It’s been 5 years since I had the idea to run away. Everybody agreed with me but it was only the location we had to settle on. Where exactly would we go? What exactly would we do? How long would we hide for? Of course then I had no answers, I didn’t even think the plan thru. But now I understand clearly why we had to run, they wouldn’t stop until they had Elizabeth. Of course the note clearly stated we had until she was 10, but we learned quickly that they wanted her sooner than that. The pack didn’t agree with my idea right away, but after that first night they couldn’t turn back my idea. While we slept sprites broke into the house and had it not been for Michael smelling them, or Elizabeth’s screeching cry they would have took her. That morning I awoke to have my bags packed, the car ready and the house all but empty except for the bed and Elizabeth’s crib. We didn’t know where to go at first, Michael suggested we go to his parents house but that wnt a good idea. If I knew the council of flickenhammer I knew they would already have people watching all of their families homes. They suggested a place of nature, that I could agree too. All of the sprites at the council are water sprites, being that water is the most powerful element. While we drove we looked around, searching for a place that was far enough and could support us. “us” being me, Michael, Elizabeth and the pack. After driving for about three days we entered a very small town in Oregon. Only populized with 247 people, nobody would think to look for us here. Although all we really wanted was to go to one of the many hotels and sleep, we had to keep going. About 5 miles from the town square we found a coup;e of wolf dens in the forest. I had objections about this because wolves are very territorial and tend to be quite vicous when they attack. But Michael just waved me off.
“they’ll smell us and turn hide to find somewhere else” was his exact words. Sure enough we didn’t have any problems but then we had to buy things, there were a total of six dens, that was enough for two people to share one, and each one had the space that would fit five people at the most. Michael sent the redhead, whose name is jack, and the brunette, whose name is mary, to get stuff. The pack wrote a list of essentials and I wrote a list of basic baby things. When they came back they had 12 blow up beds, a whole bunch of covers and pillows, bottles of water, food, soap, and the baby stuff. And with that we started our new life. Elizabeth learned how to speak at 2, how to walk at 3 and how to grab things at 4. Her blonde hair has very faint blue stripes through them and is extremely curly. Just like her fathers. She’s learned how to control her emotions but occasionally she’ll throw a tantrum and all hell will break loose in Helen. I would like to believe that the council is no longer watching us, sometimes I even pretend they aren’t but life isn’t about pretending. Its about facing your fears, if only I didn’t have to face them in 3 years.


Mommy always looks so sad, I wish I knew why. I hope she isn’t sad about me, everytime she’s around me it’s like she rather be somewhere else. Everybody else likes me, everybody else gives me hugs, everybody else loves me. I want mommy to love me so much, and I try so , so hard. I give her all the hugs and kisses and love I can but she doesn’t seem to want it. Daddy tells me that she loves me but it’s in a different way then he loves me. Daddy says that I’m special, when I ask him why he says its because of everything I can do. I tell him I don’t know what he means and he taps my nose. He does this all the time, he always smells good. He smells like…. Strawberries, fresh strawberries, I’ve only had them one time. It was really really hot and mary brought some home, I got to eat a nice juicy one and it got all over my face. Daddy laughed at me but mommy frowned and started to cry. I don’t eat strawberries anymore. The water feels nice on my legs, I spread my toes out and a fish swims by. John found the pond, it’s not far from the houses but mommy says I’m not supposed to go here. It doesn’t feel right being around all of those people, and the water helps me think clearer. I raise my head up and breath the air, it has the smell of the water and the earth, but there’s something else there. It smells like… me. I look around and see a man, he’s very pretty. He has black and blue striped hair and blue eyes, and like me he’s wearing grass clothes. Mommy said I could wear normal clothes like normal girls but I like the grass better. It feels right. He also has his feet in the water but he’s looking at me, he’s smiling. He has a pretty smile,
“you look like your mother” his voice sounds musical,
“daddy says that too” my voice is the opposite from his. It’s so small and squeaky, and surely not musical. The pretty man frowns and mommies arms wrap around my stomach, daddies dog comes out from the trees and growls at the pretty man.
“Elizabeth what were you doing here? I told you not to come out her” mommy yells at me
“but I wanted to feel water, and nobody noticed I was gone-“
“that doesn’t matter, you don’t go anywhere without me or your father, or by yourself at all!” she screaming so loud at me. Only thing I wanted was to feel the water, tears sting my eyes and I nod as she puts me back down.
“now go back to the houses and go to cora’s house” she isn’t yelling but her voice is still mean. The tears are streaming down my face as I run toward the houses and go to cora’s house.


