~~

Star

~~

That trip with Artem and the others was fun. I got to meet new people, more women, who didn’t hate my very existence. I got to try some wonderful new foods that were simply amazing, though all that sugar kind of made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I definitely wasn’t used to that much dessert, but I loved it just the same. And I liked that Sydney, Criztie, and Dakotah all thought I was a good person. They seemed to want to keep talking forever, but Artem said we needed to get back so they could finish work for the day. All in all it was perfect, in my eyes at least.

I wasn’t hungry for lunch when we got back home, so I decided to just go to my room and read. I didn’t expect that shortly after I got to my room there would be another knock on the door. When I pulled the door open I nearly gasped, but I stopped myself.

“Hello Star, may I come in?” Artem looked so polite and calm as he spoke, but I saw the nerves in his eyes. I nodded and stepped away from the door.

I didn’t know what it was he had wanted, but I knew he wasn’t here for anything bad. Still, the sight of him always made my heart race and my stomach feel weird, like it was jumping up and down or spinning around nonstop. It wasn’t a bad feeling necessarily, in fact it felt like I was excited to see him. Why would I feel this way?

I watched as Artem came inside and shut the door. He had a couple different boxes in his hands and had used his foot to shut the door. After he was fully inside he looked at me with a gentle expression and spoke again.

“Should we sit at the couch or the table?” He was letting me choose? That was new to me still.

[Couch] I answered with the note pad. I saw the slight sadness in his eyes when he had to read my response, but he didn’t say anything about it.

“Sounds good, it will be more comfortable there anyway.” He smiled and led the way to the couch. He set the boxes on the small coffee table (I had learned what it was from Chay), then he sat on the couch with a sigh of relief.

“Thank you for letting me come in.” He looked happy and genuinely didn’t seem angry with me at all.

[Why wouldn’t I?] I asked him in writing but I was still giving him a confused look.

“Because you don’t have to if you’re just not up to it or you’re feeling overwhelmed, or anything really. You’re not a guest in this house or a prisoner. I want you to think of this as your new home, a place to feel safe, protected, and at ease. So we will never force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

[Really?] I almost felt like crying, I could feel the stinging of the tears in my eyes.

“Really.” He smiled at me with such a handsome face that it made my heart speed up even more than it already was.

There were a couple different boxes that Artem had brought with him, the first of which was some more of the desserts from earlier, in case I wanted more, but then there were photo albums and books that had to do with his family and the pack in general.

“I thought you might like to know about who we all are, on a deeper level.” I nodded my head, indicating that it was indeed a good thing and that I did want to know.

I didn’t know what was causing the change in me to happen so drastically, but I was starting to feel more comfortable with every day that passed. Artem was not how I had expected him to be, Chay was amazing, Kent was one of the nicest people I had ever met, and now they had brought me my cousins that I had missed so much. How could I not like it here? How could I not feel everything it was that Artem wanted me to feel? Why was it I was actually hoping Artem would come to see me even more?

~~

Artem

~~

Star looked so happy all throughout the day that I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted to spend more time with her. I wanted her to get to know me and all of us here in the house. I wanted her to know everything, if that’s what she had wanted too. I wanted this to be perfect for us all.

I took the remaining desserts to her room, so she could have more if she wanted them, before the ravenous horde of fiends called our friends and family could devour them. I also took photo albums and records that pertained to my family and the pack. I was going to make sure she wasn’t confused or questioning about anything at all. I was going to, literally, be an open book with her.

We spent the next couple of hours talking about what life was like in the pack growing up, and my childhood.

“This here is a picture of me and my closest friends when I was seven years old. That’s me.” I pointed to the tallest of the boys in the group. “That is Morgan, Toby, Kent, and Lenny.”

[Where is Lenny now?] I knew she was going to want to know that, all of my friends were still with me except for him. [Did you stop being friends?] She added to her note.

“No, we never stopped being friends, and there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about him since I was eight years old.” The look in her eyes told me she could see the pain and heartache in my eyes.

I could tell that she wanted to ask about Lenny, about what had happened, but she didn’t. I had a feeling that she didn’t want to seem invasive. Well, if she wanted to know then I would tell her.

“Lenny was an Omega. When he turned six his parents and the rest of his family found out his rank. After that they didn’t love or care for him anymore. But the worst of them all was his uncle.”

[Like mine?] She seemed to already find her connection with the little boy who was lost so long ago.

“Yes, just like yours. His uncle hated him, him and anyone like him. He endured beatings, starvation, imprisonment. Lenny was just a little boy, but he was my best friend. Our families were close, and we spent a lot of time together as kids. The problem was, his family bought into the bull shit about the weak wolves being useless. My family was never like that, my family believed that strength was relative and could always be changed. Without training you could get weaker, with training you could always get stronger.” I felt the emotions that I had been repressing for fifteen years start to surface again.

I was feeling the anger, the rage, the sadness, the depression. Everything that I had been hiding for a long time was pouring out of me.

“Lenny was let out less and less over the year from when he turned seven until he was eight. He would come see us when he could but it was never frequent. But one day he just stopped coming to see us. I never saw him again.” I felt the tears begin then.

Star looked at me with compassionate eyes. I could see the sympathetic tears building in her eyes.

“Lenny’s uncle was one of the worst men I had met, until your uncle that is. Lenny never had a chance at life, he was born into the wrong family. It was Lenny that inspired me to take over the pack, it was when I found out what had happened to him that I made that promise to myself. It was also then that I shifted for the first time. I was the youngest person to ever shift in our pack. And all I could think about when I shifted that day was that I wanted to kill Lenny’s uncle, I wanted to kill the man who had stolen the life of an innocent child. I’ve known from that day that I would never stop, never change my mind, and I didn’t care who stood in my way. I was going to take over this pack, and I was going to free all the Omegas that I could.”

Star seemed to have reached her limit. The tears she had been fighting to hold back finally spilled from her eyes. She was crying, and it was all my fault.

But in the next second, before I could apologize she wrapped her arms around me. We had been sitting side by side on the couch, not too close but still close enough that our knees occasionally bumped when we were looking over the pictures. She had just leaned in though, and snaked her arms around my neck.

She pulled me down to her, pulling me in and resting my head on her shoulder. When her hands started to rub soothingly on my back I knew what she was doing. She was comforting me. She was trying to make me feel better, to calm my broken heart. And in that moment my love for her only grew.