Carlie's Story

Carlie’s Story

Preface

I did not know what to do but sit there and write my heart out, to express my feeling to him, to let him know I was there whenever he needed me to be there. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t just sit there and write. He wouldn’t read it. He was always too busy guarding out perimeter, sleeping, and playing with his dogs. We barely had time for each other anymore, which upset me. Naturally, of course.
I sat up, and put the pen down. Sighing, I stared to read what I had written. “No words can describe how I feel about you. We have been imprinted for six years now, and I feel welcome in your arms. But I have to tell you something important, a secret that my heart aches to keep. Jake, I have been…”  I didn’t want to keep it from him. I really didn’t.
My gifts – that’s what Jake called them – were actually curses. We couldn’t cuddle, we couldn’t take in depth, and I couldn’t even kiss him without giving away my secret. Especially since the secret was on that should have never existed. When Jake got home tonight, I would have to tell him. I was scared to. He would probably get mad and change, rip my heart out in more ways than one, and stop the engagement. But other than that? My life would be fine. Heartless, but fine.





She was keeping something from me. She wouldn’t even sleep with me any longer. I didn’t know what her problem was, but I would figure it out. I hoped to hell and back that her problem wasn’t me. And if it was, I’d ask her if she’d want to stop the engagement. If she did, if she didn’t want to marry me any longer, O would die. My heart, no matter how big a blood-sucking, grown dog’s heart could get, would break into a million pieces.
I knew what I was going to do. Weather she liked it or not, I was going to sneak into her room tonight and touch her. That’s all I would need to do. And then I would find out what was going on in that little sweet head of hers.




Chapter One

He was mad. Very mad. I couldn’t understand why, but he was. So I got up and went outside, in hopes to calm him down. I doubted I could, considering his immense anger, but it was worth the try. I would do anything to calm him down.
Jake was prowling around in the back yard, growling under his breath. I hoped over hopes… but it wasn’t possible. He’d sworn that he wouldn’t touch me. And since I hadn’t told him last night like I had hoped to, I was going to show him this morning. He was going to get angrier than he already was, but one way or another, I would make him calm down. He usually did when he saw me. But I could tell that this time, it would be quite a bit harder than him looking into m y eyes to calm him down. I would try, though. As hard as I could, I would try.
His eyes found me and followed me, filled with loathing. Something else was in there, mixed with the anger, but I couldn’t identify it. Once I touched him, I knew I would be able to tell what it was, though. Sadness, maybe. Anger, definitely.  But what else could it be? I laughed at the thought. Maybe it was love. Almost every time he saw me, his eyes filled with love. The other times it was lust or want.
Using our hand signals, I signaled him to “Please sit.” He bared his teeth and shook his head no. “Why not?" I whispered, reaching out to him. In a flash, he was human again, and he said, “Because you’re a whore. You’re a liar. You’re a cheat.” Another growl erupted from his chest as he started to walk – more like stalk – towards me. “You’ve been cheating on me for the past three months, Carlie. Why didn’t you tell me in the first fucking place? I wouldn’t be so damn pissed off right now if you had.”
By now he was close enough to me that I could see him trembling with anger. “But babe…”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me!” He growled. My face stung. Had he really just slapped me? Really? I turned my face away as tears stung my eyes. I didn’t want to cry. I really didn’t. As the tears fell down my face, I thought. I couldn’t believe this. Was he breaking up with me? My mind was thinking faster than my body. He was dragging me somewhere. We were in the house. And then we were in our room.
I stood up, my mind and body working in sync. I kicked upwards, as hard and as fast as I could, and I watched Jake fall to the ground. I watched my feet as I ran as fast as I could away from the were-pyre that my heart beat for. And every step I took just broke my heart ten times faster.
He was right behind me. I didn’t want him to hurt me any more than he already had. But when I heard him say it, that damned direct order, I knew that I could not disobey him. “Come here!” I walked slowly toward him, as slowly as I possibly could. “Come here, NOW!” he growled. I hurried to him, almost at the same time at almost the same time I had been running from him. When I got to him, he took my face in between his hands and kissed me, full on the lips. Heat raced between us, like the licks from a fire that had gotten hot to the degree from the sun. His lips were hard on mine, forcing me to kiss him back.
His thoughts raced into my mind as I started to kiss him back. “Her lips like sugar, her mind so sweet, he eyes so pretty it makes me weep. I still love her, I still care, and I know I wouldn’t dare to break her heart once again, and watch her run away in pain…” He stopped kissing me then. His thoughts were opened up to me. As mine were to him.
“Are you mad at me?”  I whispered in my mind. “Do you want to stop the engagement?” He wiped away the single tear that fell down my face and said, “No, Love, I don’t.” Anger then blazed in his eyes, partly replacing the love that shone like stars in them. “And damn yea, I am mad. More than mad, actually. “Pissed.” He shivered again. “Step away from me. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have. I didn’t…at the time…”
I stepped towards his trembling body and took his face in my hands, like he had done to me, and kissed him. Gentle. Loving. Caring. That’s what I tried to make him feel, and I guess that’s what I did. I melted into him as he melted into me. We were together at last. We were one.







