The Choice

Selena

I opened the door of my room, and he looked so handsome in his dark jeans and sweater. It really brought out his eyes…

“Hi, Kieran…” I blush with just him smiling.

“Hi, Selena… you look beautiful.”

“Thanks…” I can hear the girls giggling behind me.

“Shall we leave for our night?” He gives me his arm and I link arms with him. I’ve never experienced this before and it made me blush. “Where are we going to go?”

“It’s a surprise.” He takes me to the woods, and at first, it’s just a pleasant hike. The leaves were almost fully changed, and it was so beautiful. I leaned my head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around my waist. I had the biggest desire to kiss him, but I didn’t yet. Soon he stops me and starts taking off his sweater!

“Kieran! What are you doing?” I turn around as he strips.

“We’re going to shift and have a run! Now that you can shift whenever you want and not have to follow your father’s rule, you don’t have to look over your shoulder anymore.” He pulls me close to him and his defined chest is just so yummy! He goes behind a tree to give me some privacy. I take off my sweater and pants. He comes back in his naked glory and man I just stared at him. He was so handsome! His defined pecs, his abs were a six-pack, his hips are defined too. I never stared at a man like this.

“Princess… I can see your eyes darkening… like what you see?” He gave me a smirk as I checked him out. I didn’t realize that my wolf was reacting to him too.

“Sorry… still getting used to shifting and actually having my wolf react to you.” I blush so hard that I didn’t know I could blush this hard. He laughs at me.

“It’s ok, princess. I enjoy seeing you go googly eye for me.” Soon he transforms into his brownish-black wolf and I shift to Carolina. It wasn’t as painful this time just like he had said last time.

“Bet you can’t chase me!” He teased me through my mind-link. Which I hadn’t used much since I didn’t have much need for it until I came here, so it’s nice to use it!

“Duncan!” I chase after him zipping through the trees! The cool wind in my fur feels so good and honestly, it’s relaxing. I smell the trees, the grass beneath my paws, a stream that’s nearby. I try to find Duncan, but I seem to have lost him. I walk some just taking in my surroundings when I hear a twig break. I crouch down to the ground and stay quiet waiting for whatever it is to come out. At first, I thought it was just some other animal in the forest but as soon as I smelled the woodsy rum and vanilla I knew it was Duncan. Soon as I spotted him I pounced on him!

“Gotcha Duncan! Pinned ya!”

“Ok, ok let me up!” I let him up for a moment and pounced on him again. We tumbled and rolled around on the ground before I pinned him again.

“Ha! Pinned you again!”

“What is this, Lion King!? Let me up!” Dang it, he was onto me.

“What can I say? I always wanted a pouncing lesson,” I laugh a little as I get off of him.

“I think you got that part covered.” He gets up, and he pounces on me!

“Now we’re even!” I bonked my head a little on the landing, but the grass was still soft so it didn’t hurt too badly. “Come on, our date location is just ahead.” He leads me near the stream where there are still some leftover summer wildflowers still hanging on. He and I take a drink from the stream and shift back to ourselves. I grab my clothes from the tree I left them and try to put them back on but it’s hard to keep my balance between trees.

“What’s this?!” I see there’s a picnic dinner set up. Blanket, a thermos of something warm sticking out from the basket, and an ice bucket that’s holding a bottle of wine.

“Tada thought I’d show you my favorite spot in the woods.” He seems so proud of himself for setting this up and I’m honestly impressed.

“Whoa… this is beautiful! How did you have time to set this up!?” Between messing around with me in the woods and here there wasn’t much time for him to set this up.

“I had Raven and Mia help me set up while we were running around.” Of course, I should’ve known.

“No wonder they were practically shoving me out the door.” I laugh as I remember why they were so pushy by the time he showed up.

“Well, shall we eat?” He smirks as he brings out two thermoses of something delicious, some hearty meat sandwiches,

“What’s in the thermos?” One smelled so hearty and meaty while the other smelled like it was a vegetable.

“One is chili, and the other is a pumpkin soup. Mom went a little crazy on the food.”

“No, it all smells delicious! I can’t wait to dig into this!” He digs out the plastic plates, bowls, to-go cups for the hot drinks, and plastic wine glasses for the wine.

“To us…” As he gives me the soup first we fake clink our bowls together. The food was amazing! I never realized how much of an amazing cook his mom was! I can definitely learn lots of things from her!

“This is all amazing food! Your mom is a talented cook!” I keep on eating the chili and nibble on some of the pumpkin soup. I’ll have to remind myself to get the recipes later.

“But wait there’s dessert…” My eyes went wide when he said dessert!

“There’s more delicious food!? What else can there be!?”

“Pumpkin rolls or apple pie bars.” He brought out the containers from the basket and my mouth started to water.

“Oooh gimmie gimmie the pumpkin rolls! It’s one of the few things my mom would allow me to buy from the market when I lived in Oakcrown and they were delicious!” I took a bite of the roll and it brought back the few wonderful memories of home I had. Soon my phone rang, and I put my roll down, but I had a guess who it was. “Gwen?” I put the phone on speaker so Kieran can hear.

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m going to try to leave soon.” I could hear her trembling. Maybe she’s second-guessing herself.

