Changed (Marked Duology Book 2) Read online

  “Hey.” I smiled. “What are you guys talking about? What’s so funny?”

  “Just something from Mark’s house on Saturday night,” Rachel said.

  “Was there a party or something I missed?” I asked, wondering why the two of them had been hanging out.

  “No, I just started dating Mark,” Gina said with a tiny, proud smile. “So, I happened to be there when Rachel and Kyle stopped by.”

  “Oh, cool,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, it’s been pretty awesome so far; it gives me someone to talk to whenever Kyle and I go over there to hang out now,” Rachel said.

  “Awesome.” I didn’t know what else to say. Jealousy reared its ugly head inside my mind; I felt like I was being replaced.

  The tardy bell rang and I slouched down into my seat as Rachel and Gina finished up their conversation before class started.

  English ticked by slowly and I found myself feeling more lost about what we were studying as the minutes dragged on. Apparently I had taken three full pages of notes on Friday regarding Shakespeare and his masterpiece Romeo and Juliet, but didn’t remember writing the first word. Where the hell had I been lately?

  After managing to make it through English, even though I felt like I was suffering from some severe case of amnesia, I gathered my things quickly and exited the room under Rachel’s radar. I hung my head low and headed straight for Mr. Walter’s chemistry class.

  A lifetime ago, when Sam and my breakup had been fresh, chemistry had been my most dreaded class of the day. Now, not so much. Things had mellowed out some. Sam and Darcy were still a couple, but it didn’t repulse me as much as it used to.

  “So, are you and Jace going to Samantha Moss’s party tomorrow night?” Sam asked, as he slipped into the desk behind me.

  “Tomorrow night? No, I don’t think we’ll be able to make it,” I said. Nope, there was absolutely no way we would be at Samantha Moss’s party tomorrow night, because tomorrow night I’d be changing into a wolf for my first time along with Jace.

  “Oh, too bad. I heard it’s going to be pretty wicked,” Sam said, and I couldn’t tell if he was gloating or genuinely bummed we couldn’t make it. Maybe after two months we were finally on track to becoming friends instead of enemies. “And here I was hoping to finally get my rematch with prince charming… guess I’ll just have to continue to wait.”

  I shifted in my seat to face him. “Seriously? Are you ever going to get over that?”

  Apparently us being friends was never going to happen, a realization that did not bum me out whatsoever.

  Sam sneered at me and stuck the tip of his eraser into his mouth. “Eventually, after I pound his face in.”

  “Yeah, like that will ever happen.” I rolled my eyes and turned back toward the front of the room.

  For the remainder of class, Sam tapped his foot against the metal bar underneath my desk to annoy me. He succeeded. When the bell rang, I dashed out of the classroom and toward the cafeteria, not stopping even when I heard Rachel calling my name.

  I grabbed a cranberry-grape juice and a pack of peanut butter crackers; I wasn’t feeling very hungry today. Instead, I actually felt sick to my stomach.

  “Hey, didn’t you hear me yelling for you?” Rachel asked as she cut in front of someone to stand behind me in line.

  I glanced around her to see if the person she’d cut in front of cared. It was some baby-faced freshman boy who came up to her boob. From the look on his face, she could have trampled him on her way to me and he wouldn’t have cared.

  “No, sorry,” I lied while paying the lunchroom cashier.

  “Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “So, what are you and Jace doing tonight?”

  I stepped aside and waited on her to pay for her bag of Doritos and bottle of water. “Nothing, I have to work. Don’t you?”

  Rachel shook her head and handed me her bottle of water so she could open her Doritos up. “No, I pulled a double yesterday. I’m off tonight.”

  I handed her back her water as we made our way out the double doors in the cafeteria and toward the cement picnic tables outside. It was a mild 58 degrees today, and I was so thankful it wasn’t raining because I didn’t know if I could handle being in that cafeteria for another second.

  “Oh,” I muttered.

  “I told you about this the other day,” she said, licking the cheese off her fingers. “Remember, the concert that’s coming up, the one with the crazy band Kyle and Mark want to see?”

  I nodded like I’d just remembered and knew exactly what she was talking about when in actuality I didn’t. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.”

  “Geez, you’re like seriously spacey lately. What’s your deal?”

  I took a sip of my juice and chuckled. “I don’t know.”

  The truth was I did know, but there was no way I could tell her because there was absolutely no way she’d understand what I was going through. Hell, there was no way she’d even believe me.

  And then it happened. The one thing I thought would never happen between Rachel and me. We lapsed into an awkward silence while she finished her Doritos and I finished my peanut butter crackers. Neither one of us could think of a single thing to say, because over the last few weeks we’d slowly began to drift apart.

  And now, here we were, sitting beside each other, struggling to think of something to say. Our friendship had been cracked, and I didn’t know how to piece it back together to make it whole again.

  Up to this point I’d never kept a secret from Rachel, and now that seemed like all I was doing. They just kept stacking up on top of each other, forming a leaning tower.