God, if I hadn’t smelled him, and alexis hadn’t sensed him who knows what would have happened! I wanted to tell alexis not to be so tough on her but I think she’s slowly going away. The laughing, loving, smiling alexis I once knew is now replaced by a grimacing, cold, broken hearted one. I understand what with the council and everything there is a reason to be so uptight but she makes herself distant from Elizabeth. We both hear Elizabeth cry herself to sleep at night, but yet it’s only me that goes to console her. You need to focus, my wolf snaps at me, I don’t trust any of theses sprites except for our own. He’s right I have to pay attention to the sprite, not my emotions. He raises his arms in surrender,
“I meant no harm,” he’s looking at alexis and I let my eyes travel to her too. Her eyes are pitch black, her nostrils are flared and her fists are clenched. She’s not angry, or threatened, she’s just flat out pissed.
“you follow my scent here,” her teeth are ground together “you talk to my daughter and you think obscene things about her”. She takes one step toward him and before she does anything I step in front of her, she looks to me and kicks me to a tree. What the hell did she do that for? My wolf asks,I whine in pain it feels like she’s burned me with an iron. I look back to her, she hasn’t even looked my way she stands in front of the sprite and even though he’s got at least 6 inches on her he looks scared. I feel a withdrawl and realize I can’t save him, she’s pissed and she’s going to hurt him. I might as well enjoy the show, she punches him in the gut then knees him in the face. While he’s down holding his face she grabs his hair and whispers,
“you tell anyone where we are, you think to anyone where we are if you happen to fly by here,” she growls out “I swear to everyone I love I will not hesitate to kill you” she bites his ear. In a way it looks sensual but the look on his face reveals it’s painful, a grunting sound comes from him and she lets him go. She takes a couple of deep breaths and looks to me with brown eyes. Fear comes on her face and she steps over the sprite to me, she touches my side where she kicked me and I cant help the whine that comes out.
“oh god I’m so sorry” she hugs me and I rest my head on her shoulder for a minute. I watch as the sprite spreads his wings and flies away, he doesn’t look back at alexis or me he just flies away. I step away and point my head towards the dens, she nods then stands up and walks next to me. I guess somewhere along the walk there she realized what she said to Elizabeth and runs towards cora’s den. She doesn’t knock she just pushes aside the comforter we all use for a door and goes to stand in front of Elizabeth. I feel so bad for her, she just wants her mother to love her. At least that’s what she tells me, Elizabeth looks up from her coloring book to her mom then to me. Her face lights up, then she frowns and puts her head down
“sorry daddy, I just wanted to feel the water” she looks up to see my reaction so I just give one nod to the head and she smiles again. Her smiles are magnificent her eyes turn to pink and she has cute little dimples that only just mar her freckles. She doesn’t say anything to alex she just starts to color again, alex kneels beside her and I see that she has tears streaming down her face,
“don’t you ever think that, I love you and I always will” Elizabeth looks up to her mother and her eyes start to turn to a dull pink,
“really?” her tiny voice squeaks and cracks. Alex nods and opens her arms for a hug, Elizabeth wraps her arms around her mother as if shes the only thing that matters right now. And at that alex breaks apart, she wraps her arms around Elizabeth and sits on the den floor, she rocks back and forth softly saying things ‘ I’m so, so sorry’ she says. Then after a while that gets replaced by soft ‘elizabeth’s . when I’m sure Elizabeth is sleeping I slowly slink to our den and change back.


