Chương 11: A new perspective
"I was around Ava's age the very first night I ever shifted. As a matter of fact, it happened right here. I was confined to this cabin, by mother's orders," he says as his eyes bounced between the walls of the cabin.
I can't be sure of the reason for that, though. Was he ashamed of something? Something he was about to say, perhaps? My eyes on the other hand, simply refuse to leave his figure. His face tells just as much as his words do. I choose to remain silent, and wait for more out of his mouth, "I remember every bit of it, of that night. It usually begins by a gradual loss of control over our breathing, my kind, I mean. A burning sensation stemming from our lungs, like a very small flame, that grows and grows and before we know it, quickly expands all the way towards every part of our bodies, slowly eating at our sanity, bit by bit until... We reach a point where we can't be reasoned with," he pauses to take a deep breath before carrying on, "And then, comes the aching. Our bones... Start feeling, frail and fragile all of the sudden,"
For the very short period of time I've known him, he never pegged me as the kind of guy to misconstrued words. I can't pin the whys of him telling me about this. I know I did ask for answers, but I am ready to bet an eye he knows exactly what questions I wanted answered. This... This almost feels too personal. Maybe because it is very personal...In fact, I... Don't think he has ever spoken about this to anybody else. But then again, I am just assuming.
Nevertheless, I find this to be the perfect time to interject, "Why?" is all I say for a moment. He turns to look at me and, that gives my voice the boost of confidence it needed, "I mean why are you telling me about this specifically?"
"I don't know. I've just never told anyone about this. Not like this," he says.
"No, that part I already know. I mean, why me? You barely even know me? If at all,"
"Is there anything you don't already know?" he asks, a faint, side smile on his features.
I am just insufferable, aren't I? The way I thought it was an appropriate thing to say to him at a moment like this, in such manners is beyond me, "I am sorry, I am really sorry. I just meant...," I quickly try to correct myself but fall short on words.
He chuckles very lightly, "No, don't worry about it. I perfectly understand where you're coming from. We go out on one date, that doesn't end very well and then you get attacked by a pack of wolves and then I growl at said wolves right before jumping off your roof and driving off. So, yeah, I do understand your reluctance,"
"You forgot to mention the part where your sister kidnapped me but... Who's counting at this point," I mutter.
"Yeah, that too doesn't help. But to answer your question and to be honest, I have no idea why I feel like I can share what I said with you. Perhaps, it's the fact that you're the first human that knows what I am and asks questions instead of running for the hills,"
Well, not running for the hills may be a poor choice of words, considering... But he's not completely wrong either, I chose to stay when he offered to take me home. Anyways, my earlier assumption about his reasons turns out to be true. He is desperate for genuine contact. To establish a connection where he doesn't need to hide what he feels forced to hide near his peers. I am only human; therefore, the rules and expectations of their society don't apply to me. Standards that I won't expect him to uphold in front of me.
"Okay, I don't want to sit here and pretend like I can wait. I do want to hear everything you have to say to me, anything you want to say. I promise. But at this point, I can barely hold on to my words, I am at the edge of my seat and I just... Yesterday, I asked you about the color of your eyes. I asked if they were green or black and I understand how confusing it may have sounded right then but now, I see that your eyes are black, just like your sister's. I know now that I wasn't crazy. I know now that Izzy didn't make a mistake when she described you to me so, what's the deal with them?" I feel like I can breathe again after getting all of that off my chest.
He takes a moment, but then he answers my question, "For the most part, the color of my eyes is black,"
"Does the green color only happen on full moons?" I don't know which will convince him to hate me first, my extremely limited patience or the fact that I love to be right even if it means cutting people off... I seriously gotta work on that.
"Not to shifters of my level," to my surprise he answers me regardless. For once, I manage to keep my mouth shut and wait for the rest to come from him instead of jumping in my seat with more quizzes, "I've been shifting since I was sixteen. I am twenty five now and let's just say that the gap between those years leaves a lot of room for improvement. I learned to control myself more and more with each full moon,"
"Are you saying that you lost control over your ... shifting yesterday?"
"Not completely, but yes... The fact that my eyes turned green is a sign of lack of control over our emotions. The switch in eye color is a stage that happens in between the shifting from a human to a wolf form," he stands up at the end of that sentence. He walks towards one of the two windows in the room and faces away from me.
