Trusting Fate

CASSIE

My phone buzzed as I closed my locker door.

I sighed. That'll be Lucas, I thought, and it was.

GO AHEAD, GOT HELD UP AFTER CLASS.

EXPLAIN LATER.

I fought against the unreasonable anxiety I felt rising. I ate lunch with these people every day. I had for two full years already. They were my friends, my fellow pack members. There was no reason for me to feel out of place.

But I did.

A part of me just felt like the poor kid at the table, only there because I was lucky enough to be dating the son of the Alpha. To be fair, there was some truth to it. Not literally; everyone is taken care of in a werewolf pack; but certainly less privileged. I had a single mother. She had a thriving career as an ER nurse, but these kids were all from very high-ranking families. I was the poor kid at the table, but it isn't like any of them were actively mean to me. Most of them were... nice. Polite. I was welcome to sit with them, but I wasn't one of them.

I thought some of it might be that they considered me temporary. In just two weeks, the entire senior class would attend their Bonding Ceremony, where we would all learn who our lifelong Bonded mates were. I was fairly certain that none of them thought that I could possibly be the Bonded mate of Lucas Whitmore. My hope was that, once our Bond activated, they might relax a bit and fully accept me.

There were two exceptions to the rule: Lucas himself, who had never treated me like I was inferior, and my best friend, Ivy Sinclair. She was Lucas's cousin. We had grown genuinely close over the last two years.

Ivy was everything I wasn't: statuesque where I was petite; sleek where I was curvy; fair where I was dark. Unlike some of the girls, she had never treated me like I was less-than. She saw our differences as interesting, a contrast that made us a formiddable duo. When I was with her, I felt as invincible as she was.

As invincible as I felt with Lucas.

I still got invited to all the "right" parties. It was just that, if Lucas couldn't make it, no one expected to see me there, either. I wasn't chasing rank. I didn't care about that much. I just didn't want to be the thing holding Lucas back.

I did go alone to the cafeteria, as Lucas had urged me to do, but I dragged my feet a little, hoping he'd catch up by the time I got there.

I had no such luck. Even with the wait in the lunch line, he still hadn't arrived by the time I carried my lunch tray to the large corner table where the popular kids held court.

One thing I will say for werewolf high schools: we get great cafeteria lunches. Werewolves are big on meat, so meals are usually meat-heavy. Today's lunch was Salisbury steak, one of my favorites.

When I got to the table, Lucas hadn't arrived yet, but Ivy had, and I sat down on the bench seat next to her. "Hi, Cassie," she greeted me brightly. Eyeing my tray, she said, "Ooh, they have Salisbury steak today?"

"And broccoli beef, and I think chicken Kiev."

"Hm. I better hurry, before chicken is all that's left. Be right back!" She rushed off toward the cafeteria counter, and I smiled after her. She had waited to grab her own lunch until I got there, just to prevent that weird moment of awkwardness. Ivy was the absolute best.

The longer I sat there, the less hungry I grew.

I glanced over my shoulder, and had a split second of relief. Lucas had just gotten to the cafeteria–Oh. No, that wasn't Lucas. That was unmistakably his twin brother Logan. Tall, red-haired, athletic. They had the same features, but that was where the similarity ended. Lucas was steadfast, kind, responsible. Logan was mischievous, impulsive, smug, teasing, unruly. Logan liked to poke the bear to get a reaction, and, most of the time, I was the bear. He had an almost supernatural talent for being a giant pain in my ass.

As if my thoughts were a beacon, his eyes zeroed in on me, and a familiar smirk settled on his face. He made a beeline directly to me.

"Hi, Cassie!" he said too enthusiastically as he slid his tray next to mine on the table.

Great. "Logan," I said in an barely-polite tone.

“Heeey, Salisbury steak!" He reached out and speared a mushroom slice from the pool of gravy on my tray with his fork. He popped it in his mouth. "Delicious!"

"Are you kidding me?" I gaped at his audacity. "Get your own!"

"But I already have lunch." He gestured at his own tray, laden with broccoli beef.

I made an exasperated noise. "Why did you get broccoli beef if you like Salisbury steak that much?"

"Because," he said in his best you're-being-silly tone, "I also like Chinese food."

I closed my eyes and counted to ten, hoping I would find some patience by the time I finished. I didn't.

"Besides," he said, "it's just one mushroom. You'll never even miss it."