I kissed her back, thought I wanted to hit her. She had purposely disobeyed me. And unless she got away from me, I would hurt her worse than she had ever been hurt before, hurt like she could never imagine. I didn’t want her side to look like mine. Never, Hell yes, I loved her, and hell no, I didn’t want her to feel any more pain than necessary.
But I knew what I was fixing to do would hurt her as much as it would hurt me. I would have to run. Soon. There would be no wedding. And later, there would be no me. My love for her would be dead along with me. And then she could find someone else, someone she actually wanted to be with.







Chapter Two

Sharp pains had been coming and going all night long. Sometimes, it was my abdomen, sometimes my arms, sometimes my legs. I was wondering why when the pains came once again. I screamed. And screamed. And screamed again. Jason rushed into the room and took me into his arms as I sobbed. The pain was so immense. He lifted up my shirt and gently probed my stomach, feeling for anything unusual. After all, he was a doctor. One with special powers, at that. He wasn’t using them now, though.
I gasped and screamed again, though this time not in pain. “Jake”, I hissed to my uncle. “Jake.” I didn’t care how long it would take to get to him. We were one. And if we had to die as one, we would.
I hopped up, out of my uncle’s arms and ran. He would be at the pier. I knew what he was doing. And I knew that if he died, my heart would die with him. If I died in the place of him, though, I knew that it would be worth it Instead of him dying, I would, and instead of my heart melting, his would just freeze over a thousand times more than it already had.
I ran as hard and fast as I could, and as far as I could. The pier soon loomed before me, along with a hulking figure named Jake. Hissing under my breath, I jumped out from behind him and took the knife in my hand. “Carlie”- but it was too late. I was tired of this pain, and I wanted my life to end. Just as pain erupted all around me, just as my vision started to blur, I saw his face. “No,” he sobbed. “No!” At least I knew now that he loved me. At last, I knew. And I would have his face to remember, forever.



         
         “Fix her!” I yelled. “Damn you, Jason, fix her!” I felt like crying. I didn’t know what else to do but watch him as he carefully, surgically, removed the knife from her heart, and started to fix her tiny, beautiful, and now scared body.
         “No.” His quiet, calming voice said. “This is your entire fault, Jake.” He shook his head. “Why? You’ve caused my niece enough pain before, but this? Enough pain to make her commit suicide? No. You will never be a member of my family, and it doesn’t matter if you marry her or not. No matter if she dies.”
         It won’t be my fault,” I argued. “She’s the one who took the knife from me. She’s the one who tried to kill herself. It was her choice, Jason, not mine. It might have been partially my fault, but not completely.” I pointed at her. “The only reason I tried to kill myself? That son of a bitch doesn’t love me. She never did. Probably never will, now.”
Jason took a deep breath and I noted that the hand that held the scalpel trembled. “You wanna kill me?” I snarled. “Go ahead. I’d be better off dead than stuck here with a family that hates me.”




I might have wanted to kill him, but I wasn’t going to. We, my family and I, were not murderers. We do not use our powers to destroy the human race. We are like, or at least try to be like, regular humans. Humans are right in their mind. Well, at least some of them. And I was trying as hard as I could try right now not to kill my niece’s fiancé.
“We’re not murderers, Jake,” I whispered as I finished the stitches over my niece’s heart. “Just because I want to kill you doesn’t mean I have to. Just because I cannot forgive you, it doesn’t mean that our Heavenly Father won’t.” I shook my head. “Go home, Jake. Never, ever come back.



         
         So I walked away from my love, my life, my everything. And I hoped to never be seen again.








