VANESSA

I felt a hand pull me up off the ground and help me sit comfortably outside the office. Footsteps approached loudly against the floor. A team that looked like police officers swarmed in hastily and put up a barricade and yellow tape that read "Do Not Cross."

A small crowd had begun to form now: a couple of lecturers, a white-haired man I later learned was the dean of the university, and other students. All of them stood on the other side of the barricade.

My eyes were soaked in tears I hadn't realized had pooled over my face. My gaze stayed fixed in one direction, and yet I still couldn't process what I was seeing. My bones were in shock, my legs too heavy to move.

"Are you okay, miss?" a voice called to me. My head tilted slowly, eyes steady like a dummy's. "Are you alright?" he repeated. It was a police officer, fully dressed, holding his gun and a flashlight in the side pocket of his uniform. "We need help here," he yelled, snapping his fingers in a direction.

"Young lady, teenager, seems to be in shock. Send help," he said, then his radio clicked.

Soon a number of people approached me, helping me to my feet. They tried to lift me, but I didn't move at all. Then they helped me walk slowly toward a van. They pulled a blanket over me, like I'd seen in those crime scene movies.

They gave me a bottle of water. After a few minutes, someone walked up to me with a notebook and a pen. "I'm so sorry you had to witness that, love. I'll need you to answer some questions," a female voice said. An officer, tall and stern.

She asked a couple of questions, repeating each one twice. I answered none of them, eyes clouded. "It's fine if you don't want to say anything," she finally said, with a heavy exhale.

She snapped her fingers toward the distance, and another officer ran up to her. They talked. Just then, before my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a man walking closer in the distance. His frame matched exactly that of the ethereal stranger. My breath caught, my chest suddenly tightening.

His eyes were blue like the sea, his blond hair dangling over his shoulders, just as ethereal as I had suspected. But something about him seemed off. Eerie.

He walked up with two other men flanking him. They passed straight through the barricade freely, no one stopping them. The officers only bowed slightly as he walked past. I squinted. Who was he?

He spoke with the dean, his hands resting on his hips as he talked. Someone pointed at me while they spoke, and his eyes shifted to me. Now he was walking toward my direction.

I froze, my jaw tight. He said a few words to the officers near me, and they let him pass, with a bow.

I felt a pressing warning press against my bladder. "Oh my god," I mumbled.. He towered over me, arms folded across his chest.

"I heard you are the only witness to the crime," he said. His voice was loud, a baritone that rippled across my teeth. I said nothing. His eyes darted to my hands. They were shaking.

"You," I said, pointing at him with a slow movement of my hand. "I saw you," I mumbled. His eyes widened. He scanned the surroundings for watching eyes, then pressed close to me, covering my mouth fully with his hand, while the other two men formed a wall, shielding us from view.

"Say not a word about this to anyone, or it'll be your last." My breath was a mere mumble. My entire body trembled.

But I caught his scent, thick and earthy, like the smell of wood. He leaned into my neck, pressing his face closer, then a sniffle. My eyes widened. He released my mouth.

"Why can't I get a scent from you?" he demanded, eyes darkening. "Who are you," he said, watching me for a reaction.

Just then an officer approached us. "Got anything, Alpha Dariel?" she asked with a smile. He shook his head. No.

"Alpha?" I mumbled. He was an Alpha? And why had the officer said it so casually, like it was normal?

Wait. They were all werewolves? My bones stiffened. I scanned the entire space; it was full of werewolves. And I was the only human in their midst. My lips trembled.

Just then a student approached from a distance, gesturing to the officer at the barricade that he needed to speak to Alpha Dariel. They let him through. He leaned in and whispered to Dariel. Dariel's eyes widened. He clenched his jaw tightly, scanning the small crowd.

"There is a human among us," he hollered. The silence that followed was dead. All movement stopped, eyes searching, snarls rising. Some in the crowd were shifters, some weren't. The shifters flashed their fangs, claws poking out.

"Reveal yourself now, or let us drag you out," he yelled, walking in a slow circle, reading each face. "Either way, you're not leaving here alive."

My stomach dropped.

VANESSA

I was taken to the school clinic for a proper assessment. Before the psychiatrist was called in, they read my blood pressure at 110/80mmHg. The nurse announced it was okay. So was my pulse rate, at 84 beats per minute. But deep down inside, I knew I wasn't okay.

I met with the psychiatrist, and after a series of questions, he said I was fit to go home, just needed rest and close monitoring. I'd be discharged the next morning.

I hadn't shut my eyes once since the incident. Lecturers and student union leaders trooped in one after another, checking on me, until I let the nurse know I wanted to be left alone. When the crowd stopped coming, I realized she'd passed my message along.

