The Bridge (Golden Lycans Sequel)

I am dreaming. I don't dream often, but I've had this particular dream quite often lately. Crystal blue water...everywhere. I don't need a Seer to tell me the meaning of this dream. It clearly represents my love of the sea, of sunny days out on our boat. The freedom I know is rapidly disappearing as school looms closer. I'll enjoy it while it lasts, this feeling; a feeling of peace, of warmth, feeling safe and whole... ...except that feeling quickly disappears with the abrupt sound of my alarm going off. Every time. Sadly I am not on our boat, but actually in my bedroom within our family home. Reality sucks. I fumble around on my bedside table for my phone, pressing the button on the side of it in order to snooze the damn thing. I sigh loudly and remain there for another ten minutes, enjoying the comfort of my bed while I still can. Unfortunately though, this is it. It is the day I return to school for my final year of sixth form. My days of still being classed as a kid are rapidly counting down. I roll onto my back and open my eyes to stare up at the spotlighted ceiling of my bedroom. The walls have a geometric pattern in white, pale sage green and a pale pink. There are hints of gold here and there in the patterns and in the general clutter of my room. Gold is one of our colours, here at the Golden Lycans pack house. You might be wondering who I am. My name is Serena Landry and I am in fact a bit of a rarity, being that I am an identical twin as well as being an Alpha Lycan. Right now you may be wondering; Serena, what is a Lycan? Have you ever seen a TV show called Teen Wolf? Neither have I. I don't watch much TV at all but it apparently exists, but it is actually my reality. You may think of us as werewolves, as people cursed for life to turn into bloodthirsty wolves who bite people and then pass on that curse...but that is a fairytale. Lycans are a supernatural species who live relatively normal lives like the human population does and we definitely aren't cursed. We love who and what we are. A few years ago at the age of thirteen, I experienced my first shift into my wolf form, and perhaps that was a bit of a curse. It was a horrendously painful experience that you could never be truly prepared for. Since that first shift into my wolf form, my wolf spirit Hera walked along with me in life, a companion in the back of my mind when I was in human form and an increasing force to be reckoned with whenever we shifted into our wolf form. Hera was a spirit of alpha rank like me and she really enjoyed being an alpha. Alpha is the highest rank there is, and every Landry has always been an alpha. We are strong, we are fast, we lead well and there are definitely plenty of people out there who would love to be me. The prestige, the name...but being the youngest in the family also means that nothing is really expected of me in a grand way...yet. My older brother Austin currently leads our pack and he is of the mindset that we need to enjoy our youth and our time at school, making education our priority rather than becoming great fighters first. His childhood wasn't like that, and he was raised from early on to be the leader he is now. I am thankful I get to lead a pretty awesome life. We didn't really need much in terms of fighters these days, because no one would dare challenge our pack with Austin at the helm. My sister Serafina already left yesterday for her school, Howardian Park, which is somewhere in the slightly chilly region of York up in the north of England. I however go more locally to Exton College, the school our family founded and have run for a few hundred years. Why don't we attend the same school, you may ask? Depending on who you ask, it could be as simple as the fact Serafina wanted to go to Howardian Park, which she did. We both needed some time to be us rather than a set of twins. The secondary reason was that as identical twins it could make finding our destined mates...problematic. Every Lycan had a destined mate, a soulmate, if you will. One single other soul out there in the universe that was made for us, just like we were made for them. Serafina and I had our own souls, but apparently there was the potential for us to still be rather attracted physically to each other's mate if we were both around them. Going to different schools, particularly last year and this year, was the best way to counteract that. Where we differed was that Serafina felt she was destined to be a pack Luna and as such, had been living her life in that direction for quite some time. Not me. I wouldn't mind being the Luna of one heir in particular these days, but otherwise, I wasn't fussed. I preferred doing things on my own; but I still had the packs interests at heart. Anyway....Hera has definitely had a dramatic effect on my personality over the past four years, and certainly in the last year alone. As an Alpha she is feisty, has very little inhibition and kicks ass like you wouldn't believe. Together we make a pretty interesting person. I have a huge range of skills and hobbies, far more than anyone else I know. We try anything and everything, because to be multifaceted, in our mind, is to be the best pack member we could possibly be. I have never backed down from anything and I generally never say