Chapter Three
         I hadn’t seen him for days. I sensed his anger, but I didn’t know what it was towards. Every time I called, he didn’t answer, and every time I went to his house, no one was home. Was he purposely avoiding me? And if he wasn’t, who was forcing him to stay away? My aunts and uncles, along with my parents, were out of the question. But what about Jake? What about my fiancé? If he still was my fiancé, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if he put the engagement off for a few weeks so that both of us could calm down a bit. Maybe that’s what I needed. A break from Jake might do me some good.
         All I could think about was him. And almost everything reminded me of him. My furry faux coat reminded me of his fur in the wintertime, for example. It smelled like him. He was the one who had given it to me a few months ago. I wanted to cry. I missed him so much. Then I knew what I was going to do. The only time I knew he was at home? Night. He would be asleep or watching TV in his game room. Either way, I could easily slip in through the attic window – it had a latter leading to it – and down the staircase into Jake’s room.
         So I prepared to leave the house, praying for my uncle not to notice, praying for him to be asleep. I prayed that Jake was in his bed asleep as well. As I was leaving through my window, though, I felt a hand on my shoulder and Jason whispered, “Where do you think you are going, Carlie?”
         “I’m going to Jake’s,” I said simply. My uncle eyed me angrily, his hand on my shoulder tightening. I turned around, the look in my eyes so fierce that my uncle let go of me. “I still love him, Jason. No matter what he did, even if he did influence me to try and kill myself. And you know how much I believe that lie. He’s my soul-mate, J, and we’re still imprinted. I feel his pain, he feels mine. We are together, whether you like it or not. We are one.”
         Jason looked into my eyes, trying to figure me out. In his heavy Texan accent he said : “If he hurts you one more time, Carlie, I swear I will kill him. No matter how bad it hurts to do it, I will kill him.” He pointed to the window. “Now, go.” So I went.
         Once I climbed into the window and down the stairs, I climbed onto his bed with him. Once I touched him, his clean shaven face, it made me feel safer. More whole. More like me. I was finally reunited with my love. And I hoped to never be torn away from him again. 





         I woke up and growled. This dream was not real. It couldn’t be. When I touched her, I knew it wasn’t a dream. Her beautiful bronze hair, her slender body, just the sight of her comforted me. But then again, it frightened me badly. What had she done to her uncle to get him to let her to come here? Had she influenced him in a moment of anger like I had done to her?
         I stroked her hair as I thought. Had she actually convinced her uncle to let her come to my house? Or had she lied by thought? While she was asleep her guard was down. So I slipped into her mind easily, being my nosy self. Okay, so she had just told him… “Damn,” I whispered. How could she love me after all I had done to her? After I had just about forced her to kill herself? How? Imprints were powerful. I hadn’t yet figured out how strong, and it had been six years. But if she was willing to stay with me for the next who-knows-how-many years, I wasn’t against it.
         My mind argued with me. You were too strong last time, it told me. You couldn’t stop yourself from hurting her. If you really loved her, you wouldn’t have done that. If you really cared, you would’ve stopped yourself from doing the one thing you swore to yourself that you’d never do. You almost forced her to kill herself.
         “No,” A small voice, the voice of an angel, interrupted. I looked down to see her looking up at me. Her hand crawled up my chest and onto my bristly face, caressing it lovingly. I slipped out of Carlie’s mind, though I knew it wouldn’t do any good now. We were united together in a way that no human could understand. I looked straight into her eyes as she spoke. She had my full attention. “I was the one who chose to do that, Jake. Not you. And about you hitting me? It has happened before, only with L.”She stopped short of saying his name. “And I had it coming; I deserved it. After all, I did cheat on you.”
         I had only one question. “Why?” I whispered, afraid my voice would break and show her all the things that I didn’t want her to see. I was supposed to be the tough one here. But it cracked anyways.
         “Why’d I cheat on you? I thought you didn’t love me, Jake. I didn’t think you cared anymore. You had started to get more involved with you clan and I couldn’t help but think that you didn’t want me anymore. So I left you alone. I thought it would be best for us. I still kinda think that you don’t lo”-
         “Damn!” I could hear the growl in my voice. I kissed her, her lips like sugar, her blood like drugs. I kissed her until we were both gasping for breath, until we both could breathe no longer. “Hell yes, I love you, baby girl. Why in my right state  of mind would I not? In the past two weeks, girl, all I’ve been able to think about was you. I haven’t been the one to avoid. Not on purpose anyways. Your uncle said he’d kill me if he saw my fur all over you again. I didn’t think he was serious…”
         She saw it in my eyes. “WHAT THE HELL DID HE DO TO YOU?!  I swear on my own life that if he hurt you, for every tear you cried, he’ll have a broken bone.” She hissed angrily. “Show me.” I looked at her reluctantly. “NOW,” she growled. So I did.
         Her eyes were wide as she traced the whip lashes. She was breathing hard, and her eyes filled with tears. I didn’t want her to cry. But instead of a sob coming from her, a growl did. A growl that seemed to never end.
And then she did something that I never  thought that she would do to anybody, anything. She jumped out of the window and started to run, he thoughts still connected to mine. He uncle was asleep. She could hear him snoring. She snuck into his room and took out the whip…. “No.” I whispered to her mind. “Yes,” I whispered back. And then she whipped him.
























