You Are Mine

"Wake up, sweetheart."

I grudgingly opened my eyes to look up at my grandmother. As usual, she smelled like lavender and soap. Her short, curly white hair framed her friendly, wrinkly face and her thin lips curved into a warm smile. She had brown eyes, just like my father and I, and it was obvious that my grandmother was even more gorgeous when she was younger.

She lovingly brushed stray hairs off my forehead and reached over to open my window. The melodic notes of chirping birds filled my room and freshly cut grass reached my nose. My sharp werewolf senses could also smell the sweet scent of rain dew from last night's downpour.

I slowly sat up. "What time is it?"

"Seven. Now hurry up, Darling. We don't want you to be late for your first day of school."

The delectable smell of bacon hit my nose. "Is grandfather making breakfast?"

"Special for you." She beamed down at me before standing up off the edge of my bed and walking to my bedroom door. "Hurry dear."

I stretched and walked into my bathroom. The hot water jolted me awake and fogged up my mirror. I dried off and used a corner of my fluffy towel to wipe off the condensation on my mirror. Looking back at me was my reflection.

I wasn't ugly, nor would I consider myself pretty. I had wavy dark brown hair, brown eyes, and slightly tanned skin from all my days running through the woods with my siblings. I stood at five feet and eight inches tall, and had a slim figure. Many people called me gorgeous but I didn't see the attraction.

I dressed in light skinny jeans, my favorite leather brown knee-high boots, and a cream-colored knit sweater. Deciding to leave my brown locks as they were, I just ran my comb through them a few times. My eyebrows raised as I realized how long my hair had gotten. It now reached my mid-back.

I sighed at my reflection. This version of Amabelle Murdock was a pitiful excuse for the daughter of an alpha, and I knew it. A few months ago, my pack was slaughtered by an unknown enemy pack, leaving my siblings and I orphans. We had just managed to escape with our mother's help.

My mother. She and my father both died helping us escape, giving us our grandparent's address. We'd arrived on their doorstep stark naked and exhausted and they hadn't given us time to explain or ask for their help before they were ushering us inside. 

A few months later and I was still having nightmares about that night. The last look I saw of my father was his lips curving up in a peaceful smile, knowing that his children had escaped.

For weeks I'd debated taking my own life, joining my parents and not living with all these heart-piercing memories, but I knew how disappointed my parents would be with me. They'd sacrificed their lives to save my siblings and I, and to take my own life would dishonor that gift of a second chance that they had given us.

"Amabelle, hurry up! Grandmother won't let us eat without you," my older brother Everett shouted from downstairs.

"Coming," I called down to my impatient twenty-year-old brother.

I took the stairs two at a time and followed the scent of scrambled eggs into the cheerful kitchen. My brother and sister, Daphne and Everett, looked like replicas of me, but older and obviously my brother was a different gender. They also had my mother's emerald green eyes while I had my father's chocolate brown ones. I always envied them that gorgeous feature and wished that I was as attractive as my elder siblings.

We were all two years apart from each other. Daphne was twenty-two, Everett was twenty, and I was the youngest at eighteen.

I scooped a pile of scrambled eggs onto my plate, grabbed a couple pieces of bacon, and squirted ketchup onto the scrambled eggs. Grandmother handed me a cup of orange juice and I smiled at her gratefully.