no. Our pack is just...different. We are seen as a bit blue-blooded in the Lycan community as our pack was founded by one of the first Lycans in this country. We were distinguished and well respected. We are called the Golden Lycans because our pack founder was a golden coloured Lycan, which was unusual because we usually come in shades of blacks, greys and browns. Up until six to seven years ago, it was a fun fairytale to explain our name...until my older brother Austin met his destined mate Ella and a bizarre piece of our history was repeated. Our pack owed its name and indeed its reputation and strength to the mate bonds our founder and my brother had with their faerie mates. The Fae had supposedly been extinct for around six hundred years, but that's another story altogether. Austin's wolf Atlas was golden in colour ever since he bonded to Ella. It's not just the colour that is unusual, but the fact his fur is like armour and he is basically impervious to physical damage. That golden armour protects him from elemental magic too, which basically means that nobody messes with us...and indeed they haven't. Our last rogue attack was four years ago and peace has pretty much reigned in the wider area. I didn't envy him, though. Running a pack was hard work at times and he'd even begun to do it while studying at university. Thankfully though, he is now done with his studies and is back at the pack full time. His mate Ella, our Luna, is a few weeks into her new job as a junior doctor at the local city hospital. It was a tiring job, but one of her abilities as a faerie was to draw natural energy from the sun, moon and even thunderstorms. .. Laying here in bed right now...I could only wish I had that same ability, to feel more rested just by holding my hands up to the sun. Instead, it had now been twenty minutes since my alarm went off, and I was still laying here staring at the ceiling. "Get up, Serena..." I mutter to myself, flinging my duvet off my torso and sitting bolt upright with my legs over the side of the bed in one swift movement. This was a good start. The door opens and a familiar head pokes his way through the doorway. "Oh...I thought I was going to have to tickle your feet to get you up, but here you are, actually awake and somehow upright," Ollie, our pack's Beta and my future brother in law, says in surprise as he spots me on the edge of my bed. "It's not like there is any rush, Ol," I reply with an eye roll. Classes didn't start til tomorrow. I wasn't even sure why I had to leave for school so early in the day. "Well Princess you either get up now and get some tasty waffles, or you slob around some more and have some sad cereal, it's your call," Ollie says with a wink as he withdraws his head. I get out of bed completely and sigh loudly. I put on my comfy white denim shorts that I usually wear sailing and throw on a navy slouch tee. I've packed the other good stuff in the two suitcases I have waiting to go downstairs. Also coming with me is a garment bag of a few dresses Ella has given me for various events over the next year... and my pride and joy; my guitar. The fact I've already packed is pretty momentous. I brush through the big natural curls in my long dark hair and quickly spruce up my generous eyebrows with some wax. A couple of swipes of mascara on the lashes around my bright green eyes and I'm good to go before I slowly wander downstairs to the kitchen. The kitchen is located at the end of a long corridor off our front entrance where the stairs descend into. It's always been the social hub of the house. Lycans love food and our alpha weirdly loves to cook whenever he can, so you can always bet that something is going on in there. I walk in and see the welcome sight of my older brother with a mixing bowl. I spot the waffle maker plugged in and my stomach rumbles with excitement; I love waffles. He's a good brother, and an even better Alpha. I know he's done this just for me. He glances up as I enter and he smiles at me as he puts down the bowl. "How are you feeling about today?" He asks as I slide onto a bar stool opposite him. "Super," I reply blandly, with an equally bland expression. He c***s his head and looks at me fondly. "Oh come on, it's your final year. I loved my final year at school," he says while adding some other ingredients to the mixing bowl. Easy for him to say, he found his mate and got his golden upgrade during his final year. Truthfully, I wasn't looking forward to going back. I was starting to feel that I didn't particularly have many friends there, or real ones anyway. I was technically friends with my roommate Kate and two of her magic-inclined friends from home, but...I just didn't click with them anymore. Over the summer the obvious lack of real friendships with people had become a little more obvious. I was very independent and I did my own thing, but I was starting to feel the lack of connection I had with people. Going back to school was going to make it hard to ignore. My gaze drifts sideways to the patio doors while I'm pondering my school life. I can see Ella walking around the garden in her hospital scrubs. She has what is apparently a typical Fae appearance with her crazy long, super light blonde hair, gorgeous blue eyes, long legs...truthfully she looked like a supermodel. She