Chapter 1
A/N: I am British, my knowledge on the American English spelling is not natural to me, neither is American high schools, please keep that in mind while reading.
Word count: 3050
Morgan’s life was going perfect.
She was about to graduate from her highschool, Baythorn High with her best friend and fellow werewolf and packmember Molly Dawson, who has been with her since their parents were assigned to live next to one another by the Alpha and Luna of their pack 15 years ago and have stayed together since.
Her werewolf parents, though they were not strong enough to be an Alpha or Beta within their pack, were still well respected for their contributions to the pack and by extension her too.
Morgan’s school life wasn’t too bad either, she wasn’t exactly walking around like Regina George where boys and girls flocked to her automatically, searching for romance or acceptance. But she did get along with a lot of both the humans in the school and her fellow packmates who are required by pack law to attend the same human school as any other teenager. Her grades were not perfect and she hated math but she did enough to know she would get into her preferred school, Washington College by the time she graduated.
Yes, life was pretty perfect for her.
So when Molly Dawson joined her that Monday morning outside their houses, to shift into their wolves to take the scenic route to school, she felt more herself than ever. Morgan’s wolf was not a stand-out kind of wolf, her inner-wolf was as ordinary in both height and fur colour as the rest of the pack, with chocolate brown fur covering most of her body with chunks of black highlights covering her underside, you’d almost mistake her for Molly’s inner-wolf who was equal to her in average height but unlike Morgan, Molly’s wolf was more dark-chestnut with copper highlights.
The journey from their respective houses to their school, in wolf form only took 10 minutes as the woods provided not only a short-cut but a sanctuary for their inner-wolves to be released before a gruelling 9 hours worth of being stuck inside a brick building.
So as Morgan and Molly ran through the woods, no rush to their stride, they let their wolves frolick as much as they wanted, strengthening not only the bond between the two friends but with the pack mentality they grew up with their entire lives as well, meeting fellow packmates their age who were also on the way to school who also had the same idea with them being in their wolf forms.
5 minutes from the school, Morgan and Molly wordlessly changed back into their human forms, grins wide on their faces as they strode side by side gossiping as they walked to the now in sight school, bags dangling from their shoulders as if they were as normal as any other teenage girl.
“Can I copy your History homework?” asked Molly. “I completely forgot to answer the questions Mr. Ford gave us last week.”
“Yeah, sure,” answered Morgan. “We’ll do it at lunch with the rest of the pack, I’m pretty sure Ashton forgot to do his as well.”
“Ah, of course he did! That boy is the master of procrastination, you know I once saw him in the pack house sleeping on the Alpha son’s Cameron’s bed instead of joining the rest of the pack for the monthly Moon Hunt. I could feel second-hand embarrassment for him before he even knew it!” exclaimed Molly, throwing her hands through her straight copper hair.
Morgan laughed loudly and freely, much to the dismay of Molly.
She remembered the night perfectly, the pack had gathered for their monthly pack hunt, which was more just the pack members getting together to reaffirm their bond with each other in wolf form, but because the time is mostly spent before the hunt in their human forms with alcohol and laughter sometimes people can go a bit too far, and Ashton was no exception. He had turned up four hours before the hunt was even supposed to start with enough alcohol to keep the whole of Ireland drunk and ended up drinking most of it anyway. So four hours later when the Alpha and Luna had called for their pack to shift into their inner-wolves to begin the hunt, no one had noticed that Ashton had made space for himself on the Alpha’s son’s bed and slept through the entire Moon Hunt.
The girls had learnt later on that Ashton didn’t even want to attend the Moon Hunt that day and was wanting to stay home instead but his parents made him turn up so he ended up bringing the alcohol with him to not only give him an excuse for not attending the Moon Hunt but give him the chance to disobey his parents as well. Safe to say, by the time they all got back to the Pack House and when the Alpha and Luna’s son Cameron had found him cozied up on his bed, it was the talk of the pack for a week.
“I know, he’s insane!” agreed Morgan. “I could never do that, my wolf enjoys the connection too much, I don’t know how he was able to keep his wolf so closed off that day!”
“It was probably the alcohol, he was chugging it back like it was water.”
The girls chuckled to themselves as they walked their way through the entrance of their school, passing by both humans and wolves to get to their respective lockers with Morgan’s being the closest to the entrance and Molly’s being around the corner from hers.
“Hey, did you hear about the Alpha’s son?” asked Molly suddenly, lowering her voice as her hazel eyes scanned to see if any of the humans were listening in.