While I tried to get some sleep, my head wouldn't rest, flashbacks of what had happened running on a loop. Seeing Professor Tom hanging from the ceiling gave me chills. I'd gotten an anonymous message saying he was human too, right after the bully attack.

I hadn't thought it through. I could have been running into a trap, but I didn't stop to consider that. I ran to his office to confirm it, even though the source swore it was a secret. Whoever sent it also knew my secret.

The only way I'd escaped getting caught earlier was by feigning a faint. Who knows what would have happened if Dariel had discovered my secret.

Knock knock!

A faint knock sounded on the door. I shut my eyes, faking a loud snore. The door creaked open, and I heard footsteps approaching. Then suddenly I didn't hear them anymore. I opened my eyes slowly to take a peek.

Fuck!

I exclaimed, scrambling back in shock. I'd found a face inches from mine, so close I could feel his breath. It was the same guy from earlier. The Alpha. Same height, same ethereal look, and facial features.

But now his hair was chopped short, and a scar lined under his eye, an old one, nothing recent. His eyes were deep brown and he smelt like cedar, an intoxicating cologne that seemed too heavy. My heart pounded loudly.

"Hey, relax," he said, throwing his hands up. "I'm not here to hurt you." He showed me his palms and turned in a slow circle to prove it. He looked different, and acted differently, but he still moved like Alpha Dariel.

"Please get away from me. I won't say anything," I yelled, folding my legs up to my chest. He tilted his head like he was studying me.

"What do you mean?" He stepped closer, hands still raised. "Did someone threaten you?"

I said nothing. I was trembling.

The door opened and the nurse walked in with a tray of IV fluid and some other medicine, probably sedatives. Her eyes caught him and she bowed. "Alpha Damon," she said as she bowed, then turned to face me.

My forehead crinkled in confusion. He noticed, then explained. "I'm sorry we met under different circumstances. I'm Damon." He watched me, rubbing the nape of his neck, then continued.

"You must have met my twin brother, Dariel. I'm sure you did, given your reaction." My jaw dropped. He promised to come visit me another time, then left.

As he walked out, I watched him. His steps were different, more of a limp than a stride, not as sharp and fit as his brother. He seemed somehow diminished.

*****

Luckily, I woke up the next morning to news that I'd been discharged and was free to go home. They gave me a bag of medicine and a prescription I knew I'd throw in the trash the moment I got home..

The officers came along too, not for further questions, but to help me get home. They handed my school backpack and phone over to me. I hadn't even realized I'd lost them.

While they dropped me off at my dorm, they promised to check in when I felt better. They also hinted that the case had been closed as a suicide, and that they'd invite me soon to give my statement once I recovered. I nodded in agreement, but I knew better.

"Call me if you need anything. This is my personal number," one of the officers said, and left me a piece of paper with his name, Rex, and his phone number.

I stood at the entrance of my dorm, my heart suddenly pounding. What if I walked in and an assassin was waiting to kill me? My hands were sweaty now. I shut my eyes, finding the strength to walk in. I pulled my keys from my bag, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

I took a deep breath and stepped inside, eyes scanning the room with caution. Everything was as I'd left it, neat and arranged. Unlike most students, I hadn't taken long to get a room assigned to me, since I was on a scholarship.

The room was spacious, with only two beds, so I could only have one roommate. There was plenty of space. A simple couch sat in the front corner beside a center table, and a reading table stood to the left. It smelled like my cologne, floral and feminine.

I took a deep sniff, arms spread wide. "Home sweet home." Just then I heard clanking from the kitchen. I clenched my fist, as if that would do anything if the need arose. I walked slowly toward the kitchen door, picking up my slipper as a weapon.

I crept closer and closer until someone walked out, flipping an apron off into the air. It flew straight into my face.

"Ouch!" I yelled, grabbing my eye. She yelled too, in shock. We stood side by side, watching each other in fear, chests heaving in sync. She was a young woman about my age, full-figured on top, with hazel eyes, dark olive hair, and a perfect waist and figure. She looked like a cheerleader.

"Who are you?" I screamed in panic, one hand nursing my eye. "I should be asking who you are. This is my dorm room."

I straightened, standing taller. "Your dorm room? I think you'll find my stuff here already."

She hesitated, like she was trying to place me. "Wait, you're the one who was here?" Her face twisted into a look of disgust.

"You're fat," she yelled, then burst into laughter. "How could I possibly share a room with you?" She laughed even louder. I clenched my fist at my side.

Watching her laugh, I felt the urge to slap her hard across the face, to make an example of her so the others would understand I wasn't one to be played with. But I didn't. It was no use.

Bang bang bang.

A loud noise came from the door. Our heads snapped toward it in sync, then back at each other. She adjusted her clothes and went to answer it. When it flung open, standing there was Alpha Dariel, his eyes finding me immediately.

