Star-Crossed (On-Hold) by Chloe Knox (summer reading list .txt) 📕

She could smell her own fear radiating off her body as she ran, and that worried her immensely. She was sweating, and breathing heavily, and whimpering in pain—and if all those weren’t good enough reasons for the werewolves to find her, she was sure that the pure smell of her inner werecat would be enough.
Dumb idiot! She reprimanded herself as she held in another sob, you just had to go out and party! You freakin idiot! You just had to drink the whole freakin bottle of wine!
She might not be human, but alcohol does the same thing to her and her kind as it would any other person. She felt dizzy, confused, overwhelmed. Her vision was the slightest blurred, and she couldn’t think a complete train of thought without being distracted. All of her senses were dulled to almost nothing, and despite how impulsive the alcohol has made her she knew that she was in trouble. Under the influence and deep in the woods away from her pack, there was no way her family and friends, even her mate, would be able to save her before it was too late.
…but she had to try. She had to die with at least some honor, some dignity…but how could I die with honor? She asked herself, as she leapt over tree stumps and foliage, I was dumb enough to actually walk into werewolf territory! What werecat does that, intoxicated or not?
Just then, while feeling sorry for herself, she tripped over a twig…A freakin twig! I should have spotted that from half a mile away!
She crashed onto her side, mud and rocks scratching at her body, pulling her into the earth and finding its way into her unexpecting and open mouth. Her usually soft creamy skin, was now being torn up by the small pebbles. A stinging ache spread from her legs, to her arms, and all over her body. Her legs were wobbly and weak. Her harsh pants made the back of her throat sore. A loud ring echoed in her right ear…she was too weak, too alone.
She didn’t stand a chance.
So she flipped onto her back and focused on her surroundings. She listened to the faint whistle of the wind. She felt the cool breeze brush against her weak body, making the beads of sweat on the back of her neck grow cold causing a shiver to travel down her spine. She could smell damp undergrowth and rain. A storm was coming. She had always loved the smell of the quite earth right before a good thunder storm, and just as she closed her eyes to enjoy all the amazing memories she’s had with her family and friends…and her fiancé—the one she would never be able to love, or marry, or raise a family with—big arms encased her, and she screamed one last plea for help.
…nobody came…

I walked silently through the underground catacombs, the only light being a candelabrum on the walls every few hundred feet. The lights, to a human, wouldn’t be much of a help in the eerie darkness. They only lit up a diameter of a few inches, and casted more shadows then it did actually ‘light the way’. Too me and my family, they weren’t even really necessary. I could see my way through the tunnels as well as I could in bright daylight, maybe even more so.
I could smell the exotic and revolting aroma of what I was guessing was mold, wet and grimy. The cracked stone floor under my bear feet felt extremely cold, numbing the tips of my toes and tearing at the pads of my feet. I could hear the faintest sound of water dripping from a leak onto the hard smooth ground, never allowing the forever dark and sinister catacombs silent.
I followed the sound of the dripping till I came to an intersection of underground tunnels. I sniffed the air, and the sudden scent of alcohol and wet fur invaded my nostrils. My nose wrinkled innately in disgust, but I couldn’t judge someone I didn’t know based on dead ancestor’s opinions and a horrid smell.
I concentrated, and tilted my head to the side to listen down one hall…then another, till I heard the faint sound of sobbing coming from the hall to my right.
I turned and walked down the hall, till I came to the only occupied cell. In it sat a young woman, with long wavy blonde hair, which I’m sure would look way prettier if she hadn’t been locked up in here the past few days. Her hair was hanging in her face, reminding me of ‘Cousin It’ from ‘The Adams Family’. Her hair was dry at the tips, and greasy and stringy at the roots. Her hair looked no better then a piece of straw. Yet despite her hair and all the dirt and cuts and bruises all over her face and body, she looked pretty. She had bright blue eyes that were outlined with long and full lashes. She had skinny, perfectly shaped eyebrows, and full lips. She had the perfect heart shaped face complete with a pointed chin and turned up nose. She had all the beautiful traits of the typical Caucasian…but I knew better. I could smell her inner cat. I could see it’s anger and vulnerability through her eyes. It was always like that. Our eyes always seemed to express or resemble the thoughts and feelings of our inner being; mine being a wolf, hers being a wild cat—I wouldn’t be sure what type of cat till and if I ever saw her in her animal form.