tones down these unusual features while she is at work, though. Her hair is up in a high ponytail and she has fake glasses on to distract from her slightly larger than normal eyes. "Yeah...I just...you know," I shrug halfheartedly. "Not really Ser, you don't tell us much. You need to stop being such a lone wolf," he replies fondly. "It's probably going to be hard to top last year, that's all," I respond, watching Ella doing some strange hand movements over one of the many flower beds. Probably growing them or using her empathic powers to feel how they're doing. "Uh huh...yeah...I've heard. I don't judge, and I know you can make your own decisions and you can definitely handle yourself. But...you are coming of age soon. It might be an idea to, you know, tone it down a bit," Austin says, looking as awkward as he sounds. I snorted at his attempt to tackle this treacherous topic. Austin was a weird Alpha, in the grand scheme of things. He could've bedded hundreds of Lycans, witches and probably half the human women in his year at school, but he waited only for his destined mate. It was kinda sweet, but under Hera's heady influence that was never going to be the plan for me...and it hadn't...for the most part. "Ohhh...you want me to stop enjoying cavorting with members of the male cohort?" I offer casually, knowing that the knowledge of his little sister's s****l freedom makes him uncomfortable. He clears his throat as Ollie enters and I just smile sweetly back at my brother. "No...I...it just might be a good idea to exert a little more control over Hera at times. You may find your mate soon. I mean it's not likely as you are an alpha and you'd have probably sensed them before now if they were at the school, but...it could happen..." He trails off. The higher the rank, the quicker and easier you tend to find your mate, unless they were quite young or of a lower rank. There was a fine balance to it, no hard or fast rule. But the fact I was the highest rank from the bloodline I have and hadn't found them yet, did point to them not being at the school at all. "Relax, Aus, I've still not given up 'the goods', I've just fooled around...a lot," I explain with a smirk. "Plus you never know Aus, it took Freya and I a little bit of time," Ollie says, sitting on the worktop opposite. "I've got a slither of hope for Louis Astor, but given he comes of age this week and we are both alphas who haven't sensed a damn thing...I'm not getting my hopes up. Still, I won't be passing up any opportunity to cavort with him," I say casually. I hear Ollie chuckle at my comment. "Louis Astor? What do you see in him other than those Italian genes of his? He's a total tool and that pack is just bad news," he says with a shake of his head. I look at him sternly for a moment. "I'm a Landry, should I not aim high for a pack heir? He's hot and he has wild BDE...so why not?" I reply with a grin. Louis Astor was the heir to a pack that technically bordered our own, except it was off the coast and encompassed an entire island. Louis was dangerously hot, but I otherwise knew little about him. We took the same computer science class, but he mainly goofed around with his friends while I just...watched. I'm amazed I passed last year. "BDE?" Austin says sounding confused and closing the lid on the waffle maker, "is that some sort of qualification?" Ollie howls with laughter at this and I c**k my head to the side to look at my brother fondly, snorting with laughter myself. He may be the strongest Lycan on the planet these days but he's still a bit of a goofball who is always behind on the lingo, but I love him dearly regardless. "Yeah I guess it is a qualification...of sorts," I laugh heartily, getting off the stool and heading to the fridge for some juice. I catch Ollie looking at Austin for a moment and I'm pretty sure he's telling him exactly what I meant via the private mindlink we can use with each other on pack grounds. The wide eyes followed by the disapproving frown that Austin shoots my way confirms Ollie has indeed done this, and I let out a fairly dirty laugh this time. "Watch out girl, you could still get bonded to someone much younger than you," Ollie jokes. He's referring to when he realised he was bonded to my older sister Freya when she was still only sixteen. Our father made them wait until Freya's eighteenth birthday before they could do the 'mate' aspect of sealing their mate bond. Freya had been working for the last year for the General Council as a lawyer, a job she loved very much. I quite fancied following in her footsteps, if I was honest. It was a cool job. "Fresh strawberries for the waffles?" I hear Ella say as she enters through the patio doors. She's carrying a large tray of the most delicious looking strawberries. It was weird to have her around at first, because she isn't Lycan, but Ella had quickly grown on me since her first proper visit to the pack all those years ago. She was always so chilled out, so nice to everyone and so understanding...all of which was mainly due to her many faerie traits. One of her abilities was being an empath who could also read people's auras and she had really developed those particular gifts along with her other abilities a lot during the last couple of years. She always knew how everyone in the room