The Great Wolf: A Legacy of Kilkenny Novel Book Three (The Legacy of Kilkenny Saga) (20 page)

“I’ll need a glass of water too…if you don’t mind,” Sapphire
says with confidence.  I smile at her, knowing she was staking her claim of me.

After a couple of drinks, Sapphire is tipsy and giggling,
but not sloppy drunk.  She grabs Ruby’s arm and pulls her away to the ladies
room.  I’m left with Collin and the girls that were singing when we came in. 
Collin wasn’t kidding when he said he’d need a DD to get home.  I on the other
hand am a werewolf, my body absorbs the alcohol and heals the intoxication more
rapidly than humans do.

A familiar beat starts blaring through the speakers and I
turn around and spot the karaoke culprits.

I SAW HIM DANCING THERE BY THE RECORD MACHINE

I KNEW HE MUSTA BEEN ABOUT SEVENTEEN

THE BEAT WAS GOING STRONG

PLAYIN MY FAVORITE SONG

Sapphire and Ruby were up on the stage singing surprisingly
well.  Sapphire took the microphone like a rock star and held her other arm
out, pointing at me… she struts off the stage as she sings.  She stops in front
of me, with a grin across her face.

AN’ I COULD TELL IT WOULDN’T BE LONG

TILL HE WAS WITH ME, YEAH ME

AND I COULD TELL IT WOULDN’T BE LONG

TILL HE WAS WITH ME, YEAH ME, SINGIN’

I LOVE ROCK N’ ROLL

SO PUT ANOTHER DIME IN THE JUKEBOX, BABY

I LOVE ROCK N ROLL

Without warning, she’s in my lap, and I can’t hear anything
but the beating of her heart. Mmmmm …I stare at her graceful neck as her head
tilts towards me.  I put my hand on her waist, and pull her closer to me.  She
jumps up and runs back to the stage and Ruby takes over. 

Collin leans in and mouths, “I think she’s into you.”

I lift my glass and toast him. 

As the girls come back to the table, I pull Sapphire’s chair
closer to me.  She laughs and tells jokes until everyone at the table is
captivated by her. 

“Can I see your phone?”  Sapphire says with her hand out.

I pull it out of my pocket and hand it to her.  She can ask
for my bank account and I’d give it to her.  I watch as she frantically types
something out.  Standing up, she hands me my phone but hits the talk button
first.  Her phone begins to vibrate, and I know it’s in her back pocket.  She
answers the call and shoots me a flirty smile.

“I told you I’d give you my number if you showed up.  Now, I
have yours too,” she holds her phone up showing me her screen.

My brain screams to run as fast as I can, my wolf screaming
not to let her out of my sight. 
She’s human…as in human, human.
  I think
to myself.  “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow, which is really today?”

She presses her lips together in a grin and nods her head
yes.  Her list of positives is beating out the fact she’s human.  The way her
dimple only shows when she grins, and the way her dark hair gives her an exotic
vixen look.  The way she laughs at her own jokes and laughs harder when she
screws up the punch line. 

We walk with the girls outside and to our surprise the girls
walked over to the Tribal Police car parked by the doors.  Sapphire runs back
to me and gives me a hug and whispers in my ear not to forget to call her in
the morning. 
I’m going to need a good long run when I get back to the
farm. 

The officer driving the car looks to be friends with the
girls and happy to see them. 

I turn to Collin, who is propped up against the building. 
“Toss me your keys, I’m fine to drive.”

He makes a feeble attempt at tossing me the keys, which is
nothing more than him tossing them straight up over his head.  My reflexes are
fast, and he’s too intoxicated to notice.  I get him to the truck and fasten
his seatbelt.  I take his phone from his hand and text his brother not to
bother coming out to the casino.

http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-A-Werewolf-Love-Story-ebook/dp/B00C12XRAU

Wide Awake

Academy of the Fallen

by Daniele Lanzarotta

http://www.amazon.com/Wide-Awake-Academy-Daniele-Lanzarotta-ebook/dp/B0052TMTE4

© 2011 Daniele Lanzarotta

ONE

My life had been pretty normal
until that point.  I went to a private high school in LA, where I lived with my
adoptive parents.  I did pretty decent at school, especially for someone who
didn’t try very hard.  I had awesome friends, and an okay boyfriend, I mean, I
thought he was great at the time, but a lot of people saw him as a jerk, but
whatever…
Boy!  Was I wrong?

