone tonight.

I was standing at the table closest to the door, massaging my temples in the hopes of fighting off an oncoming headache, when Jace walked in.

“
Hey.” He smiled once he saw me.