“Yeah, who hasn’t? He’s practically royalty and the biggest pack news.” Replied Morgan, turning to open her locker to receive her books for the morning. She had double Art this morning, which was her most difficult subject, she just couldn’t get her ideas from her mind to paper, she found sitting down with a paint by numbers far easier than a double Art on a Monday morning.
“But you know what that means right? He can finally find his Luna!” squealed Molly, jumping up and down in place slightly from excitement.
“Yeah, it’d be nice for him to find her. He seems like a nice guy.” Morgan said as she shut her locker and walked with Molly to hers.
“Well, yeah, obviously,” Molly rolled her eyes. “He’s the next Alpha of our pack. He has to be nice to the pack members. But obviously that’s besides the point, he might find his Luna in our pack! And you know what that means.”
“It means that you might be meeting your mate today?” Morgan said in a teasing voice.
“Yes! I don’t care if he’s an alpha or not I just want to meet him already, but the timing with Cameron is just perfect! We’re the same age, we have spoken before a few times both outside the pack and in school so we’re already comfortable with each other, so it’d just be perfect if he was the one for me!” exclaimed Molly, her eyes twinkling with her deductions.
“Yeah it’d be pretty great to meet your mate, but you gotta keep in mind that he might not be the one for you babes. He is an Alpha’s son afterall.” said Morgan throwing her friend’s daydreaming to the wind.
Molly turned to her with a sour look, a hand on her hip. “What? You don’t think I’m Luna material?”
Morgan immediately shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant and you know it. I’m just trying to keep your expectations down, he may not even meet his mate today she could be in another pack on the other side of the country! Plus you’ve been watching too many rom-coms lately, not every mate meeting is like them you know.”
Molly stopped and turned to open her locker, sighing as she did. “I know it’s just, I just want to meet him. I don’t care about anything else. My parents met when they were sixteen and didn’t know they were mates till they turned eighteen, I just thought I’d be like them too.”
Morgan’s heart broke for her friend. She knew that Molly had set herself certain expectations and milestones of herself and finding her mate young was one of them. Morgan on the other hand, was not as eager, she wanted to feel confident in herself and her future career before any of the mate stuff came into play so she couldn’t understand why her friend was so eager for that picture perfect life, but she still had the heart to feel sympathy for her friend.
“I’m not trying to upset you Molly,” she whispered. “I get that you’re excited just try and keep what I said in the back of your mind today, Goddess he might not even turn up, he only just turned eighteen this weekend, he might give today a miss since his Alpha training is going to be more ruthless for him.”
It’s known within packs that once a Alpha’s first-born son turns eighteen, the training to be the leader of a pack is almost monstrous as most are still in high school, so in order for the sons to have one last bit of freedom before Alpha duties take over, the sons have a week starting from the day of their birthday to relax and do what they want before the real work starts.
Molly was shaking her head as the bell rang for their first lesson, “No, I heard he’s coming in today. That he wants to be with friends while he still can before everything starts.”
Morgan nodded her head in understanding, slowly backing away from her friend as she did so. “Anyway, I’ve got double Art now so I’ll see you at lunch!”
Molly nodded back and waved her goodbye, practically jogging down the hallway to her next class.
As Morgan turned to speed-walk to her next class, she hoped and prayed that Mr. Pierce didn’t mark her as absent, the old tart was very particular about his attendees and if he marked her as absent even if she was outside the door pleading to be let in, he would bolt the door to keep her out and her perfect attendance would be out the window.
As she turned the corner for her class, a familiar face was standing at the threshold of her class door and she quickly recognised it to be Declan, a fellow pack member and friend of Morgan’s. He wordlessly grinned at her as she ran the last leg to him and held the door open for her. “You’re lucky Sir had to go take a crap before coming to class, one of the guys heard him letting it loose earlier and said it did not sound or smell pretty.”
Morgan scrunched her nose in disgust at her friend’s nasty description. “I did not need to know that Dec, but thanks for holding the door.”
“No problem,” he gave her a toothy grin and ruffled his mousy coloured hair as she passed by. “Wanna sit next to me today? I don’t think Cameron’s going to turn up till later on and I don’t want to sit by myself.”
“Yeah sure,” she said.
They both silently walked to the only vacant table, placing their bags on their seats and grabbing their notebooks and pencils just as Mr. Pierce came into the classroom.
“Good morning class,” he boomed, the projection of it making the walls feel like they were vibrating as he settled himself behind his desk. “Today we are going to go over the work of Georgia O’Keeffe today and then we will try to recreate one of her pieces of your choosing.” He paused as if he expected complaints but none came. “But first we will do the register.”
