Author's Note
This took so long because I started this chapter all wrong and forced myself to write it, and then-- surprise, I hated it. So, I completely re-wrote it.
Sorry, I've been super absent, and that's because I'm a freshman in college and wow it's hard.
Enjoy, please. Leave some love, because that always helps me.
14 years ago
The toddler watches as her sobbing mother plucks her up out of the field, as if she is just another wild daisy waiting to be picked.
The young woman's trembling hands rest behind her back and clasp to her shoulder, hooking the girl securely to her mother's hips.
"C—Come on, D-Dove, baby," she whispers into her dark hair, which smells like dirt from an hour spent in the pasture beside her grandmother.
"But momma," Dove's hands split apart, moving to touch her mother, head tucking beneath her chin, safe in her arms. "You're crying," again is left unsaid. Because her mother is always crying, and her father is always screaming, and Dove is tucked away somewhere, her grandmother distracting her with picking flowers and planting seeds.
"Oh, my Little Bird," her voice, Dove's favorite sound, sing-songs to her, even between the tears forcing themselves down her mother's face. "I'm just, I'm fine," she stops between their fast pace to scoop Dove up higher on her waist. For a moment, nothing but silence, and then the delicate jingle of her mother's keys destroy the quiet.
"We're leaving daddy again?" She whispers, mournfully. Sometimes, momma really loves him, and other times, she really hates daddy.
She doesn't have the chance to reply, as her mother is interrupted by grandma, who runs to them in a pair of worn overalls and an old baseball cap. Usually, her dark grey eyes blink with kindness and warmth, like Dove's father's. Right now, though, they're clouded in distraught.
"Tori," grandma's voice shakes, pleading before she even gets any words out.
"No," her mom bites back with gritted teeth. "I'm not—I can't... I can't do it anymore. That man—that man is a wolf—that man, he almost—" She steps away from grandma, as if she were daddy, too. As if sometimes, she jumped at her shadow like she jumps at her husband's.
"But, he didn't—" Grandma's voice is half-alive, like she's given up. Dove doesn't understand, doesn't know if she has the capacity.
"He thought about it, some part of him..." Tori sends a wary glance around the three of them, waiting for something to jump out of the woods. Something like daddy. "Maybe—maybe it wasn't exactly him, but some—some part of Murdock, hidden deep inside him—wanted to, to hurt me, just now... and, no. No, I'm not—"
"He's learning," Grandma attempts, stepping forward as her mother matches the step, moving backward. "He's learning how to control this, how to con—"
"The only thing he's trying to learn how to control is me," Tori heaves, collarbone pressing hard against her skin from the heaviness of her breath. In her white sundress and loose blonde curls, the three of them could look like the cover of a life and garden magazine for cross generation families. Until Dove glances down at her mother's leg, where a thin line of blood pools onto the straps of her braided sandals.
"He's a wolf," Tori whispers into Dove's forehead, breathing in the calming scent of her daughter. "I won't forget that; I won't let you forget that," she promises to Dove beneath her breath.
YOU ARE READING
Little Bird
Werewolf"I'm never going to play fair when it comes to you, little bird," he pressed his lips onto her crinkled forehead. "Hide, pretty girl. I'll find you." * Alpha Murdock Boudreaux only possesses one weakness: the young human Dove, his seventeen-year...