“My mate and I are already in the woods, we were expecting your call soon. We can meet you halfway with some of our warriors.” I’m trying to calm her since she sounded nervous and scared. “Are you sure you want to do this? Once you leave there’s no turning back unless you get caught by the guards, and if you do you’re going to have more security. I had that problem when I lived there.” The guards would not leave me alone and it drove me nuts!

“Yeah, I’m sure… I want to be free like you.” Oh, Gwen…

“Alright, we’ll be there in about two hours, you’re not far from me. Hang in there, Gwen. Help is coming!” I can hear her breathe a sigh of relief. “You’re going to be ok, Gwennie…”

“I love you, Lena…” I could hear her tears… It breaks my heart to hear her so scared.

“You’re going to be ok, there’s no need to be scared. Changing of the guards should happen soon, so you need to have your stuff packed already and be ready to run as quickly as you can! The part of the woods near my room has the least amount of guards, or it did when I lived there. Probably won’t have any now that I’m not living there. Don’t have a reason to guard there anymore...”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen many guards there today which is why I’m going to leave from there.”

“Ok from my side of the castle you go Northwest and towards the sound of the howling wolves that’ll be us. We’ll bring 10 warriors along with my mate, Kieran, and myself.” I started putting away our picnic and putting the leftovers away for next time cause there was no way I was going to waste this!

“Good thing my phone has a compass…” I can hear her getting nervous again.

“We’re going to head your way and you can stay in my room. I’m going to be moving in with my mate soon so I won’t be needing it.” Kieran looks at me wide-eyed at that surprise, while I blush. I figured it was time for us to get to know each other that way, anyway. I’ve tormented him long enough. Most mates do everything fast so I’m told, but I wanted to take it slow. “Got everything you want to bring?”

“Yeah, I got a bag with me, and the couple of things you wanted too.” I’m impressed she remembered that.

“No one saw you go into my old room?” I was surprised that she did that for me.

“No, they don’t really touch your room anymore. Not that they did anyway when you lived here.” They were only concerned about me when I left the grounds, but not really when I lived there.

“Thanks, Gwen… ok Kieran is mind-linking our warriors so we’re going to see you soon, ok?” I’m trying to comfort her the best I can hoping this calms her down.

“Ok, see you soon… love you, Lena…”

“Love you too, Gwennie…” We hang up and meet up with Mia, his mom, the warriors, and his brothers.

“Thank you all for coming on short notice. We have a young woman trying to escape her home and needs our help. It’s only two hours NW away from here and we’re meeting her halfway. Mia, you’re on medical duty, brothers and warriors, try not to scare her, and mom thanks for the picnic. It was delicious.” He hands over the basket to her and she just smiles at us. “Let’s move out!” The warriors and his brothers already shifted. Soon he does too and doesn’t care that he ripped his nice date clothes… so much for those, I liked them… I stayed my normal self since I didn’t want to scare her. The guys go on foot while I ride on Kieran’s back to go on ahead.

Gwen

Time was going quicker than I thought and soon it was time to go. I quickly grab a map of the kingdom from dad’s office and while there are so many maps in this holder, I luckily find the right one and nobody catches me to my relief. I jotted mom a note saying that I will not come back and that I’m going to live with Selena. I don’t want the same life she had and I want my own love. I know they’re going to be super mad at me but there’s nothing they can do. I leave it on the desk for them to find in the morning and just find a way out.

The guards didn’t really pay attention to me when I peeked outside the door, so when I went to the hidden door in the office behind the desk, hidden by a curtain, they didn’t notice. Also, they were just talking to their fellow guard buddies rather than noticing their patrol. Soon I find myself in the garden near Selena’s old room which is where this passageway leads me and find a small door in the fence to make it to the small town just outside the castle. Probably for the servants to go to market without going out the main entrance which is farther away. Before leaving the yard there’s our royal barn, and I can see my horse is still out grazing. She’s a black Andalusian, named Midnight. I carefully take her out of the pen she’s in and escape.

There’s lots of shops so anyone could probably recognize me, but nobody did. Some walking, some also on horses. The gravel from the road was crunching under Midnight’s hooves and I was worried I’d cause too much attention. With my hooded cloak, dark blue sweater, dark jeans, and flats I just blended in with the late-night crowd. Soon I make it past town and I wonder if mom and dad noticed I’m gone. I hear some chatter and get worried they did, but it just seemed like some local gossip. I don’t pay attention to it, and just keep on going. Soon I finally made it to the woods, and I just made Midnight gallop in the direction Selena told me to… I ran as fast as I almost started crying as I could taste my freedom. I could hear the wolves and I knew I was going to make it. The guards are dumber than I thought.

“Selena! Selena!” I shout for her but I hear nothing. I keep on galloping in the same direction and the wolves keep on getting louder. “Lena! Lena!” I shout again and this time I hear her.

“Gwennie! Gwen?! Where are you!” I sighed in relief when I heard her voice. I get off Midnight’s back and run to her!

“Lena! I’m so glad to see you. I cry happy tears as we hug each other.

“Come on, let’s get you to your new home…” I grab Midnight’s reins and she climbs on the back of some wolf and leads me to my new life.