He was not.
“Scent.” The simple answer made sense but it was still impressive. “Everyone has a different smell and it’s more pronounced between species.”
Fascinating.
Wait.
Was I allowed to ask what I smelled like?
“Oh, do you think the scent thing plays into why some of my students asked me not to wear cologne or scented deodorant?” That would definitely explain quite a few things actually. “I’ve had students with allergies before, so I just chalked it up to that.”
Humans came with the strangest allergies, so nonhumans must have them too.
“I think you need to start assuming half your students aren’t human.” Braun gave me an odd look as he stopped in front of my young friend’s kennel. “How long do you think it will take the woman to get his paperwork?”
“At least another minute or two, the office is a mess.” It was always chaos in there and he hadn’t been there long enough for his paperwork to be properly filed by a volunteer.
I was hoping between that and the large donation we’d talked about, it wouldn’t be difficult to rescue the werewolf in question.
“Alright.” Nodding to himself or possibly me, Braun crossed his arms over his chest and glared at our young friend.
Teenagers were going to teenage, so he just gave the Alpha a slightly goofy-looking grin and sat politely in the center of the space.
Did he think looking cute would prevent the Alpha from losing his mind?
There was no way this was culturally the way he was supposed to be presenting himself…even I knew it was a teenager being ridiculous.
“Care to explain why you didn’t call for your Alpha?” Braun’s question at least let me know that he wasn’t the pup’s Alpha…which was good, because he’d been very worried that he’d lost one of his people without realizing it.
I had a feeling he’d been hurt that one of his people hadn’t been comfortable calling him for help because he’d taken all those emotions out on the man who’d turned out to be his second in command.
Wait.
“Can he answer you or was that rhetorical?” I had a lot of questions but that one had both of them turning to give me strange looks. “It’s a reasonable question. Let’s just think about this from my perspective.”
They both seemed to keep forgetting I was a human math teacher.
Before Braun could respond, the young wolf whined and flopped down on the floor dramatically in a bid for attention. It was half real and half fairly well-done acting, but it had my new Alpha friend rolling his eyes. “Fine. We’ll get you out of here first.”
Glaring again, he was doing a wonderful job of not screaming at the troublemaker the same way he had his second in command. “Otherwise, you’ve got a vet visit first thing in the morning.”
The young werewolf showed his smarts by curling in on himself and wrapping his tail tight around his body.
“Yeah.” Whatever else Braun was going to say was cut off by a door slamming at the other end of the building.
Mandy.
All talk of paranormal shenanigans stopped, but Braun dropped his voice and raised his eyebrow as the young werewolf straightened again. “You have to look like you know me or she’s going to get suspicious.”
Well.
“Um, he has to look like helovesyou. That’s what a dog that feels safe would do.” He wasn’t a dog, but Mandy didn’t know that. “He’s been growling at everyone nonstop, so it has to look like you’re his person.”
They needed to be around regular dogs more.
How did they not know that?
Braun rolled his eyes again but seemed to understand that I was right. A trait that I really liked about him. “Just play pup and look like you’re glad to see me.”
