Heiress

The teacher drones on and on about physics and its laws. In the meantime, Teagan Morris texts her boyfriend under the text, Maria Rodriguez exchanges a paper note with Ellie Tate and Emma Young drools all over her desk.

I look out the window. It’s a hot, sunny day, not unlike those common in Lupus, Texas, my hometown, but I could see dark gray clouds on the horizon, making their way to us. Thank God, I think, drumming my hands on my desk. It has been a very dry fall. We need the rain unless we wanted to enter a water shortage stage. Again.

My phone buzzes in its hiding spot on my pencil case, lighting up with a new text message. I’m careful when I pick it up, begging mentally for the teacher not to see it. The class may be boring, but I sit in the second row and I’m terrified of being caught red-handed with a cellphone in hand. Eager to please, my dad says right after everyone else calls me kiss ass.

It’s a text from Daniel. I frown, disappointed, but quickly try to smooth my face to a happier one. I look at Teagan. She’s smiling, her brown eyes shining as she types something, an expression on her face that clearly says she’s in love. That’s what girls are supposed to do when their boyfriend texts them, right? Smile. Shine their eyes. Be in love. Except Daniel is not really my boyfriend. I look at the silver ring on my finger, the old metal and shiny stones, a family heirloom and a token of his love for me. He’s never been, even though we’re going to get married.

It’s hard to explain to new people. Hi, I’m Jordan, I’m seventeen and I’m going to get married when I turn twenty-one. Maybe that’s why I don’t have many friends.

I don’t allow myself to be too sad about it, though. I have accepted my future and Daniel is my best friend. There are worst guys in the world to be promised in marriage. He’s sweet and kind, always smiling. I know I’ll fall in love with him one day. I just need time.

Hey, he says.

I type a quick answer. Hi.

I look at the teacher again, scribbling on my paper about Newton and his equations. I understand why many of the girls refuse to pay attention to this, they don’t need it in their future as female wolves. Our school is the only one meant only for pack members in town, a way to keep us separated from humans in case we ever go wild. Boys and girls study apart as well since the year we hit puberty. It’s safer this way, they say. We teach different things to boys, I hear.

I can hear them from here. The boys. They are in the courtyard, running around, increasing their stamina, learning how to fight and protect the pack, while we stay in, learning the basics of nursery, child, and homecare. Ever since my birth, however, my father instilled a curriculum of average high school studies to our already full schedule. Chemistry, mathematics, physics. He wanted me to be a normal teenager because that’s all I was. Normal. Human. The eldest child of the most powerful Alpha in the country was not a wolf.

That’s why I must marry Daniel. He will one day become an Alpha and inherit the leadership of our pack, so I need to have his babies, to bring the blood of Everett McKinleigh to his heirs. Or so my uncle says. Daniel’s father is my dad’s younger twin brother, ever so angry that he lost the race to birth, losing the power he craved in the process. Uncle Tom never really forgave my father for this.

Daniel answers me after a few minutes, a new message popping on my screen. I’m picking you up today. Your dad went hunting.

I bite the inside of my cheek. I knew about the hunt, though we couldn’t exactly call it that. It’s more of an endurance test, a way to release your inner wolf that the adults have found over the centuries. It can last an entire week and the last to come home with few wounds on their pelt is declared the winner. Everyone over the age of eighteen does it, even the women.

I’m surprised Daniel isn’t participating. It’s the first one where he is allowed, an important time to prove yourself to the pack, especially as the future Alpha.

It’s a treat, I realize. Daniel isn’t going because he wants to stay with me. One could even call it romantic, a way to humble himself for his mate, to show that nothing will come between us.

Great :), I type back, movies tonight?? I’ll be all alone in the big house.

As soon as I hit send, I regret my words. Daniel would read it wrongly, I’m sure. He would think I wanted a moment alone with him, especially with my parents away for their hunt. We weren’t allowed to have sex until our marriage and I had never permitted him to go beyond hugging.

Even though I don’t love him, Daniel has been in love with me for as long as I can remember. Our marriage is everything that he ever wanted and I never got the courage to tell him I felt otherwise.

There’s no time for take-backs because his response comes more quickly this time as if he had his phone in hand when I texted, waiting for me to answer him. Awesome, he says and my stomach falls.

The bell rings after what feels like years and I start packing my things, the homecare teacher saying her goodbyes, turning her computer off as the reflected image of her PowerPoint presentation disappears from the whiteboard.

I leave the school without saying anything, brushing my long brown hair away from my face where it had fallen during class. The other girls stay back, asking questions to the redheaded teacher or talking with their friends. No one wants to come home to an empty house, I realize, especially those with younger siblings, where they are expected to take care of them until their mothers return.

Daniel is waiting for me on the parking lot, leaning against his green jeep while fiddling me with his phone. A gush of wind passes through me and he raises his head, certainly picking up on my scent and smiles.

I smile back and walk to him, my old military boots croaking against the ground. “Hey,” I say.

Daniel hugs me, his muscular arms wrapping around my thin body. Daniel, like every other wolf, is extremely tall and strong, though he hides it well behind a blue flannel shirt and dark jeans.

“Hi,” he answers, stepping back, “How was school?”

Daniel graduated last semester, being one year older and everything, but he still visited the campus every once in a while to pick me up or drop me off when my parents couldn’t.

“Good,” I answer, “Are you feeling up to a Harry Potter marathon?”

Daniel hates Harry Potter, he prefers movies that don’t ostracize werewolves, but he still smiles, green eyes twinkling just like Teagan’s did hours earlier. “Of course.”

It’s a test. And he failed.

I walk around his car, jumping into the passenger’s seat and buckling up. Daniel sits on the driver’s side, ruffling his dark brown hair. His hair is my favorite thing about him, along with his eyes, and I found it to be incredibly charming when he pushed the long tresses away from his eyes.

He drives away in silence, taking the road back to my house. I’m not allowed to walk home alone, because it’s dangerous. There is a pack on the other side of the woods, a stretch of rivers, trees and wild animals keeping us separated. We have been at peace for over a century, but still. Who wouldn’t want to take the daughter of the rival pack’s alpha, a human girl who was too small to fight back?

I look at Daniel. He has a long nose, thin lips, and high cheekbones, with long fingers and tanned and freckled skin. My classmates call him handsome, all jealous of me and my supposed luck. I’m too used to his face to call him anything other than Daniel, my best friend, my cousin, my future husband.

Marrying him is for my own protection, I tell myself, repeating like a mantra in my head. My own protection, my own protection, my own protection.

“There’s a storm coming, Jordie,” says Daniel, looking through the windshield. The clouds I had seen earlier are over us, preparing for a raging tempest that will last the entire night.

“Yes,” I answer, drawing on my window. I can see a part of my reflection against the glass. Brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin. Short nose, round face, small mouth.

“I’m glad I didn’t go on the hunt,” he says, “Imagine trying to run on this mud.”

“Me too,” I murmur, not really feeling it.