I hesitate for a moment but then I relent to the nagging voices in my head, "What do you think may have caused it? Last night of any other night,"
he swiftly turns his head towards me, remains silent but gives me a smile that I can only interpret the meaning of it to be "Are you seriously asking me that?"
"You... Were… Nervous?" I ask sheepishly.
"Believe it or not, yesterday was my first actual... Date," he says just as sheepishly as I spoke before him.
"Oh! I believe you. I just… Met one member of your family and uh… Yeah, she's…," I trail off.
"No, she… Doesn't really make it easy for me," he chuckles again, "No, I don't know how to put it in other words. We, my kind… We tend to… Be Pretty closed off to outsiders and I don't know any shifter that's been or that is currently in a relationship with anyone that isn't from our kind," he twiddles a piece of splintered wood from the window frame between his fingers, like it was the most interesting thing in the world while speaking.
I do understand his reasons, and I must remind myself that we are in the middle of opening a gigantic can of worms that I asked him to open. So, now is not the time for the whole butterflies in the stomach thing, or whatever. There's a time and place for everything. I try my best to steer the conversation back to where I originally wanted it to go and I spout out the first question that came to my mind, "When you say, anyone that isn't from your kind, you say that… Like humans aren't the only species in your mind. Other than your own kind I mean,"
The smile he is giving somehow became brighter than it already was, "Well, yes, there are other species than ours and yours. I am speaking of intelligent species, of course. Like witches and vampires. Although vampires can be quite rare; their coming of age process is pretty much the opposite of ours. Where we lose control over our emotions and see them grow heightened by the second, for vampires... They lose their ability to... I don't really know how to explain, I feel like I can't do it justice, I am not a vampire,"
"By coming of age, you mean your first shift?"
"Yes," he says simply, before looking towards the window in front of him again.
Witches, vampires... I wonder what else is out there. What else did I wake up this morning believing to be mere fantasy? Look where I am at now...
I stand up and join him. The view is quite beautiful. Nothing out of the ordinary or anything of the sort, but it looks stunning, nonetheless. I feel like I am staring at trees and grass for the very first time in my life. A hue of green I've never contemplated in my years before. The way daylight reflects on the fair leaves grants it a majestic saturation. A treat for the eyes. Not many things can leave me in aw these days. It might just be the fact that I haven't been this deep into the preserve for so many years. At least, I assume we are still in the Grimesbrook preserve; I'd recognize those pine trees from miles away.
I finally manage to pull my gaze away from that mesmerizing vue, in order to voice an interrogation that stands in the frontlines of the army of questions I've got, "You're twenty five now, so, that means you were sixteen roughly nine years ago. You were in Grimesbrook nine years ago?"
"Yes. I was. My family does own a lot of property in and around Grimesbrook. This cabin is built on a piece of land that belongs to us," he says.
"That kind of doesn't make any sense. There are three families in Grimesbrook that are considered wealthy judging purely by the number of properties they own around the town and your family name appears nowhere in the records," to be honest, I do remember reading his family name somewhere but I know it was definitely not in the owners records.
"My mother's family name does," he corrects me, "She's a Ferwulf,"
Now, Ferwulf is a name that I've definitely heard of and seen in the town's records multiple times. But something tickles my curious feathers, "Wait. You said earlier that you don't know anyone from your kind that is in a relationship with people of any other kinds. So, that means that the Ferwulfs are.....," I trail off.
"Yes, they are shifters just like my father's family. When we do come by Grimesbrook, we stick to the woods because usually, we don't stay for very long. But this time around, it's different, things have changed," whatever that last part there means… I am able to decipher a slight change in his tone. Very subtle but it's there. It's like his heart is slowly sinking deeper and deeper into a place he doesn't want to be in. Whatever changes he means, he sure appears to be apprehensive about them, "Will you walk outside with me for a moment?"
he turns to me and asks out of nowhere.
"Yeah, sure," I say simply.
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
CreativeWolf
CreativeWolf Little annoucment:
An origin chapter was added to the auxiliary volume in order to better explain the hierarchy of the wolf shifters in this book. Thank you again, everyone^^
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