“Hey,” I whispered, trying my best to hold back my inner ergs and attack the poor girl. The pure smell of her made my wolf’s stomach turn and twist, as if wanting me to vomit.
The blonde looked up from underneath her stingy locks of hair, and quickly shuffled away from the cell bars separating me and her, “No! No! I’m not going to hurt you!” I said, even though I’m sure she wouldn’t believe me, considering what my father and his men did to her.
The blonde didn’t admit she didn’t believe me, though. In fact, she didn’t say anything. Her guard seemed to slip a bit, but whether that was because she believed me or because she felt safe behind the thick iron bars of her cell I’d never be sure.
“I brought you some food.” I said tossing her a left over leg of cooked rabbit wrapped in a cloth, through the bars.
She hesitated a moment, but her inner wants and needs of ‘the hunt’ took over as well as her need for food. My father, as much as I loved him, could be a cruel man. Being Alpha of our pack, really seemed to get to his head sometimes. After capturing this poor feline, he had ordered his men to lock her in our underground cells with no food or water.
She easily tore into the leg with her pearly white and sharp canines, groaning in delight when the warm slick flesh touched her tongue.
“I’m guessing you like it,” I said, offering a smile.
The blonde looked at me, and offered an obviously forced half smile, then continued to eat. Her enthusiasm and excitement died down substantially.
I looked down the hall to my left…then to my right. No one.
I lifted the tips to my dress and knelt down on both knees.
The blonde continued to eat, but never once took her eyes off me. She studied me, looking for the smallest thing that might suggest I’m trying to harm her…too bad for her, I’m not going to be the one to put her out of her misery, in this hell whole…
I sat down on my knees, next to the bars. I slid my hand into the pocket in my apron and grabbed yet another object wrapped in yet another small cloth.
“Here, it’s a gift,” I whispered and slid my skinny arm in between the bars to set the object wrapped in cloth on the floor a few feet away from me. The blonde looked at me, the slightest bit skeptic. We stared at each other for a moment, and then she crouched her way over toward the bars. She unwrapped the cloth revealing a small silver cylinder. When she opened that up, it revealed a grayish gel, “What is it?”
“I know this one woman named, Nina. She’s a friend of the family’s. Anyway, she’s a very talented witch. I told her about you, about how my father and his men hurt you. She said that it would heal you…and get rid of the odor,” I admitted making the blonde laugh.
She must have been in pain, because she didn’t hesitate. She just stuck her hand into the cylinder and began rubbing the grey gel over her wounds and bruises, “Thank you. And tell your friend too.”
“Will do…”
We fell into silence, as I watched the gel slowly dissolve into her cuts and disappearing like lotion when rubbed into the skin. It stung at first, I could tell by the sound of crackling and sizzling flesh, but then the noise stopped and the only thing I could hear—other than the dripping water—were faint moans of relief coming from the blonde.
The blonde propped her weak body up against the bars, showing me that she finally trusted me…at least enough to have a civil conversation without thinking of slitting my throat, and vice versa, “Why are you being so nice to me?”
I shrugged, “I just don’t get this…the fights between my kind and yours…yes, you smell horrible—“
“And you smell like wet dog.”
“—but you don’t deserve to be treated like vermin. You don’t deserve to be in here, just because you accidentally wondered onto our property—uh! What were you doing anyway…shouldn’t you have been able to—“
“Smell you?”
“Yeah.”
The blonde sighed, a smile playing on the tips of her lips, “Well, uh…I was out celebrating and was really intoxicated. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“What were you celebrating?”
“I am…well was supposed to be getting married…today, actually!”
I couldn’t help but smile. I was excited, and felt happy for the girl, “Oh! You found your mate?”
The blonde rolled her eyes, “Oh god no!”
“Well then why were you—“
“Cameron is the alpha of my pack. My father, he was really ill, and only the blood of Cameron would cure him. Me and my brother, we were devastated. He didn’t have long, but my mother wouldn’t take no for an answer…she promised my hand in marriage in exchange for a vile of Cameron’s blood.”
“He made your mother promise your hand in marriage, for some blood?”
“Well no…neither one of us had had a clue. It was an arrangement secretly made between our parents. I was celebrating my last few days of freedom