That day, I woke up and then spent
probably the next half hour scanning through my closet.  On a normal day, we
would wear the school’s uniform, but the school principal gave us a free pass
that day, since we had a field trip.  As long as we were dressed in what he
considered decent, which was code for boring, we didn’t have to wear the
school’s uniform.

I went downstairs, grabbed
something to eat and walked out the door, getting in my Audi R8, that I had
just got for my birthday.  It took me forever to talk Kelly and Andrew, my
adoptive parents, into getting me that car.  They had the illusion that I was
going to drive some kind of SUV!

Andrew and Kelly were great.  They
pulled me out of foster care when I was about to turn four years old, so they
were like my real parents; the only parents I knew, but when it came to safety,
they were a little over-protective.

So… school field trip!  Who would
have thought that would mess up my so-called normal life?

***

We weren’t at that silly museum but
for a couple of hours.  And then, my boyfriend Justin pulls me aside from the
class because he wanted to talk.  Like he couldn’t talk at any other time of
the day, right?

So I followed him into one of the
rooms along the hallway and just as soon as I got the hint that he was trying
to break-up with me, I turned things around on him.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you
too,” I said.

And then I jumped right into what I
wanted to say before he could break-up with me first.

“This isn’t working out, Justin.”

He seemed surprised at first and
then he just looked totally pissed-off.

“Well, glad you agree, because I
have been kinda dating your friend Ashley too.”

Okay, minus one on my awesome
friends list.  Lucky me, I could put on an act.  Not showing any reaction I
looked into his eyes and said, “Good.  You two are perfect together.”

Justin turned around and stormed
out of the door.  What did he expect me to do? Cry and beg him to stay?

Needing a moment to get myself
together, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  I was good at putting on an
act, but that didn’t mean that wasn’t hurtful.  Okay, I had only been dating
Justin for about a month, but Ashley had been my friend for a long time.

Point was… that tough act, was just
that, an act.  Yes, I was just 16, but I had already learned how to hurt people
before they could hurt me.  That was my own defense mechanism.  I would
break-up with boyfriends, (not that I had many until now, I mean, I was only
16) as soon as I thought they were about to break-up with me.  I would end a
friendship as soon as I saw a friend get closer to someone else.  It just made
things easier.

Ashley kinda caught me off-guard
though.  Ugh, I hated when that happened.  I was furious and I really hoped
that my two other friends, Jess and Emily didn’t know about it. 

Right away I knew I would have to
get to them before Ashley did.  Ashley could have Justin all to herself, but I
wasn’t going to sit and watch her take my two best friends too.

Unfortunately, me knowing that I
needed to find Emily and Jess as soon as possible, wasn’t enough to make me
rush out of there.  I ended up hanging out in that room for a while.  Not
because I found anything interesting in that room, on the contrary, it was all
a bunch of junk… but I used my time alone to check my text messages and totally
lost track of time.

I took another deep breath and just
when I was getting ready to walk out of that room and go try to find the rest
of the class, I heard a noise from the room next to the one I was in.  I was
afraid that whoever that was had heard Justin and me earlier, and would go on to
spread rumors around the school.  I instantly thought that rumors were the last
thing I needed, although that was inevitable.  Still, I couldn’t help myself
from going into that room to find out who that was and how much he or she had
heard.

I walked in there and at first I
didn’t see anyone.  I heard someone sobbing, but that was it.  I took a look
around and in the back of that room, behind this awful old looking desk there
was a girl hiding.

“Umm, hey.  Are you okay?”

The girl turned around and it was
clear that she was scared.  I assumed she was probably lost.  She looked
younger than me…. probably about twelve years old, and I felt sorry for the
girl, because whoever shopped for her clothes was in deep need of a visit to
the mall, or maybe some fashion magazines. 