As Mr. Pierce began to call out the names of his students, Morgan turned to Declan observing his side profile. He was a good looking boy, he was physically fit and about 5′ 10" with a charming smile and mop of mousy blonde hair and perfect blue eyes and wondered to herself whether he wanted to meet his mate soon like Molly or later in life like herself, she theorised that he would want to meet her soon. He was the future Beta of the pack and would want to settle down quickly to secure his place. As Mr. Pierce called for Declan and he answered, she quickly turned back to her lesson and promised herself to ask him at lunch.
Hours went by and soon enough the bell rang declaring lunch and Declan and Morgan were packing their notebooks and pencils back into their bags, but before Declan could leave she caught his sleeve and he looked down at her with an eyebrow raised. “Do you want to join me for lunch? I’m meeting with some friends and there’s always room for more.”
“Yeah sure,” he smiled. “The guys are more likely with Cameron today anyway.”
‘The guys’ were basically the higher ranking pack males in the school, they usually hung out together on the football field at this time but since their leader Cameron was Goddess knows where, it seemed that most of them had stuck with him and only a few of them including Declan had turned up today.
Morgan smiled and led the way to the cafeteria, where she was sure her usual lunch group would already be sitting at their regular table.
“So what do you think Cameron is up to today? Do you think he’s still in party mode?” Morgan teased as they walked.
Declan laughed. “More than likely, yeah. The guy knows how to party, and he’s going to do it for as long as possible. Pretty sure some of us are going to meet tonight actually, you’re welcome to tag along too.”
They entered the cafeteria and Morgan immediately spotted Molly waving her over to where she was sat with a few other of her friends, she quickly made her way over as she called over her shoulder, “Where is it going to be?”
“Where’s what going to be?” said Molly as Morgan and Declan approached the table.
“There’s gonna be a small party tonight down at the lake, it’s kind of a party for Cameron but I’m sure he won’t care if there are more people there.” Declan answered as he plopped down in a chair opposite Molly, as if he sat there all the time.
Molly turned to look at Morgan with her brows raised and perfectly straight copper hair falling over one shoulder. “And you agreed to go?”
“No, we were literally just talking about it just now. I didn’t even know it was at the lake until five seconds ago.” Morgan rolled her eyes.
“Well do you want to go?” asked Declan.
“Only if my friends can come as well.” shrugged Morgan, she was not much of a party girl but she couldn’t deny an invitation and if her friends could tag along as well the better.
Ellie, a human girl Molly had befriended in Science class with olive skin and jet black curly hair and brown eyes spoke up, “But it’s a Monday, who’s going to be partying on a Monday night?”
Eric, another human who was more on the shy side with brown hair and green eyes laughed haughtily next to her, seeming to agree as he nodded after laughing.
Declan smiled at them both, quickly realising they were human and did not understand the week long celebration for Cameron. “I think the real question is, why haven’t you gone to a party on a Monday night?”
Molly spoke for them all, seemingly done with the conversation as she declared, “We’ll be there, text me the deets later.”
Declan nodded at Molly as Ellie shot her an incredulous look but said nothing.
Declan turned to Morgan. “Do you wanna come with me to get some lunch?”
She nodded and the two of them turned to join the line, with her falling into line naturally behind him. She quickly found as they joined the end of the line, that this was the perfect time to ask him about his mate, and so she did. “Hey, Declan.”
He hummed in answer.
“Please tell me if I’m being a nosey bitch or whatever but have you found your mate yet?”
Declan, who was already in a relaxed position leaning against the wall as they slowly walked, seemed to tense almost immediately and crossed his arms into a defensive position. But he answered her anyway.
“Yes.”
Surprised, she pushed her question. “Well, where is she? What’s she like?”
Declan paused but then said, “She’s a human in the school.”
With that, Morgan placed her hand on his shoulder in comfort, in this world the humans still had no idea about the existence of their kind, despite more wolves being mated to humans than wolves. Being mated to a human was seen as more of a curse than a blessing, the human took more courting and they didn’t understand the attraction and pull to the mate-bond as easily as a wolf did. Nevermind the whole, they might reject you if you reveal your inner-wolf side to them.
But as curiosity raced through her mind as she wondered who Declan’s mate could be, he said, “I won’t say who it is, but I’ve known since I turned eighteen earlier this year. Obviously she doesn’t know, so I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to pressure her into being with me and besides,” he turned to her and gave her a wink. “I have got to become more of a man before trying to make her mine.”
Morgan smiled tightly at him, immediately disagreeing with his statement but gave his shoulder a squeeze of encouragement and then let her hand drop from his shoulder.
“Anyway, forget about that for now,” Declan seemed to shake off the defensiveness to his position. “We’ve got a party tonight, there’s no point in being sad!”
Morgan nodded, but somehow she felt that deep down that the party was not going to go as planned.
