I knew I shouldn't have agreed on going to lake house with Ann and Cora but they both literally dragged me out of my apartment and I couldn't do anything about it. My final semester was at the corner and I had pack duties to take care off, yet, I came along with them, willingly.
Core slapped the water as I maintained to stay stern over the rocks inside the lake. There were only a few times I went swimming and I ended up walking out so I didn't know it well.
"Stop throwing water at me!" I yelled at Cora and she rolled her eyes before smacking the water again.
My hair and face got wet. I grunted and walked towards the shore to leave and get back inside the lake house. It was a stress living with Cora and Ann at the same house.
"Come on, Lilliana, I'm sorry!" Cora shouted, running behind me. "I was just playing,"
"You know I don't like it when water gets in my eyes,"
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
I grabbed the towel resting outside the lake house and wrapped it around my body before going inside. Cora followed me, we chit-chatted on our way in and stopped when we found Ann—cooking.
"Oh, God! It smells horrible," Cora exclaimed, her face scrunching with disgust. She wasn't wrong—it smelled horrible, worse than that.
"What did you even make?" I asked Ann. Peeking inside the kitchen, I found a bunch of burnt cookies. "You were supposed to only keep them for ten minutes," I told her.
Ann bit into one of the cookies and tasted it, "Really? They taste good,"
"Ew! We are ordering in," Cora whipped her hair around before disappearing into the washroom.
While I waited, I grabbed my phone and checked the missed calls I had received from my ex-boyfriend, Evan, he hadn't stopped calling me and it was getting irritating now.
"Evan again?" Ann asked, trashing all the cookies. For a moment, I wished I could've trashed Evan just like the cookies.
"Yeah, I'm going to block his number." I said, clicking on the block button. I was here, at the lake house, for a vacation, not to speak to my ex who wasn't over with me yet.
Ann walked over to me and glanced at my phone, "I don't understand men," she sipped on wine to get rid of the taste of burnt cookies, "Like, didn't he mate with his mate? Why does he still want you?"
It wasn't long ago when Evan found his mate, Jennie and he didn't waste a second before mating with her while he was in a relationship with me. It pissed me and my wolf off to the edge and I broke up with him the exact minute I found a mark over Jennie's neck.
How could he even do that?
"I know, I told him a thousand times—I forgave him and he should just be with his mate," I sighed and threw my phone over the couch as Cora walked out of the washroom. She was dressed now and I was the only one in the swim suit.
"Yes. I hate men like him. Like, chose one, dude!" Ann exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
The break-up was horrible. I couldn't stop crying for days and after that, my wolf went into heat for no reason—maybe because I wasn't getting any sex. I tried to get my mind off Evan but nothing worked out until the very end, when my exams came near and my Alpha decided to give me a warrior rank in the pack.
"Well, I'm not going to lose my mind over Evan. I'm sure he's bedding Jennie and calling me at the same time," Letting out a low growl, I walked inside the washroom and cleared my mind off Evan.
He could fuck whoever he wanted to.
I was done.
After shaking away the lake water and showering, I changed and joined Ann and Cora for dinner that was ordered as neither of us knew how to cook.
"So, how many more days?" Cora asked, leaning on the chair. "I'm obsessed with this place."
It was Ann's Dad lake house that we apparently stole for a week. Three days had already passed by and I was aching to go back home.
"Four more days, sweetie, enjoy all you can!" Ann stood up and pulled a wine bottle out of the cabinet. She came back to the table and poured it for all of us. "And, don't forget to put out the fire before sleeping. The house was going to get burned last night if I hadn't woken up,"
"My fault—I admit!" I said, raising my hands in defense. "I'll keep an eye out for the fire this time," I was too sad last night and couldn't stop thinking how great Evan and I were before everything happened.
We had the best sex ever.
And, I couldn't find that in another man. I refused to admit anyone could eat me out better than Evan—his mouth and my pussy had their own secret romance.
"Yes, please!" Ann said.
I stopped eating and scratched the back off my neck. "I had been wanting to ask something..."
"Go on,"
"My wolf—you know she's heat and she wants to get out, do you think it's safe around here?" I asked her. Ann and Cora chuckled. "Come on, I just want to take a run."
Ann pressed my shoulder and nodded her head, "There are no hunters here and no other packs, it's safe but beware of the trails that lead towards the house of the beast."
"What the fuck?" I didn't know whether she was joking or not.
"You don't know?" Ann questioned me and I shook my head. She glanced at Cora who was surprised just as me, "Do you know?"
"About?" Cora asked.
"The beast?"
"No," she shrugged, confused.
"Oh, God, you both don't know anything about the beast?" Ann asked us again and we both shook our heads for the second time. "This calls for a story time!"
"Is it a folklore?" I asked, wanting to know more. We had a lot of folklores and stories about creatures but we had never heard about a beast around here.
"No, it's a real story. I will tell you after dinner,"
After dinner, we gathered around, switched our phone's off and sat across the fireplace. It was hot in the morning but in the nights, it got deadly cold.
My fingers were cold as I wrapped them around the hot coffee mug and waited for Ann to spill the beans about the beast—something I had never heard before.
We all came from the same pack, our Alpha was Mr. Robert and we all served him.
"Well, what's the story, Ann?" Cora asked, munching on the batch of cookies she had made a few minutes early. They weren't burned like Ann's.
"Are you all ready to be spooked?" Ann asked, sitting across me.
"Yeah," I scoffed, nothing was going to spook me. What was more terrifying than being a werewolf? "Come on, I'm curious."
"When I used to visit the lake house with my parents, my Granny used to tell me about the scarred beast. It's a little explicit so be warned," Ann started, her tone switched to rough and husky as she spoke.
"Is it related to sex and mating? Because then, I'm damn interested," Cora said, laughing.
"Yes," Ann replied, surprising both of us. "A few decades ago, there was this man—he was an Alpha of a pack and the most handsome wolf anyone had ever seen."
This wasn't going to be scary at all.
"I don't know the exact details but my Granny told me that he lived around here, in the forest. He owned acres and acres of land, he ruled thousand wolves at once and had tons of women by his side."
Cora cut Ann off by saying, "And, let me guess, he was killed?"
"Cora!" I snapped at her. I was too into the story to be disturbed by Cora's unnecessary questions.
"No, he wasn't killed. It was a known fact that women loved sleeping with him, they died for his touch and the scarred beast, he knew how to please a woman perfectly. He had everything wrapped around his finger, from his territory, to his pack and his female wolves." Ann explained, in a ragged voice.
"I think I know that story!" Cora said, disturbing us again. I glanced at her and found her lost in her thoughts. "Wait—I know that! The man turned into a beast then and he was cursed,"
"No, Cora." Ann rolled her eyes at her and continued, "He was turned into a beast but he wasn't cursed. A war broke down between his pack and another rival pack, causing destruction. There were more than hundred fatalities and the beast, well, he was scarred and turned into a beast."
I yawned by the time Ann finished with the story.
"I don't believe it!" I shared my thoughts with them, "It sounds like a folklore,"
"It isn't, Liliana." Ann said, "It's a true story,"
"Then, where is the beast now?"
"The beast is still alive and he lives around here, in this forest itself. He's all alone and no one has seen him for over fifteen years." She explained with fear in her eyes.
"Why haven't we heard about him?" Cora asked.
"Because no one knows about him. He hides in the shadow, keeps everything discreet but throughout the years, I learned that anyone that crossed his land was killed."
I sipped on the warm coffee as silence spread across the fireplace. It couldn't be true. I never heard anything about it. The warmth began fading away and so did my thoughts about the beast. We changed the topic and spoke about our last semester.