was feeling, and she just knew particular things about people...sometimes things they were totally unaware of. The best thing about the fact she could do this, was that she acted entirely normal around you anyway, so you'd never know she could see into your very soul at the best of times. It had certainly helped her in her new job as a junior doctor. She could tell how people were feeling and had more intuition about things than her peers did. "Fresh strawberries? Sign me up," I reply, grabbing a handful out of the bowl. Seasons didn't mean anything when your future sister in law could grow any sort of plant, vegetable, fruit and more within a blink of an eye. "How are you feeling?" She asks as I pop a bright red one into my mouth. "Oh good lord, they're so good," I reply with my mouth full. I swallow and look at her expectantly. "We both know you snuck a peek when you came through the door. Therefore we both know I'm fine, I'm good. I'm sorta looking forward to it?" I say, hoping I sound honest. I am not looking forward to it. "Final year...big year," she says with an excited expression as if she knew something I didn't. I wasn't sure at what point they all decided they were my parents or something. Our parents are very much still around, in case you are wondering. Mum and Dad had moved to a little cottage half a mile away from the pack house, supposedly for a quieter life. But I knew they were just patiently waiting for grandchildren now. Mum now had an even bigger garden to play with, and Dad... "Gonna be weird for you having Dad be headmaster, I'll bet," Austin says, completing my thought. This was partly where my apprehension was coming from. Unfortunately the previous headmaster, our one hundred and fifty-five year old greatest Grandfather, had passed away three months ago..A Landry had always sat behind the desk in the tallest turret at school, so it was time for Dad to step up. "Yeah, thanks Aus, I needed reminding of that," I mutter as he pushes a plate of waffles toward me. I shoot a gleeful expression at him as I grab some now chopped strawberries Ella has kindly prepared, some squirty cream and chocolate sauce and decorate my waffle until I can barely see it. "Still amazed that these aren't on offer at school. But I can still have my full English," Ollie says as he begins decorating his own while I'm eating mine. "Right...I keep forgetting that you're teaching at the school now," I say with an eyeroll. "Uhh, well someone has to keep an eye on you; the Wild Landry," Ollie replies before he fills his open mouth full of squirty cream. Austin snatches the can from him and looks at him disapprovingly, but I giggle at his antics. Ollie takes his beta duties very seriously and he's absolutely class at it, but he's also a lot of fun to have around. I almost don't mind the fact he's going to be teaching at the school this year. I couldn't actually think of anyone better than him to be teaching Physical Education and to provide personal training sessions to the Lycans at the school who needed it. Luckily for me, I'd had him as my own personal trainer all summer, and he had gotten pretty good at training alpha she-wolves over the years. I was a strong and lean powerhouse. "Look, Hera and I know what we want and we just go for it," I shrug dismissively, "but like I said, I've not given up the goods just yet. I do have some class. It's an Alpha or nothing." It wasn't any of their business and I was getting annoyed at them for rounding on me about it. "You can fool around with a thousand guys, but I'm telling you this. Nothing, Ser, nothing compares to finding your mate. I was like you, once upon a time, actually I was worse...so keep that in mind before you think you're above it all, because trust me, you will fall hard for them when you do find them and all those 'fun' times you had in cupboards and in bushes will be a thing of the past," Ollie says before taking a huge bite of his waffle. "Preach. It's an absolute paradigm shift you won't be able to ignore, you won't want to ignore," Austin agrees while he takes a sip of his coffee, eyeing Ella keenly across the breakfast bar. She winks at him and I roll my eyes for what feels like the hundredth time today already. "Oh please Aus, you lived like a nun until you met Mother Theresa over here," I say with another laugh before licking the remaining chocolate sauce off my plate. "Serena, that's disgusting," Austin says sternly while pointing to the dishwasher with his thumb. "I never waste chocolate syrup," I say with a grin before giving in and getting up to put the plate into the dishwasher. "I'll be leaving in one hour, so make sure your stuff is downstairs," Ollie informs me as he opens the fridge on his hunt for more food. "I still don't know why we have to drive when we could just take the tree in the garden," I grumble. "Because Sen doesn't like streams of suitcases coming through and it's always nice to do something normally," Ella replies, putting the tray of remaining strawberries into the fridge. I was referring to the gigantic, magical wisteria tree she grew at the bottom of the garden which acts as a portal to other trees like it across the country. The trees could also take someone to the Fae realm. Ella's first foray into setting up her unique transportation service