The girl didn’t say anything.

“I’m Kayla.  What is your name?”

“Carolyn,” she said, still sobbing.

I was trying to rush; I really had
to catch up with the rest of my class…

“Are you lost, Carolyn?”  I asked.

She nodded.

I looked out in the hallway, and
saw a tour guide.

I turned back around to face her
and let her know someone who could help her was on the way, but the girl was
gone.

“Okay then…”

The tour guide approached me. 

“Do you need help?” he asked.

I told him about the girl and he
said he would take a look around.  There had been a couple of other schools
there that day.  Then he used his walkie-talkie to find out where my class was.

So, I had missed the entire field
trip.  Not that I really cared… 

Outside, everyone was already
getting into the school bus.  I saw Justin and Ashley, all over each other, but
what I was pleased to see were Jess and Emily as far away from them as they
could have possibly been, and they both looked disgusted.

I noticed that a couple of people
stopped what they were doing when they saw me walking out of the museum.  It
was one of those moments when you feel as if everyone is watching your every
move.   They were probably trying to catch my reaction in seeing Justin and
Ashley together, but I just lifted my head up, smiled, and walked toward Jess
and Emily.

They both waited until I got there
and then, Jess whispered, “What the…”

I quickly interrupted her.  “I
broke-up with him.  He must have seen it coming because apparently he had been
with Ashley for a few days.”

“But…we didn’t know you were
thinking about breaking up with him,” Emily said, sounding disappointed.

“Sorry.  I kinda wasn’t sure about
it at first.  I wanted to be sure it was definite before I told you.”

Emily sounded more cheerful now. 
“That makes sense.  Well, it looks like you made the right choice.  I just
can’t believe that skank would go after him like that though.”

“Eh… I guess they are kinda perfect
for each other in a skanky kinda of way,” I laughed.

Jess, Emily and I got in the bus to
go back to school and face a day that was about to get weirder and weirder.

TWO

On the ride back to school, I
talked my best friends’ ears off.  That was my way of showing them how much I
didn’t care about Justin and Ashley. 

Justin and Ashley sat a few seats
in front of us and every once in a while, especially when we laughed out loud,
Justin tried to discreetly look back. 

I guessed the way I turned things
around, breaking up with him before he could do that to me, really got to him
because he didn’t look too happy. 

Jess and Emily were already
spreading the news that I had been the one who broke-up with Justin, and it was
obvious that once he heard that everyone knew what had happened, well, what I
manipulated to happen, Justin would be even more furious.

We finally got to school and Jess,
Emily and I were walking toward the parking lot when we heard Ashley calling
out to us.

“Hey, guys.  Wait!  I need a ride.”

I turned to Jess and Emily, “She
must be kidding, right?”

They both looked back at Ashley and
gave her an evil look that I was glad I wasn’t on the receiving end.  Ashley
didn’t say anything.  She just turned around and went the other way.  Jess and
Emily said they were going shopping and asked me to go, but as much as I hated
to say no, I had to catch up on my chores before Kelly started taking away my
privileges.

Last month, I had actually hired a
cleaning service to get my chores done.  This month, those four hundred dollar
boots put me in a hole for the month… but it was well worth it.

I got home and did my chores, which
took way longer than I expected.  Then, I did my dreadful homework while I
watched some lame reality TV show.  It was one of those that was so pathetic
that you knew you were just never going to get that time back, yet, I couldn’t
turn away from the drama.

Kelly and Andrew had car-pooled
that day, so they got back from work at the same time.

Andrew said that he was taking
Kelly out to some charity event for his work and asked if I minded ordering
some take-out, which was fine by me.

After eating some pizza that I’d
have to workout triple hard at the gym to get rid of all those calories, I
grabbed Kelly’s laptop (I wasn’t allowed to have a computer in my room)… and
went to my room.

My room was actually pretty
awesome.  I had no complaints there.  It was huge and well furnished, other
than missing a damn computer.