I kept to the edges, invisible in the way that only lonely people and predators could manage. Conversations swirled around me like water around a stone, but none of it stuck. Sarah Chen had hooked up with Marcus Webb at the bonfire last weekend. Joey Martinez was failing chemistry again. Someone's parents were getting divorced, and someone else had been caught smoking behind the gymnasium.
Normal teenage bullshit that felt as foreign to me as advanced calculus.
Because when you were the Alpha's son, you didn't get to be normal. You got to be a symbol, a reminder of pack strength, a walking advertisement for Callahan stability. Even the human kids felt it, though they couldn't name the source of their unease when I walked past. They gave me space without knowing why, spoke carefully around me like their hindbrain recognized predator even when their conscious mind labeled me as just another quiet kid.
I preferred it that way. Silence was easier than explaining why I couldn't join study groups or go to parties or do any of the things that regular teenagers took for granted. Silence was safer than admitting that I spent most nights running through the forest on four legs instead of two, that I could smell fear and arousal and lies like they were colors painted in the air.
Silence was my armor, and I wore it like a second skin.
English class smelled like chalk dust and teenage desperation, with undertones of the energy drinks that kept half the class conscious through first period.
I claimed my usual seat in the back corner, where I could watch the room without being watched, and pulled out my notebook with the same enthusiasm I'd show for root canal surgery. Around me, conversations died and sparked to life like dying embers, everyone performing the careful dance of appearing engaged while secretly planning weekend escapes.
Then the door opened, and everything changed.
Second day, and Nate was still here. Still sitting three rows ahead of me in English, still asking questions that made Mr. Daniels' eye twitch, still existing in my peripheral vision like a persistent itch I couldn't scratch.
I'd spent half the night staring at the sketch I'd drawn of him, memorizing lines I had no business knowing so well. Theother half I'd spent trying to convince myself that my wolf's sudden fascination with the human boy was nothing more than territorial curiosity.
My wolf wasn't buying it any more than I was.
Today, Nate wore a different shirt—still city-soft, still wrong for Hollow Pines—but he'd traded his sneakers for boots that looked like they'd actually seen some use. Learning already. Adapting. The thought shouldn't have pleased me as much as it did.
“Now, who can tell me about the significance of wolf imagery in Pacific Northwest folklore?” Mr. Daniels asked, and I saw Nate's hand start to rise before he caught himself, probably remembering yesterday's reaction to his questions.
Smart boy. Too smart for his own good.
But he was learning to read the room, learning the unspoken rules that kept Hollow Pines' secrets buried beneath layers of polite deflection and careful silence. Part of me was relieved. The other part—the part that sounded uncomfortably like my wolf—was almost disappointed.
Because dangerous as his questions were, they meant he was paying attention. They meant he saw the things others overlooked, noticed the patterns that everyone else had learned to ignore.
They meant he might actually see me, not just the Alpha's son everyone expected me to be.
I dug my nails into my palm and tried to focus on Mr. Daniels' lecture about cultural significance and oral traditions. Tried not to notice the way Nate's pen moved across his notebook in quick, precise strokes that looked more like sketching than note-taking.
Tried not to wonder what he was drawing, or if any of those lines might be meant for me.
When the bell rang, I was the first one out the door.
Lunch was supposed to be my sanctuary, the one period where I could sit with Jonah and pretend I was just another teenager complaining about homework and weekend plans. Jonah Ryder was pack, my age, and the closest thing I had to a best friend in the careful, measured way that Alphas-in-training were allowed to have friends.
He was also a pain in my ass with the supernatural ability to see through every lie I told myself.
“Holy shit,” he said, dropping his tray across from mine with a clatter that made half the cafeteria look over. “Did you see the new kid? He's like a walking neon sign that says 'I don't belong here.'”
I shrugged and concentrated on my sandwich, which tasted like cardboard and regret.
“Don't even try that shit with me,” Jonah continued, grinning like the asshole he was. “I saw you watching him in English. You went all still and predatory, like you were deciding whether to adopt him or eat him.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, but there was no heat in it.
“I'm just saying, if you're gonna go all Alpha-protector over the city boy, you might want to work on your people skills first. Glaring at him from across the room isn't exactly welcoming behavior.”
I looked up to find Nate sitting alone by the windows, camera in his hands and that same half-smile on his face as he photographed the cafeteria chaos around him. He looked confident, self-contained, like being alone was a choice instead of a sentence.
He looked brave.
“He's human,” I said finally, like that explained everything. Like it explained anything.