How blind could I have been!? She’s been hurting, wanting me to love her not thinking I loved her! I love her, with all my heart, probably more, o cant show it though. I don’t know if they’ve been watching us or how long they’ve been watching us but I have to be as separated from her as I can without it hurting too much. I’ve been so jealous of everyone else, I’ve wanted to hug her, and kiss her and just love her. But if anyone saw her with me they would really take her. That’s what the council does, whenever they see you with something you love they try to take it away. And since they already want her they would stop at nothing to take her from me. I can hear her soft snoring but I still rock her in my arms, like I used to, and whisper her name. cora see’s me doing this but just drapes a sheet over me and goes further into the den. Michael comes in almost right after that and leans down to pick Elizabeth up. I hold her closer to me and snarl at him, how dare he try to take my child away from me!
“stop it,” he says and I relax, its his child too and he would never do something to her. He’s not like my father, I let her go and he picks her up slowly so as not to wake her. But we both know that she’s like the dead when she’s sleeping. Just like me. I stand up and hear my joints pop and crack, I stretch and then fold the blanket up. Michael waits for me and when I’m done he takes my hand and we walk back to our den. Being that Michael is alpha we got the biggest den, which is about the size of a small cottage. Michael lays her down on a small air bed. She curls on her side and sucks her thumb, something I doubt she will ever be able to break. He takes my hand and leads me to the king size air bed that is ours. I get on slowly and lay on my side, he lays next to me and wraps his arm around my waist. He pulls me toward him until my back touches his abdomen, I relax a little and put my hand over the one that lays across stomach. Michael is asleep before I know it, I allow his scent, elizabeth’s scent, their light snoring and the nights air to drift me off to sleep.


Mommy loves me! She actually loves me, she hugged me and rocked me back in forth until I fell asleep. I woke up during the night and peeked at mommy and daddy, she looks so peaceful. Her eyes flutter open and they meet mine, she smiles and slowly takes daddy arm from around her. She waves me closer to her and I happily get up. Yay I get to sleep with mommy and daddy! I lay down next to her and she hugs me close to her, mommy always smells so good. Like water and earth and strawberries. I iwsh everything didn’t smell like strawberries but sometimes I think that’s how things really smell.
“I love you so much Elizabeth” she whispers in my hair
“I love you more” I giggle out,
“nuh uh”
“uh huh”
“nuh uh”
“uh huh”
“ok, girls I’m really tired so to settle this debate I love you both more than you can understand” daddy says. Her opnes his arm and hugs it around me and mommy, daddies arms are big. Mommy puts another arm around me and I get two hugs.
“goodnight Elizabeth” they both say, after that I hear a sucking sound and after that I hear daddies snore.
“goodnight mommy and daddy” I whisper softly and go to sleep.


Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that they patched things together, hell im ecstatic! But when I cant get any sleep I tend to take offense. They spent the rest of the night in my arms sleeping and snoring, sometimes I think I’m the onlyone that doesn’t snore. Sometime after that my wolf snapped to attention, only this time was weird, I didn’t wake up I just saw it.
“no matter where you hide, or how far you run, we will always find you. We will catch you and she will be ours” the words are hissed at me. My wolf takes immediate affect nd changes, right there on the bed with his mate and cub.


I knew there was something wrong when I heard growling but I just assumed Michael was just having another bad dream. Nothing prepared me for when he changed and nearly popped the air bed, Elizabeth springs up and her green eyes glow. She growls at the wolf and if you look close enough you see her canines have lengthened along with her nails. Michael growls back but looks ready to leap at her, he crouches down and raises his hackles. She snarls at him and her eyes start to swirl black, what the hell is he doing!? The wolfs face relaxes and so does elizabeths, at least for about 5 seconds,
“that doesn’t make any sense, your talking to me in a weird way”. She stops for another second and her face truly flares. Her eyes turn blacka dn she clenches her fists, the nails are digging into her palm and shes bleeding but she seems oblivious.
“I don’t care if you’re my alpha, I don’t care that you’re my dad right now you have no right to do that to me or mommy” her breath is starting to turn into blue mist. I know whats about to happen and I have to stop it, I start to mive but one look from the wolf keeps me glued. His eyes are amber, Michael is no longer there only his wolf. His wolf wouldn’t hurt her, right?


