Rejected At First Sight (Spinoff Series)

19

Sage

The morning sun gently caressed my bare shoulders. I looked up through the green leaves of the surrounding trees. Sounds of the awakening forest reached my ears.

"I need to get going." I say quietly, knowing that he can hear me.

The only answer I receive is a grunt.

I step away from the bed of grass and shift into my wolf, dark brown fur identical to my hair color coating my body. With one last look backwards, where I see Olive pulling up yesterday's jeans.

Feeling the damp earth under my feet as I run towards town, I let the fresh scents flood my nose. It was a brisk morning, the clouds were only a thin covering over the partially risen sun.

Everything was awake.

Suddenly something in me pulled like a leash.

I skid to a stop and let my consciousness delve into the depths of my senses. I let the scents and sights flood my brain, letting that feeling take over my mind. That deep instinct hidden inside of me. The animal part of me.

The part connected to the moon goddess.

The trees creaked in the wind, pointing to something. The plants shuddered with discontent. I realized with a start that the animals had not been just making noises. No. They had been aching. Crying out for someone.

Everything was alert.

Awaiting, anticipating.

Something was going to happen. They were preparing themselves.

Just as I approached the main road, red and blue lights flashed past me, the sirens not processing in my head until I glanced at what direction in which they were headed.

Ash.

The two bedroom house was just down the road, a few other residential houses that way too. But something pulled at me again.

No. It was Ash.

I took off running, clawing at the ground as fast as my legs would take me to her.

I had to get to her.

The ambulance has hastily pulled into the driveway when I halt just beneath the cover of the trees.

No, no no no.

What happened?

Why had I been so far away?

Guilt and sorrow strikes me like a lightning bolt. I was with Ollivander. I could have been here to protect Ash but instead I had been with someone I should have shut out from my life completely.

I would not go back to him. Not again.

EMS pulls out a gurney and moves it inside the house. Ash's dad is commanding orders, the dip of his voice confirming that he is terrified out of his mind. Her mom is quiet, most likely in shock.

I heard people rushing into Ash's room, shuffling in one after another.

The sickening sound of a limp body is slumped onto the gurney and hauled out of the room.

She couldn't be. A lump sticks itself in the back of my throat, the mournful howl choking out against it. Ash couldn't be dead.

As the gurney was rolled out onto the driveway, all I could focus on was Ash's limp body. Her chest was rising... barely. My howl died down and turned into a whimper as I looked at the state of her.

She looked dead. Her skin was so pale. The sweat along her body had dried, leaving foggy patches of salt to pepper her skin.

The medics rolled her into the ambulance and immediately took off, with a police car escorting it.