Beckoned (The Brazil Werewolf Series) (2 page)

I sat up confused. I ran my hands through my hair as I thought. There had been no planning with this move. It was instant. I could only remember stopping once and though my mother had made a phone call, the conversation had taken less than five minutes. What move could take such little preperation?

I tilted my head as I looked at her…really looked at her. She wasn‘t just frightened as I had first assumed. She was nervous. It showed in the way she shifted her gaze from me to the road and back again. My lips pressed together for a few moments before I asked, “Where will we be arriving?”

Suspicion was clear in my voice and my mother shifted in her seat uncomfortably because of it. Her eyes twitched as if wanting to find anywhere to look but at me. Finally, she took a deep breath and let it out, relaxing a bit.

“The safest place I have ever been,” she whispered as her eyes softened.

I rolled my eyes annoyed with the vague answers especially with so many mysteries around me. I felt as if I were losing my mind and she wasn‘t helping me, “And where is that?”

She glanced back at the road and bit her full bottom lip before answering with a small secret smile, “Timbly Mountain, Colorado.”

My eyes widened in shock. She had known that I would recognize the name immediately. I had been there before though I could not remember it, “Where I was born?”

My mother nodded as she raised a pale hand and brushed a strand of her long blonde hair behind her ear. I noticed that her hand shook. She was nervous again and I wondered why.

“Yes,” she said, “It’s where you were born and it’s also where our family is.”

I blinked at the word family. I had never heard my mother mention anything about relatives. To my knowledge, we didn’t have any. The fact that she waited to mention them until now made me even more suspicious. Something had happened for her to keep them from me. Something bad.

“Family?” I asked, knowing my shock and wariness layered my voice.

She shrugged, trying to seem unbothered but her eyes began to shift away from me again, “Well, as close to family as we have.”

I frowned as I looked at her exasperated with her non-answers and groaned. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath trying not to become annoyed. I let the breath out that I had been holding and then, opened my eyes and looked at her.

“Mom, will you please explain everything?” I asked through gritted teeth, finally losing all patience.

She sighed deeply and then, nodded her head and glanced back at the road a moment before speaking. Her voice was layered in so much sadness that my chest hurt and I wondered whether I really needed the explanation. Still, I pressed my lips tightly together and listened quietly.

“When my parents kicked me out at fifteen because I was pregnant with you, I was forced to live on the street,” she said, sadly. I looked at her feeling miserable for the girl she had been. I felt even worse that she had been rejected for keeping me. She smiled at me, knowing how I felt but it showed all of the hurt that her parent’s rejection had caused. She took a deep breath and continued, “I was eight months pregnant and afraid of how we would survive when a woman named Sophia found me living in a park. She took me in. She took care of me and made me part of her family.”

Suspicion whispered through me again and I narrowed my eyes, “If Sophia and her family are so wonderful, why haven’t you told me about them until now?”

My mother’s face tensed and I knew that I had hit on some clue to how everything fit together, “I don’t know…Maybe it was because I missed them and to talk about them made me miss them more.”

My mother had never been a good liar and I could see she lied now. The problem was I didn’t know how to uncover what had made her lie. It was still a mystery.

“But if they’re family, you should have mentioned them,” I said watching my mother tense further. I raised my brow. Something was definitely wrong, “I had a right to know about them.”

We stared at each other in a silent battle. Finally, her face fell and she stared out of the windshield at the road for a few moments. Then, she sighed, “I know I should have told you,” she breathed as her shoulders drooped. Still, sincerity dripped from her voice, “but I can promise you this now…they
are
good people. They won’t let anything happen to us. They’ll protect us.”

I studied her face seeing the fear there and I knew who that fear was of and I knew that I had to ask about him even if she lied to me, “Momma, do you know the man who tried to attack us?”