I don’t want to be mean and angry but daddy scared mommy. And that is not. Nice! I feel something stir around deep down inside me and my breath is starting to become a light blue. I don’t know whats happening but it feels good to be in power!
“Elizabeth, daughter, relax now or you’ll regret it” he tells me in my mind. His voice is all scratchy and it doesn’t sound like daddies voice at all.
“don’t you dare try to make me scared! Say sorry about scaring mommy” my breath is turning into a little blue ball.
“enough! Settle down right now!” the wolf growls at me and I growl back. I think I hear a little whine but then the wolf stands and growls at me. At first I’m scared but then something in my mind goes off and I scream at him. This is not my normal scream its about 10 times louder and higher, and it leaves daddy on the floor whining, when I scream I talk as well, it confuses me, but not for long im too busy screaming.
“say sorry to mommy or I will make it rain until you cant breathe!” after I finish I take a breath and try to calm down. Daddy calms down and changes into a man again, mommy wraps a cover around him and doesn’t look at me. Daddy doesn’t look at me either, he just keeps his head down, I fold my arms in front of me,
“sorry” I mumble and walk outside. Mommy probably doesn’t love me anymore, but she has too! I was trying to get daddy to be nice to her! She cant not love me anymore for that. But she probably does, theres no light but I don’t need it. I can see super well at night so I walk back to the little pond and put my feet in it. It calms me down but then I hear a hissing sound. I turn to see a cat. I’ve never seen one personally but one of the flash cards daddy has shown me it looks just like this. Daddy doesn’t like cats, I don’t think the wolf does either, but this cat looks pretty. I think it’s a he, and he has a jet black coat with streaks of blond through it. His eyes are sky vlue with little flecks of amber. He’s a little bigger than daddy says regular cats are, at least in height and his tail is flicking back and forth. But theirs something off about him, he smells like me. Like earth but not like water, like fur but not like dirt. Strange.
“hi there” I say to him softly, he purrs then eyes me for a minute longer then walks forward carefully. His body looks strong and agile, like a beautiful killer. He sits next to me and looks up, he looks at the dip in my arm and sniffs. His nose tickles, it’s wet and soft. His eyes widen as he looks up at me again, and if this were a fairy tale I would think he smiled. Like the one with alice and the chesser cat. He lays downa dn relaxes, I put my hand on his coat and he growls at me, but its softer than a growl. His coat isn’t madded and it isn’t stringy, but its somewhere in between. He looks up at me, the cool blue eyes unblinking, then as if he’s decided something he meows, stands up and then his body begins to change.


Whoa, what was that? I remember when alex did that to me when we first met, granted I almost touched her and she did not want to be touched. But wow that was something new. Of course that dream was pretty epic, but that gave him no right to be all pushy and controlling. He’s always pushy and controlling, but never when it came to Elizabeth. Now she’s out there probably thinking I don’t love her anymore, I don’t know what you expect me to do with her, he snaps at me, she’s just so touchy! She’s not touchy, I snap back at him, she’s a little girl who thinks her parents don’t love her. I feel him shrug it off and I want to slap him,but seeing as that will result in my own pain I just growl internally at him. Alexis a mess, she knows where Elizabeth is she just doesn’t know how to approach her, I want to help I really do but I feel she has to do this alone. That and when I tried to help her before she stared at me with balck eyes.
His wolf didn’t hurt her but he might as well told her to run away! God this is why I hated them so much, they always screw things up just because they could. Stupid tempers, and stupid short attention span and stupid… everything! Stupid, stupid everything! I’m trying to keep it together, to relax and take deep breaths. But on the first one I know something isn’t right, it smells weird, like fur and dirt and earth and… cat. That’s a weird smell, for a den full wolves. I take another breath and turn to Michael,
“do you smell that?” I ask cautiously, he takes a breath and stands up.
“it smells like a… cat” recognition crosses his face, then anger, then worry. And I suddenly realize why.