My roommate screamed, hands flying to her mouth in shock. He didn't look at her. His eyes stayed steady on me, like he was about to devour me.

"Come here," he said, with a flick of his index finger.

VANESSA

"Come here," he said again, like I hadn't heard him the first time.

I didn't move. My roommate had gone stiff beside the door, one hand pressed over her mouth. Dariel's eyes never left mine, not even when she said something to him, a greeting, a question, I couldn't tell. He just stood there, tall enough to fill the doorway, waiting.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," I said, surprised at how steady my voice came out when the rest of me was shaking.

"That wasn't a request." He stepped inside without being invited, and the room, which had felt spacious a minute ago, suddenly felt very small.

"What are you doing in my dorm?" I asked, backing away from him like he might bite, though I was starting to understand that wasn't a figure of speech around here.

He didn't look at my roommate . "This won't take long."

He crossed the room in three strides, and I made the mistake of not backing away fast enough. He stopped close, closer than strangers had any business standing, and lowered his voice so only I could hear it.

"Tell me what you saw that night."

My throat went tight. "I already told the police. I saw nothing."

"I'm not the police." His eyes searched my face like he could read the truth off it if he looked hard enough. "Tell me what you actually saw."

I said nothing. I pressed my lips together and stared at a point somewhere over his shoulder, refusing to give him anything, because the moment I opened my mouth I wasn't sure what would come out, the truth, a lie, or just the sound of how scared I was.

"You're not going to talk," he said, more to himself than to me.

I still said nothing.

He studied me a long moment, jaw tight, then asked, "What's your pack?"

"My what?"

"Your pack. Who do you belong to?"

I opened my mouth and closed it again, because I had no idea what the right answer was, and every wrong one felt like it might get me killed. I said nothing to that either.

The burn in his eyes shifted. "Feral," he said, quiet, almost to himself, like a diagnosis he'd just confirmed.

"Excuse me?"

"It's what they call wolves without a pack. No name to give because there's no one to claim you." He said it without cruelty, which somehow made it worse. "That's why you won't answer. You can't."

I didn't correct him. Let him believe what he wanted. It was safer than the truth.

He straightened, some decision settling into his shoulders. "Rugby team has practice tomorrow after class. You'll be there."

"I don't play rugby."

"You'll watch." He was already moving toward the door, like the conversation had ended the moment he decided it had. "Be there."

Then he was gone, footsteps fading down the corridor, leaving me standing in the middle of the room with my heart still slamming against my ribs.

My roommate stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "How do you know Alpha Dariel?"

"I don't," I said, which felt like the safest lie I'd told all day.

*****

I almost didn't go.

I stood outside my dorm for a full five minutes the next afternoon, backpack straps digging into my shoulders, trying to talk myself out of it.

But Dariel hadn't phrased it like an invitation, and something told me ignoring him would cost more than showing up.

The rugby field sat at the far edge of campus, ringed by bleachers already half full of students in matching green and gold.

I found a spot near the end of the bottom row and tried to make myself small, which, given my size, had never once actually worked, but old habits die slow.

The team jogged out in twos and threes, and even from a distance I recognized him immediately, Dariel, moving through the group like the ground belonged to him.

A few paces behind, favoring one leg slightly, was Damon. I hadn't expected to see him here, and something in my chest did an unhelpful little flip at the sight of him.

"Why are you here?”‘she snapped.

I turned. A girl dropped onto the bleacher beside me, pom-poms tucked under one arm, hair pulled into a high, glossy ponytail. It took me a second to place her.

"Catherine?"

"Didn't peg you for being a rugby fan." She said it lightly, but her eyes were doing that same searching thing Dariel's had done the night before, like she was trying to find the seams in me.

"I'm not," I said. "I was told to be here."

"Told." She raised an eyebrow, glancing toward the field, toward Dariel, who hadn't looked our way once but somehow still felt like he was watching. "You do not belong here, stay out of my sight if you’re going to force it.”

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing, and watched Catherine pull a small mirror from her bag to check her lipstick before the coach's whistle even blew. Cheerleader. Of course she was.

It explained the pom-poms, the ponytail, the way she carried herself like the bleachers were a stage and not just a bleachers.

Down on the field, Damon caught the ball on a low pass and pushed through two defenders like they weren't there, he seemed to have so much control despite his condition.

.

The whole squad erupted, and beside me, Catherine was on her feet clapping before I'd even processed what happened.

I stayed seated, notebook open on my lap, pen uncapped, though I hadn't written a single word.

Dariel's eyes finally found mine across the field, just for a second, just long enough to make sure I'd noticed him noticing. Then he turned back to the drill, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

Whatever this was, whatever he thought I was hiding, I had the sinking feeling that showing up today hadn't made me any less of a target.

“Hey Ferral.. how’s your day coming along” A loud male vibe called from behind me .