The Most Wanted Luna novel Chapter 1

Kayla's POV

I woke up from a dream but I wasn’t quite sure if I should call it a dream. Aren’t dreams peaceful and calming? The one I just woke up from made me feel extremely afraid. I was sweating and shaking all over and it made me certain that I just had a nightmare.

However this wasn’t just any nightmare, every year I would get this dream at least once a year and even though I didn’t exactly remember what it was about, there would be a certain feeling that followed it and then I would hear a faint voice in my head – like a woman screaming.

Back when I was younger and I’d have this nightmare, I would cover up myself in the sheets shaking with fear but not knowing what I just dreamt. Tia, Aidan’s mother would come to my rescue, sitting with me until I fall asleep but she hasn’t been doing that anymore because I stopped screaming and learned to deal with it on my own.

Even though I couldn’t remember what I dreamt of, I always had a feeling that it was about my parents. My father died trying to protect me while he and his team of Rogue wolves got attacked. He did the last thing any wolf would think of doing to a child, he placed me in a bush full of wolfsbane thinking it will save me.

For the first time ever, a wolf didn’t die by wolfsbane and I was that wolf. However, my father died and his friend Kent took me in and raised me as his own, at that time I was barely four years old.

I looked out my window and took in a breath of fresh air before I sat up on my bed and though my heart was pounding with fear from the nightmare that I couldn’t remember, I suddenly felt at peace when I looked at a painting on my wall. I had gotten it the previous day while I was at the pack of Aidan’s maternal grandparents for a brief holiday.

It was a sequential painting of a woman with long, red hair and silver eyes dressed for battle with a confident smile as she faced a thousand men. I bought it yesterday since I loved the story the painting told. The woman who sold it said that the events of the painting will happen but she seemed a bit crazy so I didn’t believe her. Why would a woman fight a thousand men all by herself?

Taking one last look at the painting, I felt better. I was no longer afraid or upset. “Maybe it’s a therapeutic painting,” I thought to myself and then laughed it off as I got up and reluctantly got ready for school.

After getting ready and looking at myself in the mirror I sighed. I loved the confident look on the woman’s face but I could never look like that – not with a plain face like mine. I ran my brush through my brown, wavy hair one more time before I headed straight to the kitchen to get my lunch pack.

Tia, always packed lunch for me but she wasn’t just any woman, she was our pack’s Luna and Kent was our Alpha, Aidan was their son. I knew that she was aware that I was being bullied a lot at school and that there were days that I preferred eating in the staircase alone so she packed lunch for me so I didn't have to eat with those losers in the cafeteria – just in case.

" Good morning, Tia," I said when I got to the kitchen and she smiled, she liked it when I spoke with her informally, though I wasn’t allowed to do so in public.

" Good morning Kayla, did you sleep well last night?" she asked, turning around to hand me my lunch and then suddenly turning quiet when she saw me.

" What? did I forget to brush my hair properly again?" I asked as I touched my hair in panic. I knew I should’ve straightened it!

" Uh...what happened to you?" she asked instead and I stared at her, not knowing what to say.

" You look so beautiful!" she gushed and then I sighed, realizing why she did this.

" I’m guessing it’s my birthday already," I said, looking at my sneakers and wondering if I've experienced any growth at all since that was what Aidan said he noticed about me on my birthday. He told me that I usually experienced a growth spurt on my birthday and that I get taller and...prettier.

That was hard for me to believe since I still considered myself as plain as always, but it was so strange that day, Aidan looked like he was bewitched by me...like he wanted to kiss me. That was the first and last time I saw that look on his face, now he's just an annoying soon-to-be Alpha but it’s not as annoying as the fact that I've had a crush on him since I was twelve but because we're " almost like siblings" I had to hide it.

Watching Tia run her hands through her long, blond hair made me sigh at my own secret desire to be Aidan’s Luna but I did not have her kind of beauty. I wasn’t just lucky in that aspect.

When I saw how misty her eyes got as she smiled at me, I realized that she wanted to wish me a happy birthday but was upset that she couldn’t because she knew I wouldn’t want to hear it.

“ Umm…Aidan’s waiting for you in the car. You should go join him.” She said and I gulped. Ever since he turned seventeen we've been acting quite weird around each other, there's been some kind of tension between us.

Sometimes I felt like he could tell that I have feelings for him and it seemed like it was mutual but when I see him with other girls, I would get so jealous and upset and it only made me realize that him having feelings for me was just my imagination and a delusional thought!

For a while, we've barely talked to each other, especially since our fight after he started dating April Phurr, a girl who bullies me whenever she likes - and he did it out of the blue! No matter what I say, he never believed she would hurt me and it infuriated me. Because of that I really didn't want to have any reason to talk to him but it is unavoidable right now. The only problem is that whenever he even cared to speak to me I would just malfunction and embarrass myself.

Tia's piercing stare made me realize that I had zoned out, thinking about Aidan. I cleared my throat and faced her. " Sure, see you later,” I said, faking a bright smile before I opened the door and left the house.

Aidan was already standing in front of his black Ford-150, yeah…I’ve memorized the names of all of his cars since last year.

He was dressed in a dark blue long-sleeve t-shirt that hugged his muscular figure, black jeans, and very expensive Nikes that one of his female admirers got for him ahead of his birthday. His golden blond hair was slicked back, and not even a strand escaped. He always had this aura about him that made him so intimidating if he wasn't smiling, this time, however, he seemed to be fighting back a smile and I believe I hated that more than him frowning.

With a small sigh, I carefully walked down the stairs so that I wouldn’t trip but how could I avoid that when I was still staring at his perfect body while he leaned on his car and operated his phone? My eyes met his blue ones and I almost fell face-first to the ground - but it was subtle he probably didn’t notice.

I tried to control myself as I got closer to him but his blue eyes lingered on me longer than usual.

“ Just greet him and enter the car as you always do,” I said to myself as I got close to him but he stared at me and then bit his lip to hold back a smile, throwing me off guard. Gosh, I hate it when he does that!

" What's so funny now?" I asked angrily, throwing aside every hint of shyness I had about talking to him.

" Nothing, you got taller though," he said with a teasing smirk before he got in his car, looking at me with THAT look again - the one that made me think he likes me but I knew better, he must've just been gloating inwardly since I was the first to speak to him.

" That's n-not nothing!" I stuttered before I looked away because I was certain that my delusional thinking had caused me to blush.

" What isn't?" he asked, looking effortlessly irresistible as he sprawled on his seat and watched me with a smirk on his face.