It’s a boy! It’s actually a bot, he’s older than me but not by much. He’s a cute boy with black hair, jet black not dark brown like johns but black. His eyes are just like the cat’s blue with little specks of amber. He has light freckles they aren’t heavy like mine, after he wets his hair and spikes it up he looks at me. He has clothes on, he’s not like daddy I wonder how he does that. He smiles, well it’s not a real smile it’s small and it’s only on his left side.
“hi” his voice is kind of scratchy but not like he’s sick it just scratchy, I want to smile back at him but something inside of me doesn’t want to. Something inside of me wants to growl at him and scratch and kill, but I don’t know why or what it is.
“hello,” I say slowly, my voice is so much squeakier than his. I don’t like I, it makes me look small and victim-ish. His side smile widens showing white teeth,
“you don’t have to be scared” he tells me,
“I’m not scared.” I tell him, I cross my arms “your just a stranger and I don’t know you”
“you’re a stranger too but I’m not talking to you like I’m scared” he tells me, as if he’s smarter than me. He is but that’s not the point,
“my daddy says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” when he continues to look me I add “I’m not scared”. After a while of him staring at me and making me feel really weird he asks,
“do you always do what your dad says?” I frown, not always but I try to.
“not all the time, but I try really hard to” I tell him, I don’t know why. I shouldn’t even be talking to him! As soon as I think that daddy crashes through the bushes and snaps his head to look around, his eyes find me and instantly I’m scared. I stand up but daddies eyes are on the cat-boy, mommy comes next her eyes are on the cat-boy too and I feel like I have to protect him. He hasn’t done anything wrong, they shouldn’t look at him like that.
“hi mommy,” when I say her name she looks at me with blue eyes, I suck in a breath. Why is she scared, did daddy do something to her? I swear if he did something to her I’ll punch him in the –
“Elizabeth come here, slowly” daddy says carefully. I frown, why is he talking like that? His eyes actually aren’t on me, there still on the cat-boy, is there something wrong with him? I look around to the cat-boy to see he’s standing up, his eyes are like a diamond except more roundish. There’s a sort of orange-y glow around him that looks like it’s beating. Standing up I come up to his shoulder, and since the sun is just starting to come up I see in the sunlight his hair has a reddish tint. He sure is pretty,
“Elizabeth” mommy snaps “come here, right now” her eyes are turning what daddy calls raspberry. She shouldn’t feel threatened, it’s just a cat-boy he isn’t even a big cat.
“why?” I ask, I’m very confused why can’t I spend the morning with the one thing around here that’s around my age.
“because I said so, now” she holds out her hand “come here”. I don’t want to go, I’ve done so much for her, I’ve always loved her when she didn’t love me, I’ve stood up for her when daddy gets upset, the one time I want to do something that’s fun for me I can’t do? No, I stand still,
“no” I tell her, that’s when daddy goes into a wolf and I hear a very loud growl that doesn’t come from him or me.


I knew there were othere shifters near by but I never thought we’d run into one. Ever! Especially puma shifters, who the hell would think their would be puma shifters in Oregon!? And what would be the odds that one of their cubs would see mine? My wolf asks, of course I cannot give him the answers I’m still focusing on the female puma that stands looking between me and Elizabeth. I want to snap at him and tell him to focus but I don’t have to because the cougar growls at Elizabeth and immediately my wolf emerges and races to elizabeths need. But what shocks everyone including the cougar is when Elizabeth falls to the ground writhing in pain.


The sound that explodes from me is scary, it’s guttural and shriekish. Whats wrong with her, why is she writhing and grunting and screaming her mind off? I’m there before Michael is and I pick her up in my hands, whats wrong with my sweet little baby girl? I know the tears are coming out, but it’s the speed that their coming out that’s scaring me. I’ll be all dried out before I can even really start crying. She’s screaming my name over and over begging me to do something but theres nothing I can do. I don’t even know whats going on!


My insides are moving around! Their burning and twisting and mommy isn’t helping! She’s just holding me, that does nothing t still hurts. Everything is shrinking and growing very fast, the cat-boys eyes are the only thing that make me calm, both in his boy version and his cat version. They’re the only thing that keeps me from crying until the darkness comes.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 15.12.2011

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