No Place for Us

I had never thought that things would be this way. Yes, I, Jade Rolf, was doomed for failure with this one.

Across the table from me sat Amir Jones. Being a werewolf like me, we seemed like the normal werewolf couple. Soulmates… Lovers for life… Except things were more complicated than that for us. I was of one pack; he of another. Intermingling with other packs was, of course, normally essential to the well-being of a pack. In fact, finding a mate was the most crucial – and stressful – part of being part of a pack.

But mingling with his pack? Forbidden. Punishable as a traitor. Our two packs were enemies since as far back as the four generations that made up my pack could remember. Quite the Romeo and Juliet scene, it seemed.

Yet here I sat. Across from the boy I was supposed to kill and fight if I ever saw him. Here I sat, holding hands across the table and smiling as if none of that mattered.
We were at an old diner that was four miles outside of the boundaries of both of our territories. It was a sanctuary that neither of our packs would be quick to look in. Too many humans around for their liking.

We had been meeting here for the past six months. He was the alpha of his pack; my brother the alpha of mine. Our paths had crossed for the first time those six months ago when there had been a boundary dispute. Our eyes met…and I knew. The Elders always said that it was magic when your eyes met and your body was consumed with an intense loving flame for someone you had never known before. Part of me had stressed that I would never have found that person. Now I stressed that I had. I stressed that I had walked right into the quicksand of love. Stupid, ignorant, passionate love. We were completely wrong for one another and yet we took such comfort in one another.

We sat together at the booth, holding each other. His fingers caressed small circles into my palm; then he’d intertwine his fingers with mine, studying this as if to memorize every little detail of what how it felt like this. He sucked on each of my fingers and nibbled lightly on my wrist.
I smiled. I liked his touch and his lips. We didn’t always have a lot of time to be intimate, confined to a booth in a dingy diner and all.

But he kissed me on the lips anyway, forgetting about the waitress that was making her way over the table for our order. He grabbed my hips and pulled me into his lap. It started off gentle – his teeth nibbling on my lower lip and his tongue swirling around my mouth. Slowly he got rougher, snaking his hands under my shirt and kissing me breathless. It seemed as if we were going too far…

I woke up screaming from the same nightmare I had been having repeatedly for the last two months. It seemed like no nightmare to others – two innocent forbidden lovers. I cherished that part, even thought about it all of the time, but it was the end that terrified me…

I didn’t remember much of what had happened after Amir and I started kissing; only that there was no happiness left for me anymore. I knew it was my brother who had torn my lips away from my lover’s, but that was the last that I remembered. I was dragged away by the other pack members as I screamed for my brother to leave him alone.

I didn’t know what had happened to my love. Some told me my brother had finished him right there; others that he had given up me for his life. Either way, all I knew was the fading smell of his scent and a world of painful darkness…