         
Chapter Four
         I cried out in pain, not able to move, not able to do anything. My own niece was whipping me, and I knew why. But then again, I did not. When she was done, when she was finished, I turned my head towards her, tears coming out of my eyes. Her eyes were red. Not the outside, but the irises were as red as blood. I had never seen that in a half-breed before, and in all my years… Well, lets just say that no one had ever dealt me what I had dealt them. They had never given me payback. They had all been afraid of my wrath. But Carlie? She was the toughest young lady that, in all my years, I had encountered.
         She bent down, the whip still in her hand, and looked into my eyes. I cringed. The hate in them was immense.  “You…” She growled. And then she slapped me, harder than I had ever been slapped before. My wife even slapped me easier.  “You have twice as many  scars as he will. You shed twice as many tears as he did. You deserve the pain, you son of a bitch. He didn’t.” She threw the whip on the bed. “When my parents get back from their day out, tell them that I’m gone. Forever. I do not want to live with a bastard who wanted to kill my Jakie. And me.” She slapped me again. “You know what you did, Jason. And I hope you go to hell for it, too.” With that, she walked away, not even looking back to tell me ‘bye.
         


         When I got back to Jake’s house, he was pacing the back yard in his wolf form. “Please forgive me, Jake. I was mad, and I still kinda am. But I still love you…” The huge dog looked at me. “And Jake,” he cocked his head to the side. “I need to feed.” Three seconds later, he was holding me, my head buried in his neck; I drank until my small stomach was full of his warm, heavenly blood. I felt like sleeping. And once the message went through to him, he took me into his huge arms and rocked me like a baby. He chuckled and kissed my forehead, telling me that I was his baby, and that he loved me, too.
         I fell asleep, remembering the loving look in his eyes, grasping onto his love that I knew would last an eternity.







Chapter Five

         I watched her sleep silently in my arms, without snoring, without moving. I could smell myself on her. I stared at the stars form my balcony’s couch and sighed. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I knew who it was, and I also knew that his phone call could be my last. I opened the phone and said, “Hey, man. Listen. Give me another week. I don’t have the money yet.” My dealer cussed me out before he said:
         “You haven’t paid me in three weeks, dude. Either you get half of that money to me tonight, of you go to hell. Actually, take that back. I’m gonna take that little girl that you seem to love so much home with me. I’ll do her some good. She ain’t gonna be screaming at you, dude. She’ll be screaming at me. In my bed.”
         I growled lowly. “You son of a bitch!” I shivered, not wanting to take on my true form now. “You don’t even play me like that, man. Just because I got high with you and your drugs, it doesn’t mean that you have to take my girl. Just because she’s prettier than yours… And I’ll have your damn money by midnight tonight. Okay?” I shut the phone.
         Just then, I didn’t realize that she had been awake during the entire conversation. Her eyes were redder than I had ever seen them. I gasped as she got off of the couch and came at me with amazing speed, breaking my phone and part of my heart. I knew what she had thought of drugs in the first place… “Why?” She hissed. “WHY?!”
         “I did it because I knew you wouldn’t like it. I did it because I thought getting high would get you off of my mind, so that I wouldn’t have to hurt. I thought it would..” And in her moment of anger, and in all of my six years of being with her, she kissed me. Her nails dug into my skin, piercing it, making it bleed. And through all of the pain, I realized that it was worth it. Until I heard that one word that all people, not mattering in which way the word comes, hate to hear. “’bye,” she whispered, kissing me one last time, one last kiss to remember her by. And she walked away, for what seemed to me to be forever.