Alone Until I Met You

When I woke up the next morning, fully rested and content, I turned my head to the side and realized that I was alone…again. I could feel that small bit of happiness chip off from inside of my chest and let out a long sigh. Was it really too much to ask for to just wake up one morning and have the first thing I see be Colt? I glared at the empty pillow beside me for not granting this little fantasy of mine before rolling my eyes.

He never really stuck around before we were mated so why had I assumed that he would change his habits afterwards? I shook my head from side to side as if to answer my own question before sliding the cover off of me. I turned my head towards the bedroom door and felt a little bit of hope rise. Even though Colt hadn’t been the first thing I saw when I woke up he sure as hell would be the first person I’d see.

As if he might disappear if I didn’t see him soon, I swung my legs off of the bed and practically ran to the door. Happiness and anticipation bubbled up in my stomach making a large smile form on my lips as I turned the knob on the door and opened it.

“Good morning!”

The smile on my face sagged in reply to Jackie’s bubbly greeting and my hand slipped off of the door knob. Why is Jackie here? I wondered briefly before turning my head from side to side in search of Colt, and where is Colt?

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jackie’s brilliant smile dim from me not greeting her back but frankly I wasn’t too concerned about it. I took a step out of the bedroom when I didn’t immediately see Colt and started to sniff. The shred of hope that I still had at him being here died at that moment. His normally strong scent was spotty and weak meaning that he hadn’t been in the apartment for a while.

I could feel my shoulder’s slouch forward in disappointment and sighed. Not only had my new mate left me alone in bed again but he had also left without saying goodbye. My gaze dropped down to the ground and I ended up staring at my small toes.

“Okay than I’m guessing that I was not the person you were expecting to see when you opened up that door.” Jackie said before making her way over to me. I could smell her light vanilla fragrance grow stronger as she neared and strangely enough the smell made me feel a little bit curious.

I raised my gaze up to meet her frowning expression and took a small step towards her. “You smell different,” I leaned closer to her and took another generous sniff. The smell was a lot stronger than usual and it even had a hint of something spicy in it. “You smell kind of like pumpkin.”

Jackie stared down at me for a minute with dulling brown eyes and for a moment I thought I had upset her. Then her smile lit back up and as she rested her perfect hands onto my small shoulders. “I’ve been trying out these new fragrances lately because Linc said that I smelt funny the other day, but the moron didn’t even notice that I had changed it at all.” She giggled slightly. “Do you like it?”

Inside I could feel a frown forming in my mind, for one werewolves didn’t normally put on perfumes or other humans chemicals because it was overpowering to our sensitive noses and second her ‘new’ scent smelled completely natural. I took a slight step away from Jackie and looked her over. She was wearing a pair of tight fitted jeans and a flowing turquoise shirt that reminded me of the dress she wore yesterday, but nothing seemed different about her.

My eyes met with hers once I was done looking her over and that’s when I noticed it. She wasn’t wearing any flashing human make-up but her complexion was glowing. Her regular flawless pale skin had been enhanced with a warm vibrant glow that made me want to smile.

I cocked me head to the side in both wonder and confusion. What was going on with her?

Before I could repeat my question aloud Jackie surprised me when her eyes started to drift away from my face and down at my ensemble. I could feel the discomfort rolling around in my stomach when her eyebrows crinkled. Personally I had no problem wearing Colt’s clothes because they were all I had but obviously Jackie and Linc were indifferent to the idea of me borrowing my mate’s clothes.

“Are you wearing Colt’s clothes again?” Jackie questioned and I could feel my face redden with embarrassment.

I nodded my head slowing in reply.

Jackie frowned at me answer before shaking her head disapprovingly. “Okay listen,” She began. “I have no problem with Colt and at first I thought it was kind of sweet that he was loaning his clothes to you but damn it Allie you are woman. An independent woman in fact and you deserve to have your own wardrobe. If Colt is too much of a tight ass to take you out shopping then it looks like I’m just going to have to do it in his stead.”

