Prologue
She was late. She was so, so, late.
The sound of the door opening was like a car alarm blaring its head off in the middle of a parking lot, drawing the heads of every person in the classroom to her direction. Emma Hadley felt like a deer in headlights standing at the door, waiting for a pin to drop or for someone to say something.
“Good of you to join us, Ms. Hadley,” her teacher said, his arm still suspended in midair as he was writing something on the blackboard, “please take your seat and refrain from disrupting class any further.”
Emma’s cheeks burned with embarrassment as she mumbled, “yes Mr. Robinson.” As quickly and quietly as she could, the seventeen-year old darted through the class desks to her own desk placed next to the window, and slid into her seat. Her movements were swift while she took out her notebook, textbooks, and pencils. Luckily for her, her best friend Hannah chose not to make the situation worse by trying to whisper to her, but Emma was given a pointed glance that said she would be expected to spill.
Emma’s cheeks flushed red now for an entirely different reason, making her lateness to class even more suspicious in the eyes of her friend. That didn’t bode well for her, as she knew that it was only a matter of time until Hannah accosted her and demanded to know why the perfect-attendance student was thirty minutes late to class.
Maybe if the reason was something as simple as “I forgot to set my alarm,” then Emma wouldn’t feel so utterly speechless about explaining it, but alas her life was not so simple.
After all, how did one explain that the reason for their extreme tardiness was because they had watched their childhood friend transform into a wolf?!
The door to the classroom opened again and the subject of Emma’s thoughts came through the door, making her internally panic at his presence.
“Mr. Raeburn, good of you to join us. Did you and Ms. Hadley jointly plan to disrupt my class this morning?” Mr. Robinson obviously meant that to be a rhetorical question, dismissively waving his hand at Emma’s childhood friend, Dren. “Go ahead and take your seat.”
Unlike Emma’s entrance, where most of the students lost interest in her after she started walking to her desk, the majority of the girls in the class were silently swooning while watching Dren make his way to his desk, which just so happened to be directly behind Emma. He was casually captivating without meaning to be, with the vibe of someone lazy, but effortlessly cool. It was the perfect bad boy charm, but Emma knew that he only had eyes for her from the moment he stepped into the classroom. She could feel the gaze of his dark black eyes trained on her back.
From the corner of her eye, Emma saw Hannah’s stare dart between the two of them. It didn’t take long for realisation to dawn on her, and the moment that it did Emma cursed her existence. There was no way she was getting out of this now.
Luckily for her, once class ended, she and Dren were called up by the teacher to talk about their extreme tardiness, prolonging her inevitable conversation with Hannah. It was also quite awkward to have to stand next to Dren while being lectured by the teacher, trying to wrap her head around the fact that she had literally seen him turn into a wolf yesterday.
And that wasn’t even the craziest part. The craziest part was that he told her she was his soulmate.
His soulmate?!
Needless to say, she hadn’t been able to get any sleep that night. There had even been a moment when Emma thought to just skip the whole school day altogether and stay at home, but her straight-A-student mentality had guilted her into going. Well good on her guilty conscience, because now she was regretting it.
“EMMA!”
Emma gulped as Hannah grabbed her wrist right outside the classroom, her green eyes sparkling with excited curiosity. Emma could feel Dren at her back and suspected he was about to pull her away as well. She had to think for a moment which one was the lesser evil; Hannah or Dren?
It was definitely Hannah.
Emma allowed herself to be dragged into the women’s restroom with her best friend, who was positively dying to interrogate her. The two waited until some freshman cleared out before Hannah whirled on her with figurative fire in her eyes.
“What happened? Why were you late? And why was Dren late too?? Did you two bone? Are you dating now? What’s going on?”
Emma laughed awkwardly at all the questions fired at her in rapid succession. How was she even supposed to start explaining? Was there even a believable way to tell someone that your childhood friend turned into a wolf and called you their ‘mate’? There was no way she could start with that; Hannah would throw her in a psychiatric hospital at the earliest opportunity if that was her explanation.
It was decided then. Something, something, all lies have a grain of truth, something, something, right?
“So, uh…” Emma cleared her throat nervously, “Dren sorta, kinda… confessed his love to me yesterday?”
Her smile was awkward and anxious and she shrugged dramatically, not really sure what else to say. Hannah held her gaze silently for all of a single second before her squeal of delight almost deafened Emma’s eardrums.