  I felt like it was a matter of time before that tower began to fall.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Work was horrible. Since Rachel wasn’t there I had to hustle alongside Janis—a tall, skinny woman in her mid-forties, who I swore was hyped up on something. There was absolutely no way possible a person could be as energetic as she was and not be. And, as if working with Janis wasn’t bad enough, there was a new girl, too: Allison Cable, a tiny sophomore at Breckwater High and now also the new cashier I had to train.

  “No, right here… this is the button for extra pickles,” I said for the third time tonight.

  “Right, sorry,” Allison insisted. “Okay, it’s $5.62.”

  Wade, a guy who worked across the street at the farmer’s market, smiled and handed Allison a ten dollar bill. I watched as Allison punched in the numbers and mistakenly added an extra zero, making the register deduct $5.62 from $100 instead of $10.

  Allison’s face flushed red as she scrambled to do the math in her head. “Sorry, math has always been my worst subject.”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart. Take your time,” Wade said, chewing on his toothpick.

  I stood there smiling while I figured it up in my head. Seconds ticked away while Wade and I both waited for Allison to figure it out. I didn’t want to seem rude, but I wondered if I should hand her a calculator or just simply get Wade’s change myself.

  “$4.38, here you go,” Allison finally said, and I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “Are you okay for right now? I need to go check on my tables,” I asked after Wade had pocketed his change and walked away.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Allison waved me off.

  Flashing a forced smile, I scooped up a pitcher of sweet tea and began making my refill rounds. Allison was a sweet girl, but I just was not in the mood to be training someone tonight.

  I was standing at the table closest to the door, massaging my temples in the hopes of fighting off an oncoming headache, when Jace walked in.

  “Hey.” He smiled once he saw me.

  “Hi,” I answered, amazed at how glad I was to see him. It was like seeing a tiny patch of a clear blue sky after four straight days of solid gray rain clouds.

  “It’s pretty dead in here tonight,” Jace said, glancing around.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m hoping to leave early; my head
’s been killing me.”

  Concern entered his stare. “Why don’t you clock out now? We can go back to my place, and I can make something for us to eat there.”

  “Sounds great.”

  I made my way back to the kitchen where Dewey was busy cooking and proceeded to give him my best “I’m not feeling too well” performance. It wasn’t hard to pull off since it was borderline the truth.

  I clocked out and five minutes later stood beside my car with Jace, smiling. It was only 6:42—I still had nearly three hours before I had to be home by my curfew of 10:00 p.m.

  * * *

  “How about a ham and Swiss?” Jace asked, while rummaging through his fridge.

  I nodded and continued massaging my temples.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I muttered.

  Jace set all of the ingredients he’d be using on the counter before turning to face me. “This is the worst of it; your body will accumulate to all of these changes quickly and by this time next month it won’t be nearly as horrible. Trust me.”

  “God, I hope so,” I said. His words had relieved me, but not entirely, due to the fact that I was still suffering at the moment.

  “So, do you think you’re ready for tomorrow night?” Jace asked, going back to making our sandwiches.

  “Do I even have the option of being ready?” I snapped unintentionally.

  “Ouch, that was harsh, but understandable.” Jace smirked.

  My face flushed as my gut twisted with guilt. We’d already been down this road before, and there was no point in rehashing everything again. “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m just a little freaked out about everything.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, making direct eye contact with me for a brief moment.

  His apology wasn’t what I’d been looking for, though. I’d been looking for a way to ease into all of the questions that had plagued my mind from the night before… not another I’m sorry.

  “I know,” I said, dropping my hands to my lap. “So, how does this whole Pack Leader thing work?” I asked suddenly, deciding it was now or never.

  Jace froze at my words, and I heard his breathing hitch. “What do you mean?”

  “What’s expected of you? Of us… I guess. You haven’t told me anything about it,” I said, tracing a small circle on the counter with my index finger.

  “Well, it’s sort of like becoming mayor. I’ll take over all the responsibilities from my father that deal with our pack,” he answered without looking at me.

  “How big is this pack?” These were questions that were all long overdue. Now that the initial shock of what I was becoming was beginning to wear off, I needed some details. And right now, I felt bold enough to get them.

  “There are about forty-seven of us, including the kids. We’re one of the smaller packs. Most of our kind live in places around Montana were the sighting of a wolf isn’t so rare,” he answered.

  “Are there any actual wolves or are there only werewolves and humans just don’t know enough to know the difference?”

  Jace turned to face me, a little smirk twisting up the corner of his mouth. “Looks like I won’t be getting any easy questions to answer tonight, huh?”

  “Nope.” I grinned.

  “Well, there are some legends. One is that regular wolves are simply werewolves who chose to not change back. They say if you don’t change back willingly before the sun comes up, then you’ll be stuck in your wolf form until the next full moon or longer. And then there are some who say there is no choice. That if you refuse to change back willingly before the sun comes up, then you’ll change back anyway, but that it will be the most painful experience of your life,” he said, intensity etched into each word.

  “Have you ever tried to do either?” I wondered. “Or even tried to fight the change completely?”

  Jace turned back toward the sandwiches to flip them. “You don’t want to fight the change, Tessa, trust me. But, I can understand why it’s so tempting.”