She grabbed ahold of my wrist before I could object to anything and started to drag me out of the apartment. Despite Jackie’s good intentions behind doing this I couldn’t help the ominous feeling that was building around me like a black fog. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that if I had acted on that feeling then maybe things wouldn’t have turned out the way they had…



We didn’t stop shopping until Jackie’s credit card got maxed out. I felt like falling down to my knees and howling at the moon in gratitude for saving me from shopping any longer with this possessed woman. We had been to over twenty different stores, three malls, and I had tried over a countless amount of clothing. Everything from see-through panties to formal jackets had touched my skin and now I was absolutely exhausted.

My initial feeling towards that was dread but then I remembered that she didn’t have any more money left and I felt relieved. After a moment I realized that Jackie was being unusually quite so I slowly raised my head up and looked over at her. Her eyes seemed glazed over as she stared at the display window. Her mouth hung slightly open in awe making me feel even more curious.

My eyes fell onto a pair of small human clothes. The light blue coloring of the shirt matched that of the morning sky and the pair of tiny shorts that went with it was tan. My brow crinkled as I wondered why she was so memorized by these clothes. It was obvious that the clothes were much too small to fit over her head much less her body.

I laughed at the thought of Jackie trying to put on the tiny clothing. She would have better luck putting them on a pup before getting them over that head of hers… and that’s when it hit me.

The change in her scent, the warming new glow of her skin, being drawn into clothes that were never going to fit her; it all made sense now. Jackie wasn’t trying on new scents or envisioning herself in those clothes.

My eyes grew wide with surprise when I turned to stare at her. “You’re pregnant.”

Jackie snapped out of her trance so quick that it made me want to jump. “What?”

I leaned in her direction before taking in another sniff. The spicy pumpkin smell clung to her skin like air and with that I knew that I was right.

Eagerly I nodded my head in reply. “Oh yeah, you’re definitely pregnant.”

She stood there for a moment and just looked at me, until I started to doubt the awesomeness of my nose, but then a smile bloomed on her glowing face. She giggled slightly before touching her hand to her flat lower stomach.

“My scent was a big give away wasn’t it?” She laughed lightly, “Linc and I were planning on surprising you and Colt about it over dinner tonight, but I can see that’s going to be a bust. Ha-ha damn our strong sense of smell.”

A huge wolfish grin spread across my face before I wrapped my arms around Jackie’s neck and threw myself at her. “I can’t believe you’re pregnant!”

Jackie giggled next to my ear before taking a step away from me. “It can’t really be that hard to believe. I mean Linc and I have been married for two years already and we dated for like five. A child was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“Well I guess you’re right about that but…I’ve really only known you for like five days so it’s a huge surprise to me.” I couldn’t control the huge smile that was hanging on my face. For some strange reason I just couldn’t control the large amount of happiness I had bubbling up inside of me. “I just can’t believe that you have a little pup growing inside of your belly.”

“Allie,” She started. “You can’t call a baby a pup.”

I down casted my gaze to her stomach. “But it is a pup. Even though it will have more human blood running inside of it, it will still be a werewolf.”

Jackie’s smile grew even more before she rolled her eyes at me. “I know that. I’m just saying that in this society you can’t go around calling my pup a pup because the humans will think you are odd. They call their offspring babies and so that we don’t attract even the slightest bit of attention to our true race, we have to as well.”

I could feel my smile dim slightly over her explanation. Why does hearing something like this making my wolf half feel so uneasy? Was it because I secretly didn’t want to embrace the human world or was it something else entirely? I shook the feeling away before it could dampen my mood any further. Right now was Jackie and her ‘babies’ moment.

“I can’t promise that the word pup won’t slip out every now and then.” Slowly I straightened to my full height before flattening the ends of my new shirt. “You never know though, maybe the human world needs an ‘odd’ girl like me to keep them entertained.”

Jackie snorted out a laugh. “Yeah I’m sure they would rather watch an oddball like you then some new TV show.”

“What’s a TV show?” I asked.

Jackie’s eye practically rolled back in her head at me question. “What has Colt been doing with you since you got here? The man hasn’t taken you clothes shopping, hasn’t educated you on the human norms, or anything?” She tossed her arms up in the air. “I swear if that man wasn’t Linc’s best friend I would bite him, and not in a sexually way either.”

Feeling like I should come to my mates defense I quickly spoke out, “That’s not true. Colt has been wonderful towards me. He saved my life on multiple occasions, he gave me a name, and he even lets me sleep next to him.”