A tremor shook her but she managed to nod her head, “Yes, I do but I will explain…later,” she said, looking at me with her eyes pooling with tears. I frowned suspicious and she continued, “I promise I will but right now, we need to be safe. That is the only thing I can think about. So, please sleep for now and I’ll tell you after we arrive…I-I promise.”

I frowned at her confused and worried but nodded my head. Obviously, the man terrified my mother and if she needed to be somewhere safe to be able to tell me about him, then, I would not take that away from her. I would allow her to feel safe.

She turned back, focusing on the road with a relieved sigh when I closed my eyes, but as I laid on the passenger seat of the mobile home, the fear she felt began to flutter around in my chest because I knew with absolute certainty that whatever had happened, it was worse than sleepwalking. Worse, I knew that even though my mother was frightened, I needed to find out why.

**********

The dream came nearly as soon as my eyes closed. My name floated across the air and wrapped around me, hugging me in its shadowed arms. I was entranced and I found I wanted to get closer to the one who called for me. I trembled with the knowledge. I didn’t understand how I could want to get closer to such danger when I had no doubt I would die if I gave into the impulse. Terror settled in my chest causing me to suck in my breath. With the action, the entrancement was gone…only terror remained invading me soul deep.

I forced my eyes opened, convinced I was sleepwalking once again. It would explain such strange feelings if I had still been caught in between dream and reality but as I opened my eyes, cold, dark fear enveloped me further, causing a sob to tear from my throat.

I found myself kneeling on a patch of grass in the middle of a vast forest. Large, gnarled roots surrounded me in an almost perfect circle. Beyond the trees was a darkness so thick that no light could penetrate it.

I knew my worst fear had come. Hadn’t I feared this very thing just the night before? I trembled as the sounds of owls hooting blended with the wind whipping through the trees. I closed my eyes trying to force the images of what could happen to me from my mind. I whimpered as my fear increased. I bowed my head and looked down with the intention to pray but for some reason, I opened my eyes.

I frowned as my eyes focused, finding myself in a dress as black as my hair. My confusion worsened as I looked at it. Not only did I not know how I had come to be there, I didn’t know where I had gotten the dress. I had not been wearing it when I fell asleep. I frowned wondering if I even owned anything like it. I didn’t think so.

“Aurora,” my name whipped through the air nearly as quickly as the wind, causing me to tense. In a moment, I forgot my confusion over the dress or how I had come to be in the middle of a forest. There was only fear.

I closed my eyes pushing the fear back and concentrated on the voice. The owner of the voice was definitely male and sounded as if he stood directly behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up in awareness.

I turned my head and found nothing but the dark and the shadows of the trees in the forest. My heart beat hard within my chest as I trembled repeatedly, still feeling the danger that I was in.

I stood trying to control my rasping breaths. My bones clamped down upon each other in fear. In that moment, I realized I was going to run. I looked around, waiting to find out the direction the voice was coming from.

“You can’t run from me, Aurora,” the voice said as if reading my mind. I began to spin around in circles listening for the direction the man was speaking from. I still did not find him even though he continued to speak, “I will always find you.”

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I asked, sobbing. Tears burned paths down my cheeks as I continued to look into the darkness, “Why do you keep coming for me?”

“Because you are mine, Aurora,” the voice said, cold and ominous, “You…
are
…mine.”

“No, I’m not!” I cried, shaking my head vigorously and then, raised my head and screamed, “I’m not!”

I stopped when I seen red eyes peering at me from the darkness. They were the eyes of a predator and they were watching me like prey. I pressed my lips together to prevent myself from screaming as they moved closer, stalking me though I had stopped moving. My gaze moved downward and I shivered. I thought I had seen an evil grin beneath the glowing red orbs but as the eyes got closer, I realized my mistake.

A great gray and black wolf stood in front of me. Its eyes glowed ominous and threatening. Its teeth were sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone. As it walked, powerful muscles moved graceful but ready to tense into attack. I wanted to move but fear glued my feet in place even though I knew that if I could not escape, I would die. A growl burst from the wolf’s throat as it took two more menacing steps toward me. It tilted its head as it studied me for just a moment. The growl rose in intensity until it echoed through the woods. I gained my ability to move and took a step back but it was too late. It sprang with teeth bared. A scream ripped from my throat.