  “To do what, stay a wolf forever?” I asked, ignoring his first few words about not fighting the change.

  “Yeah, or even just to be one or the other, but no longer both,” he muttered with his back toward me still. There was sadness in his tone that made me uneasy, so I ventured to my next question in hopes of shifting his thoughts to something else, determining the way the conversation was headed was nowhere good.

  “So where do werewolves come from anyway? How did they come to be in existence?”

  Jace chuckled. “I feel like I’m being interrogated or something.”

  I waved my hand. “Oh, whatever. All I’m asking are rational questions.”

  He spun to face me and a wild gleam sparked to life in his eyes. “Okay, so you wanna know how our kind originated, huh? Think you can handle it?”

  “What do you mean, think you can handle it?” I asked in a mocking tone.

  “Just preparing you, because no matter how magical this story might sound… you know it’s all true.” He grinned as he studied my reaction.

  “Just tell me the damn story. I’m a big girl.” I smirked.

  “All right, all right.” He held up his hands and laughed, then turned off the stove and placed our sandwiches on plates. “Long ago, in the days when Gods and Goddesses were recognized and worshiped individually, people would perform rituals, have feasts, and hold large bonfire gatherings in their honor. The Gods and Goddesses watched over man closely and relished in all their praise, gifts, and undying good faith bestowed upon them.” Jace paused, moving to sit on the barstool beside me.

  I took a small bite of the sandwich he’d sat in front of me and noticed a distant gleam in his eyes.

  “One cold day, in the middle of winter, a young boy at the age of thirteen set out into the woods against his mother’s wishes to prove to her that he was a man and old enough to hunt for her and his three younger sisters the same way his recently deceased father used to.

  “The winter had been especially harsh, not only for the humans, but for all the animals, too. The boy was young and naïve in his journey and didn’t pay attention to his surroundings… before he knew what was happening he’d been surrounded by a small pack of hungry wolves in the middle of a dense forest.

  “The young boy did the only thing he knew to do; he backed slowly up to the nearest tree behind him and swiftly began to climb it. Only he was not quick enough. A wolf caught hold of his pant leg and began dragging him back to the ground. The boy tried to hold on for as long as he could to the rough bark of the tree, but a young boy’s strength is no match for a savage and hungry wolf. He fell to the ground, and the wolves began to devour him.

  “Thankfully the boy was not entirely alone in the snow-covered forest. There happened to be two hunters nearby who had heard the boy’s cries of pain. These hunters managed to scare away the wolves after some time, but it was clear to them that the boy was not well. The wolves had brought him to near death. The boy lay unmoving across the red-speckled snow, bloody and weak with not much life left in his young lungs. While one of the two men built a fire and remained by the dying boy’s side, the other ran to the village for help.

  “But, by the time the few members from the village—including the medicine man and the young boy’s mother—came, the sun had set and the full moon was hanging lowly in the night sky.

  “The young boy’s mother fell to her knees at his side and began to weep. The medicine man did his best to stop the bleeding, but the young boy’s wounds were too deep and his blood loss had been too severe. Cradling her son’s head in her lap, the mother turned her eyes to the full moon above.

  “Just before her son took in his final breath she began praying out loud to the Goddess of the Moon, begging her not to take her son’s life because she’d already lost so much and couldn’t bear to lose him, too.

  “It was on this night that the Goddess happened to be listening. She came to the woman and took pity on her, but along with her pity came a p
rice. The Goddess asked each person if they agreed that she should interfere with the young boy’s fate and each person present answered, ‘Yes.’ She then said she would give the young boy life, but on this night—the night of the Wolf Moon—during his eighteenth year, her price would be claimed.

  “The mother had no idea what the Goddess of the Moon meant. No one did. All she knew was that her son lay dying in her arms and if she did not agree to the Goddess’ terms, he would never take another breath again. On that night, she did what any mother would do in her position and agreed to the Goddess’ terms while the others surrounding her all vowed she should.

  “The boy lived a happy life and on the night of his eighteenth year during the large Wolf Moon, the Goddess claimed her price as she’d said she would and the entire town became transformed into wolves, just like they would during every other full moon until the end of their time. The Goddess’ price had been themselves. And us.”

  I couldn’t speak. I stared at Jace with unblinking eyes as the vivid story he’d just told continued to swim through my mind.

  “I always wondered if that one life had been worth saving, if that—if this—was the outcome,” Jace said softly, his amber eyes twinkling with emotion.

  I stared at him and realized how incredibly hard it must have been for him to change me, because for the first time I noticed how much Jace hated what he was. His entire saying of how the moon can rule a person’s entire existence meant so much more to me now.

  “That’s so sad. She gave him life, but in the end she took his and everyone else who supported his mother’s decision. Wow…” I trailed off, unable to put the rest of my thoughts into words.

  “Yeah, it was a bittersweet trade,” Jace whispered.

  Minutes ticked away before either of us spoke another word.

  “I’m scared, Jace,” I admitted for a second time, breaking the spellbinding silence that filled the room.

  “I know you are and I’m sorry.” He hung his head. “I’m so grateful you don’t hate me.”