was when she grew one at the school, which was now securely enclosed in a huge botanic garden. Sen was an incredibly old but not so old looking faerie who had come through that first tree from the fae realm. She had been teaching at the school since the year I started, living in the botanical garden and maintaining it. Sen was always a cool person to talk to as she always had amazing insight about so many things, but she had become annoyingly protective of the area the school's tree resided in. The magic within the tree and its connected network was apparently only as powerful as the light within the world, which in my vague understanding of the whole thing, was the same as goodness and positivity. "Anyway, I've got to shoot, it's my first day on a surgical service," Ella announces as she puts some prepared food from the fridge into her work backpack. "Not flying in today?" Austin asks as he grabs her around the waist and draws her close. Oh, Ella has actual wings, which look bizarre but are also so beautiful. "Aus, that was a one time thing and it was nighttime," she mutters. So cool, I'd love to fly, it's pretty much the only thing my body can't do. Sometimes I feel like you'd prefer to be a Faerie, Hera growls at me inside my head the way wolf spirits could. Oh come on, she has the coolest abilities, I reply to Hera. You haven't experienced the greatest thing about being Lycan, yet, Hera retorts. Well until that time, I still think it's cool to be able to fly, I laugh back. "I'm driving and giving Clara a lift," she replies before ending up in a short but heavy liplock with my brother. They are cute together and for a fleeting moment I wonder what it's like to feel the mate bond the way they do. I hug Ella goodbye before she leaves and I disappear back upstairs to pack a few last minute items. I stare at a variety of things I have used in the past few weeks. Tennis racket, squash racket, lacrosse stick, basketball, golf clubs. I had spent a lot of the summer climbing trees, sailing, archery, paddleboarding, playing many different sports including the new addition of Polo on a horse- I have tried it all and am pretty good at it all when it comes to physical activities. I don't like being stuck indoors and neither does Hera. But I probably didn't need any of those things as they generally had the stuff I'd need at school. Probably wouldn't be time for it anyway, in my final year. All I really needed was my guitar. I'm just packing up my last few bits of makeup when there is a knock at the door. Austin comes through, and he looks down in shock at the amount of stuff I'm taking back to school with me. "Uhh...so two things," he says gently as his gaze travels around my somewhat messy bedroom, "first, we both know your grades could be better and that you are definitely capable of so much more than what you achieved last year. You are almost an adult and you can make your own decisions so this is the only time I'll mention it. The rest is up to you." "Yeah yeah, gotta pay more attention and all that jazz," I reply dismissively with a wave of my hand. He looks at me sadly and sighs. "Serena, come on, you know you can do better. Just think about what you want to be doing after school," he says, furrowing his dark bushy eyebrows at me. "Here's the thing, bro," I say with a pause as I stare up at him from two feet away, "I've no true idea what I want, really. I mean I think Freya's job is cool, but I probably won't get the grades..." "There is still time, don't give up on it all yet. You can resit exams from last year. It's hard to see the bigger picture when you are still young. But just...please try to make sure doors are open for you to go through when you do know what you want, that's all I'm saying," he replies, putting his hands tenderly on my upper arms. He means well. He cares so much, but he doesn't want to be overbearing and annoying about it and I really appreciate that about it. He knows that doesn't help anyone, although it kinda worked with how Dad was with him. Austin walked out of Exton with six full A levels and more than enough points to land him an easy spot at Oxford University. "What's the second thing?" I ask tentatively, expecting another lecture about boys like earlier. "Tell me if Dad gives you any trouble," he laughs, "it was okay when it was Pa up there in the tower, he kept to himself and didn't interfere much at all. He let us get on with things. Sadly I can't see Dad being like that." "Agreed. He's probably going to be a nightmare," I say despondently with a grimace. "I wouldn't go that far...but yeah, just text me with any problems and I'll take the faerie express over as soon as I can," he replies. "Oh! so you can do that but I can't?" I pout. "It's different. Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to be dropping you off instead of Ollie. I can definitely spare two hours of my day for one of my little sisters," Austin smiles. I arch an eyebrow at this comment. "Little? I can bench way more than Freya," I inform him. "In age you fool. But...yeah you could definitely deck her," he says with a chuckle before picking up my two large suitcases and exiting the room. "Guess it's the guitar and dress bag for me," I say to myself, picking them up and leaving the room, shutting the door behind me.