I knew instantly that I shouldn’t have said the last one because of the look Jackie was now giving me. “He lets you sleep next to him….are you wearing clothes?”

“Yes.”

She cocked her eyebrow. “Does he?”

My face was burning at that one. “Of course he does.”

She kept her gaze on me for another moment before shrugging her shoulders. “I was just wondering because normally he sleeps nude.”

I could feel my jaw drop. “What?” I practically screamed. “How would you know?”

Jackie flicked a piece of her dark hair off of her shoulder. “Well there was this one time after a party in high school. I was super drunk and obviously couldn’t drive myself back home so Colt took me back to his house to let me spend the night. I asked to borrow a pair of his pajamas and he told me that he didn’t own any because he slept naked. I thought that was hot and then one thing led to another-

“What!” I cried.

Jackie started laughing at me and it stung the center of my chest. “I’m just messing with you Allie, ha-ha, well at least with the last part anyway. The rest of the story did happen.”

I could feel my teeth crack from the amount of pressure I putting on them to keep myself from growling. “Five mouths is going to feel like a really long time.”

“Well I already know that, I want this baby to come out right now. It’s a good thing that I’m not a human otherwise I would be carrying this baby for nine mouth and I just don’t have the patients for that. But why will it seem like a long time for you?” She questioned.

“I really want to punch you right now for teasing me but I can’t.” I said before shoving my hands into my pockets to help rid myself of temptation.

“Guess the perks of being pregnant are already taking affect.” She smiled innocently. “Maybe if you keep sleeping with that big brut you’ll have some perks of your own.”

Jackie still didn’t know that Colt and I were semi-mated so I knew that she was just teasing me again but I still couldn’t stop my face from heating up. “Shut up.” I mumbled before looking back to the display window. “Are you going to get that outfit for your p-baby or not?”

Jackie let out a long sigh. “I maxxed out my credit card already remember?”

“Oh yeah.” I smiled to myself. “So what do we do now?”

“Well I don’t know about you but I have to go to the bathroom.”

I frowned. “You just went fifteen minutes ago.”

Jackie shoved her bags she was carrying into my chest. “Yeah well I have to go again.”

It wasn’t until she started walking away that a snarky comeback popped into my head. “One of the perks of being pregnant huh?”

She formed a fist with one of her hands before sticking up her middle finger at me. I had no clue what the gesture was supposed mean so I just smiled and tried to wave to her. At least that was what I attempting to do but with my arms being overloaded with shopping bags it was a little difficult. I noticed an empty couch positioned in the middle of the mall and thought that it might be a good idea to wait for Jackie there.

After I hauled all of the bags over to the couch I practically fell into it. My head fell back onto the big soft cushion and my back sunk into the couch until it felt like I was wrapped in a blanket. Who would have known that shopping could take so much energy out of a person?

I let out an exhausted sigh before my eyelids slowly began to close. The muscles in my lower back and legs quickly started to relax, which made me realize just how active I had been for the day. Jackie and I had walked to the mall from Colt’s apartment, we had been shopping all day, and I had been the one hauling these clothes around while Jackie located the next store we would go to.

Of course Jackie had also bought some clothes for herself while we were in the stores but not nearly as much as she had bought for me. I had told her however that I didn’t need this many outfits and that one or two would do fine but then she would say I was being absurd and buy it anyway. I kept arguing with her about it anyway until she pointed out that I was basically taking advantage of Colt’s kindness and stealing all of his clothes and then I just felt bad.

I was so caught up in my own head that I didn’t even notice the hard thud of someone’s footsteps nearing me. The strong odor of men’s cologne should have been able to get my attention because it was too heavily applied even for a human meaning that someone had been trying really hard to mask their scent.

“Today isn’t your lucky day, is it?”

My eyes shot open at the sound of his hard unfeeling voice and instantly every part of my body was on high alert. My head snapped over to his direction and my eyes grew wide with shock and fear. His wicked grin slowly began to consume the rest of his face as his coal black eyes drank in the sight of me.

“To be left here all alone and completely unprotected is either very bold of you or very stupid.” Kirk leaned over the armrest of the couch and touched his cold fingers over the skin of my cheek. “It’s been a long time, Allie.”