Claiming My Wolf
Chapter 26

~~Sadie’s PoV~~

I’m exhausted by the time we get home after the party and as soon as I change out of my dress into my pajamas, I fall straight into bed. But it isn’t long before I’m being woken by a whimpering, whining sound outside my door.

Still half asleep, I get up to open it only to replace a grey and white wolf there. That wakes me up fast enough and I take a couple of panicked steps back before it starts whimpering again, and I realize that whoever it is, they’re not here to hurt me. They’re just upset.

I take a deep breath to try to slow my racing heart and look at the wolf closer. I’ve seen this wolf before.

“Ava?”

It was like she was waiting for me to invite her in. The wolf comes into my room and jumps up on my bed, taking up half the bed as she puts her head down and looks up at me with sad eyes.

What am I supposed to do now? It’s like she’s come to talk, but I don’t speak wolf. Do they even have a language? How do they talk to each other? There are still so many things I don’t know.

“Are you okay?” I ask as I take a step closer to her. She doesn’t look so dangerous close up. She looks a lot like a big dog, especially with those pleading eyes.

She just whimpers again and looks down, and I try to think back to the few things I know about werewolves so far and what happened tonight.

It must be something to do with her mate.

I still don’t really get how Ava’s wolf can be wrong about who her mate is, but at least I’m not the only one who seems confused by it. My aunt tells me it’s never happened before. Even Logan’s dad seemed unsure.

The Alpha is a big, tough-looking guy, but when Logan and I ran into him at their house after we’d finished our shooting lesson, he was actually really nice to me. He greeted me kindly when Logan introduced me and said he remembers my mom well. He told me that she and Logan’s mom were good friends growing up. Logan looked surprised at that and I didn’t know about it either, but then I really don’t know anything about my mom’s childhood. I guess she never told me much so that she wouldn’t have to explain about werewolves. Or maybe I just never asked. It’s hard to know.

Anyway, the Alpha seemed as surprised as anyone earlier tonight when Ava and Laurel thought they were mates, so I don’t know how I can help when even the people who are supposed to know all about this stuff don’t know what to do. But I try my best anyway, sitting down on the bed next to Ava’s wolf and scratching her ears like she’s actually a dog.

It seems to help a little bit. Her whimpering stops, at least, as her head leans into my hand.

“Look, Ava, I don’t know how all this stuff works,” I tell her, feeling more than a little weird about talking to the giant dog on my bed like it’s my cousin, but at this point I’m just going to go for it. “But I don’t see why you have to be with anyone just because some goddess chose them for you. You’re a strong, smart, beautiful woman… or least when you’re not a wolf… and you can be with whoever you want to be with.”

The wolf starts to move beneath my hand and I quickly pull it away as I realize it’s turning back into my cousin. The fur disappears into her skin, her claws turn back into fingernails, and Ava’s face emerges from the wolf’s face. But her sad eyes are still the same.

I grab an extra blanket from my closet for her to wrap around herself and sit down on the bed again.

“Thanks, Sadie,” she says. “But you don’t understand. I want my mate. I want to replace the person I’m supposed to be with. My wolf is sad because I don’t believe her, and I’m sad because she’s wrong. It’s awful to be fighting with a part of yourself.”

She’s right about one thing. I really don’t understand. “So you actually talk to your wolf?” I asked. “Like, with words?”

Ava nods. “It’s all in my head, but yeah. We have a regular conversation, just like this. And now she won’t let me sleep because she wants to go and be with our mate, who isn’t really our mate.”

“Well, you heard the Alpha tonight,” I remind her. “He says they’ll figure it out. And Logan told me that too.”

“I hope so.” She looks so sad that I can’t help giving her a hug.

We’re interrupted by another knock on my still-open door.

“Is this the room for people who are upset about tonight?”

Aaron stands at the doorway looking just as sad as Ava, maybe even more. We both scoot over to make room for him on the bed.

“I’m really sorry, Aaron,” Ava says. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I know that, Ava,” he replies. “It’s not your fault at all. Don’t feel bad about me, okay? I just feel bad for Laurel.”

Looking at both their sad faces, I make a decision. If I don’t do something, they’re just going to sit here and feel sorry for themselves all night. I’ve done enough of that in the last few weeks to know it’s not always the best idea.

Going shooting with Logan today was actually really good for me. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had some control over something in my life.

Obviously we couldn’t go shooting in the middle of the night, but there must be something we could do.

“Come on,” I told them both, jumping to my feet. “We’re going outside.”

“What?” Ava asked.

“Why?” Aaron said at almost at the same time.

“Those wolves of yours need something to do besides drive you both crazy,” I told them. “So let’s go replace something for them to do.”