Wolf & Witch III: Oracle's Path

Ch. 6

When Anna emerged from the guest room, it was dark in the hall. Passing the door to Kaiden's room, she rolled her eyes and stifled a laugh at the rhythmic thumping. She'd initially thought it was music when she'd first heard it. It definitely wasn't.

"Trevor?" she whispered once she'd made it into the living room. She thought he'd said he would be on the couch, but she didn't see anyone there.

An orange and striped ball of fluff stirred from atop a folded blanket on the back of the couch. With a dramatic yawn, Trevor stretched out his body from cat to human as he slid into a seated position on the far end of the couch. "Sorry, I must have nodded off," he said with another yawn.

"Hooo," Anna breathlessly rasped. "I didn't even see you there." She sat down on the couch next to him, taking the blanket he'd pre-warmed, and wrapping up it in. They were lucky she hadn't screamed. That would've been awkward for the couple in the other room. "I wanted to ask you something," she said, keeping her voice low. "Have you ever gotten a weird feeling around here?"

"Uh," Trevor trailed off as his brain absorbed the question and began to sift through his memories. Trevor was the king of weird feelings and goosebumps. He even had his own catchphrase for it to alert Sean of his keen detection. "Chills, bro," and the more concerning, "Mad chills bro!" when the situation called for it.

"Yeah, yeah I have. I mean you kind of get that being a cat in the middle of a pack of wolves, though."

"How do you feel about living here?"

"In some ways it's easier than trying to figure out where I fit in with the coven and my family."

"But you figure we would fit in here? We're not wolves."

Trevor shrugged. "I don't know. I kind of like not fitting in and that being okay, ya know? Like the pack could just say 'no humans' or anything not a wolf, but instead they have all these special rules for non-wolves, so that things still work."

"Speaking of..." Anna pulled her legs up onto the couch as well, under the warmth of the blanket. "I know Sean respects his alpha, but what do you think of him?"

Trevor couldn't remember the last time he'd ever seen Anna like this. It was almost as if she were trying to make herself look as small as possible, curled in the blanket in the corner of the couch. This wasn't the Anna that Trevor knew. The Anna he knew was bold, independent, with an aura that filled the room with positive and infectious energy.

"He's alright. I don't think he's nearly as bad as Mrs. Brooks makes him out to be," Trevor explained, thinking that maybe he should try and hold her but realizing he didn't have the courage even to lift his arm. Dammit, if only he were a cat, he could easily just curl into her lap without it being a problem. But in a way, that was the problem. Trevor didn't want to be Anna's pet.

"Makes sense," Anna said, "but anyway, I was doing a little pre-bedtime reading just before I came out here and... I dunno. I stopped. Something felt....off."

"Like what kind of off?"

A frown tugged at Anna's full lips. "I dunno, like the unsettling kind of off. I've never been uncomfortable being alone. Especially not when doing my thing, you know? But this was just..." Anna's shoulders shrugged involuntarily, as though she had just experienced an intense chill run through her. "Maybe it's just homesickness or something. Being somewhere unfamiliar."

"Yeah," Trevor replied in a tone that trailed off into thought once more before he seemed to catch himself. "Yeah, I think Sean mentioned something like that too." The frown that followed didn't last long as he realized that his reply probably wasn't what Anna was hoping to hear. "But it's gotta be this place, right? I mean, you don't think it's tied to the wolves?"