“NO WAY!” Hanna squealed, “OH MY GOD, YOU’RE KIDDING!”
Emma had to plug her ears to save her hearing, but smiled nervously at Hannah. “Uh… nope, not kidding,” she said. Hannah proceeded to launch into a squealing spree, grabbing her friend by the shoulders and shaking her in excitement.
“What did you say?!” she demanded to know in the highest-pitched tone that Emma had ever heard come out of her friend’s mouth, “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!” Emma gulped.
“I… didn’t give him an answer yet.”
Just as expected, Emma received possibly the most murderous look from her best friend that she had ever seen. “You turned down the hottest guy in school?!”
Emma quickly waved her hands in denial before her best friend bludgeoned her to death in the school restroom and hid her body in the sports equipment shed. “No! No, I didn’t turn him down, I just…” Her voice trailed off as she rubbed her arm in nervousness. Hannah finally seemed to realise that something was off, immediately calming down and paying more serious attention to the anxiety in her friend’s face. “There’s… something that has me… questioning things.”
Hannah had always been the excitable type, serious about her studies but wearing her emotions on her sleeve for practically everything else. She was sombre now, giving Emma a chance to continue at her own pace. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. Emma pursed her lips in thought.
“I think I need a little time,” she eventually said, “I’m sorry.” Hannah shook her head in disagreement, wrapping a comforting arm around Emma’s shoulder.
“I got you, girl.” They shared a quick hug. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Emma grinned at her bestie and wondered for the umpteenth time what she would do without her.
They left the restroom and made their way to their next class, not really concerned that they were already late. Hannah had biology while Emma had English, forcing the two of them to part ways and agree to meet up for lunch in the cafeteria. Fortunately, Dren didn’t share English with her. Unfortunately, he was in the history class right next to her English class.
She definitely wouldn’t be able to escape him this time.
The minutes could not prolong themselves enough, Emma thought as her class ended with a ringing bell. She tried to be the first out the door, hoping that perhaps Dren would be slowed down by one of his friends wanting to talk to him after class, but alas Lady Luck had taken a day off today. Dren was already waiting for her outside, leaning casually against the wall next to the class door.
“Emma,” he said in his disgustingly sexy bass-boosted voice, “we need to talk.”
It certainly didn’t matter that she had five minutes to get to her next class, oh no, life didn’t work like that when Dren was around. For some strange reason, Dren had far more power in this school than any teenager had the right to have. Even the teachers obeyed him. They might lecture him from time-to-time, like this morning, but if Dren told someone to clear out a classroom, man did they do it with speediness.
That was exactly what he did, leading her into a study room where he told the ten or so kids in there to get out. They all did so without question, packing their things in record time and vacating the premises. Emma felt like she should be used to it by now and wondered if perhaps this was some weird wolf superpower.
Oh no… was she starting to believe in this craziness too? Surely what she saw last night was a dream; she must still be dreaming!
“It’s not a dream,” Dren said, his voice cutting through her thoughts. She gave him a panicked look, wondering how he knew what she was thinking. Could he read minds? Was it a wolf superpower? “I can’t read your mind,” Dren continued, smirking in amusement as her face blanched, “I just know you too well.”
Emma opened her mouth to reply but then closed it right after, unsure of what to say to someone she thought she knew. Dren sensed her change in mood, his face becoming serious.
“Who are you?” Emma asked, feeling guilty when she saw the raw pain flash across his face.
“I’m Dren,” he said simply, “the same person you’ve known all your life.”
Emma didn’t know how to respond to that. Or perhaps she knew what she wanted to say, but didn’t say it because she knew it would hurt him. Silence seemed to be the best response in her mind, though it looked like it was hurting Dren severely. He stepped forward, reaching for her hand.
She quickly snatched it back.
His hand paused in midair, suspended with regret and hurt. She watched the emotions flicker over his face; pain, self-loathing, guilt, regret, and hopelessness the most prominent, before it was all hidden behind a neutral-expression mask. Dren let his hand fall back to his side, the other in his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and the emotionless tone of his voice sent chills down Emma’s spine. “I won’t bother you again.”
Dren turned around and walked out of the room. At the time, Emma thought that he had meant he wouldn’t bother her for the rest of the day, because all she needed was a little time to process the veritable dump truck of information that had been thrown on her the night before. If she knew what he actually meant, she would have stopped him from leaving at all.
The next day, the teacher announced that Dren had transferred out of school. It would be years before Emma ever saw him again.
