Chapter 3

Olivia

“Well, that didn’t work.” Ginny, my winch mentor commented wryly. “I can’t help but worry about how much time you’re wasting on this research. It’s a dead end.”

I stood for a few seconds, checking to see if I felt any different than I did several minutes ago before I drank my newly concocted potion. Nothing. A fresh wave of disappointment hit me. Unlike Ginny, I refused to believe it was a waste of time.

As a scientist, I believed in proven facts. If I had been any other person, I wouldn’t have believed in werewolves and the likes but I was exactly that; a werewolf. It was kind of hard not to believe something when you were literally living its reality. Since there was no logical scientific explanation for lycanthropy, there had to be one in witchcraft.

“Does your mother know what you get up to in your free time?” Ginny asked, flipping through the pages of her spell book. I watched as she waved her hand back and forth, murmuring a spell. A small burst of flame suddenly appeared on her palm and died off just as quickly. Ginny cursed, sighing.

“No, she doesn’t and she’s not going to.” I said, plopping down on the only chair in Ginny’s small lair. “It’s bad enough that she has to deal with me every full moon. For some reason, she seems to think being a werewolf isn’t a bad thing even though she’s human. I don’t think she’ll be glad to know I’ve been searching for a cure.”

Ginny chuckled. “You need to get a man.”

I rolled my eyes though a small smile played at my lips. “Werewolves don’t get ‘men’. They get mates.”

“I didn’t mean get a boyfriend.” A side of her lips curved upwards mischievously. “I meant get someone to play with.”

“Ginny,” I groaned, laughing. Just five years older than me, Ginny was young. She never failed to rub it in my face that I was single and she wasn’t. I loved her to death but she didn’t seem to understand that I wasn’t interested in sex. All I wanted to was find a cure and make myself human. “I don’t want to hear anything about your sex life today. I’m serious.”

“Well, I’m not kidding either. It’s been three years since you embarked on this cure nonsense journey and you’ve barely made any breakthrough. I understand that you can’t find just any pony for your saddle because of your wolf but surely that doesn’t extend to foreplay, does it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried to find out.”

“Maybe you should. It would certainly take all that tension off your shoulders and that stick out your ass. I’ll help you how ever I can but sweetheart, sometimes you need to take a breather. You do like men, right?”

I avoided her eyes because I didn’t know how to answer that. What was I supposed to say? I mean, it was plausible. Unlike my wolf, I had no interest in men.

“Liv?”

“Hmm?”

“Look at me.”

If Ginny was anything, it was persistent. I had to answer her or she’d go crazy. “What?”

“I just realized that in the three years I’ve known you, you’ve never spoken of any man. Not once. Do you swing for the other team and I didn’t know?”

I almost laughed at the expression on her face. “Ginny—”

“Oh, my God. Does your mother know you’re gay?” She was visibly shocked. “Not that it’s a bad thing, I mean.”

“I’m not gay, Ginny. I have a man and his name is science.”

She rolled her eyes at me, trying the fire thing in her psalm again. This time the fire ignited and stay for a few seconds before dying off. “I’m just saying. You’re twenty-three and have no sexual experience. It shouldn’t be weird but it kind of is.”

I didn’t answer. It shouldn’t have bothered me. I mean, I’d never cared much about sex before. Sure, my wolf had urges and she made them obvious sometimes when we saw a fine man somewhere, but personally I’d never thought much of men. Which now that I thought about it probably explained why I hadn’t found my mate yet.

Penny wasn’t a wolf and I never had my real parents to tell me what mating actually entailed. All I knew about the act, I read from books on the supernatural that Ginny kept in her collection. The books had said some wolves tended to find their mates with just a look while in some situations, other wolves mated during intimacy. It all sounded like such a drag, if I were being honest.

But it did bother me. And it bothered me a lot right now. Did it really make me weird that I had no sexual experience?

“I don’t have a normal life so I guess weird is one more feature on that pile. Besides, even if I wanted to, I can’t just sleep with anyone. You know that.”

“Oh, my God.” Ginny groaned, shutting her spell book closed. “Is that why you’ve been fervently looking for a cure? So you can finally have sex without worrying about mating with the wrong person?”

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as mating with the wrong person. Our wolves just see someone and knows.” I said. “But no, that’s not why.”

“Then what?”

“I’m tired. I’m impure and so no pack wants me. I literally break every bone in my body on the nights of the full moon before I change. It’s a curse and I don’t want it.”

Ginny seemed like she was lost in thought. All this while, I never really told her why I wanted the cure. She just knew I wanted it badly. Looking at the solemn expression on her face, I started to wish I hadn’t told her. The last thing I wanted was for her to pity me.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie.” She cooed and I rolled my eyes. “But I’m not going to lie to you. In all my years of being a witch, I’ve never heard or read of a werewolf cure. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

Although I expected the words, their impact still did one on me. I knew that the chances of finding a lycanthropic cure was almost next to none but I’d come too far to just give up. All my life, I’d been branded impure and unworthy and it had followed me for more than two decades of my life. All because two people had decided to come together to have sex and damned the consequences even though they knew they shouldn’t have.

It wasn’t my fault and I shouldn’t have to live with it.

Ginny was probably the closest thing I had to a best friend and as much as I valued her opinion, even more so because she was a witch and a very good one at that, I just couldn’t give in on this one.

“I appreciate that, but I’m going to keep trying.”

I didn’t care how long it took. The universe had condemned me to a lifetime of loneliness and despair and if there was a way to change that, I wasn’t about to relent.