"That's not the point, Logan! Just be satisfied with your own food." I resisted the urge to hunch protectively over my tray. Too late, I realized that, the bigger a deal I made of this, the more likely he was to do it again, and the less likely he was to leave me alone now.

"It just tastes better when it's yours." He shrugged and grinned, clearly having a wonderful time annoying me.

"Don't you have anything more interesting to do?"

"More interesting than this? Absolutely not."

"God, go away, Logan!”

"If I left, whose mushrooms would I steal?" His attitude was one of utmost reasonableness.

"That's a you problem."

"With a you solution."

I rolled my eyes. “What do I have to do to get you to stop harassing me?"

"Believe it or not, you're already doing it.”

"Huh? Okay, I know this is hard for you, but could you try, just for one moment, to make actual sense?"

"Should I come back later?" Ivy had returned with her lunch, and was looking at us with a raised eyebrow. "Because it kind of looks like you two are having a moment."

I glared at her. "No! No moments here. Logan is just being annoying, as usual." I scooted over a foot and a half, leaving a space between me and Logan for her to sit. She pointedly sat on the other side of me.The message was clear: I'm not going to handle this one for you.

I stared at her in mock betrayal Then, over her shoulder, I saw Lucas leave the cafeteria line with Tessa Cavanaugh. They were talking animatedy, and I felt a little stab of jealousy.

Tessa was the kind of girl I secretly thought a guy like Lucas should be with. She was an absolute knockout, with fluffy, honey-blonde hair and blue-green eyes, and a slender hourglass figure. She smiled at him, and she was ethereally beautiful, radiating warmth.

Logan scooted over to close the distance between us. "If you aren't planning on eating that steak, I'm pretty sure I can find room for it," he said, pulling my attention back to his antics.

"You won't let those fingers touch my plate again, if you want to keep them." I brandished my fork threateningly.

He held his hands up in surrender. "Just trying to be helpful, Princess. That's perfectly good meat, just sitting there."

"It's my lunch," I said indignantly.

"Well." He gathered up his tray. "I know when I'm not wanted." He vacated the seat next to me, moving to anotherl seat farther down the table.

"Clearly not!" I called after him.

Suddenly, there was Lucas, sliding into the now-vacant seat. "Hey," he greeted me warmly. I saw Tessa move to the other end of the table. I silently berated myself for my insecurity.

Lucas leaned over to kiss me softly. "Logan bothering you again?" I noticed that he had also gotten Salisbury steak.

"No," I sighed. "It was nothing important. Just…Logan being Logan."

"I can talk to him?" he offered.

Nothing could be counted on to get Logan to redouble his efforts to annoy me, as much as Lucas intervening on my behalf. "It's fine. I can handle him.” I forced myself to relax, pushing both my irritation and jealousy to the side. Lucas had enough on his shoulders.

He was widely regarded as the future Alpha, though it didn't always follow family lines. He had a steady, charismatic temperament, and was well-known for being reliable. He did a lot of extra studying on his own, history and management and de-escalation, things that might help him lead the pack one day. Looking at him now, he seemed tired.

"You okay, baby?" I asked, lowering my voice. "You look like you didn't sleep enough."

He shrugged slightly. "I didn't. Up reading. Pack law isn't as interesting as you might imagine."

I wrinkled my nose. "I don't imagine that's interesting at all."

He smiled indulgently. "At least only one of us has to deal with it. Dad likes to dig these massive tomes out of his office library and bring them home for me to read. If he didn't think I'd need them, he wouldn't bother."

"Doesn't seem fair that he doesn't make Logan read dry, dusty law books, too."

He shrugged. "Logan's not really a rules-and- regulations kind of guy."

I snorted. "Shocking."

"I don't know," said Ivy, "I'd avoid playing chess with him. He kicks my dad's butt on the regular." Ivy had spent a lot of time with the Whitmore family. She was basically like a sister to them.

"Can we talk about literally anything else?" I didn't need my lunch further disrupted by the obnoxious twin.

Lucas raised an eyebrow." You brought him up."

"I regret it."

Lucas laughed. He was inexplicably amused at the antagonism between his brother and me. He changed the subject, and the three of us chatted happily as we ate.

Half an hour later, I excused myself to go to the Ladies' room. It was empty when I went in, but shortly after I had finished my business, I was tucking my blouse into my jeans when I heard a group of girls enter, obviously in the middle of a conversation.

"And did you see how she was hanging all over Lucas today?" said one girl, and I froze.