Pain lashed through my shoulder an instant later, burning as if a fire had been lit there. I continued to scream and scream and scream as the teeth of the wolf came at me again and again.

Over my screams I began to hear someone shouting my name, rising until their voice overlapped the sound of my screams. Concern and anger lashed through this voice making me listen...making me realize I dreamed.

Relief flooded me as I pulled open my eyelids and looked into wide hazel eyes the color of caramel with striations of sea green around the pupils. Long, curving lashes surrounded them. I would have thought they were beautiful if anger did not pulse from them, confusing and frightening me. Who was this person and why were they angry with me?

I continued to blink up at the man who held me and trembled as I realized that these beautiful angry eyes belonged to the owner of the second voice that had pulled me from my nightmare. I frowned as I looked into his eyes realizing again a stranger held me. Still, I did not move from him because he was safer than the dream.

Instead, I continued to stare into his angry, beautiful eyes. He frowned and finally, I blinked able to move my eyes down his long straight nose to his full lips. His long, brown and black hair was cut so it was even with his squared chin. His look was dark and handsome in a way that made me shiver. It made me afraid. Anger rolled off of him, making the darkness more evident and I shivered again.

I sank further into the seat that had been my bed for the night, trying to get away from him and from the strange feeling that had settled in the pit of my stomach and made my heart race. Pain sliced through my shoulder yet again and I looked down to see he gripped it tightly, increasing the pressure with one olive toned hand. I looked up at him frightened because he had yet to let go and I could not tell if he posed a threat.

He must have realized my fear because he released me quickly and then sat back on the driver’s seat as if ready to flee himself. I sat up quickly, nearly strangling myself on the seatbelt. He reached over and pushed the button allowing the seatbelt to retract. Slowly, I sat up and looked at him with a frown marking my brow. Again I wondered,
Why is he so angry?

“Where’s my mother?” I asked, cautiously. After all, this man could be a serial killer and I wouldn‘t know it.

A muscle twitched beneath his eye and he glanced toward the door and then, back at me as if trying to decide what to say. Finally, he narrowed his eyes, “She’s outside talking to my mother.”

I struggled to understand his answer and his temper. I could not make sense of it. He seemed as if he were angry at me but I had just met him. What could I have done to cause his wrath? I rubbed my forehead as it began to ache and then, looked up at him beneath the hood of my fingers.

“Your mother?” I asked, frowning. If he would answer that question, maybe I could understand what was happening.

“My mother…Sophia,” he said, rolling his eyes and making me shift uneasily for not knowing. Still, I relaxed dropping my hand from my forehead as the familiar name pierced my memory. Sophia, the woman who had taken my mother in and made her family. Sophia who had been the only person who had truly helped her when she was fifteen and pregnant with me. She was kind and good. She had to be…but if she was, there was one thing that didn’t make sense.

“You’re Sophia’s son?” I asked, tilting my head as I studied him.

He nodded his head in one clipped move and then, looked into my eyes, relaxing only for a moment. He seemed confused as he spoke again, “I’m Andre Brazil.”

He stared at me for a few moments more as if trying to determine something. His eyes burned into mine as if trying to see my soul and for a moment I believed he was able to and nothing was hidden from him. I shifted uncomfortably once again and searched for something to say.

“It’s nice to meet you Andre,” I whispered, after a few moments. He continued to stare at me. The look of confusion slowly bled back into anger.

He leaned forward, putting his face an inch from mine and looked directly into my eyes. I blinked surprised at his closeness. I had never been close to any male. My mother wouldn’t allow it.

His eyes continued to burn into mine becoming more and more angry and I trembled. He smiled when I leaned back away from him but malice shined in his eyes, “You won’t think it’s so nice to meet me later.”