LUNAR ACADEMY

CHAPTER 11

The town is buzzing. There is a high school about 20 kilometers or so from the Academy. There are also a lot of shops in the town center. There is even a farmer's market. It seems like a normal town. No one will suspect it is full of werewolves. It's a good thing it's shielded from humans. I can imagine someone traveling and stopping to rest here only to be greeted by howling at night. It definitely won't go well.

Tonight is a full moon. I'm royally f****d! How do I fight off the urge to shift? I normally spend full moons locked up somewhere while whispering assurances to my wolf. How do I go about it this month and worse! In front of the entire school.

I can't believe I agreed to go to the party. Nothing good will come out of it. Just further complicate my already complicated life.

The first full moon I experienced on my own was two years ago when I just left The Dark Room. I didn't know the range of my power so I didn't know I could cast out a shield to contain the scent of my wolf. I didn't know anything about my strengths. I just knew that I couldn't let my wolf out. I couldn't shift. So I did everything I could to remain in my human form. To fight against my natural instincts.

It was brutal. It was painful. I would hear my bone snap and c***k and then re-snap and re-c***k. It seem to go on like that forever. At one point I thought it would never end. Then a woman came to me. She offered me help. She said she'd make the pain go away if I came with her. I wanted the pain to end so bad that I went with her.

She didn't have a wolf. She said she is a human and her family dabble in herbal medicine. She said her dad once worked as a personal healer for an Alpha. Even then there was something off with her. I could feel it but I couldn't pinpoint it. Looking back now, I think it was the shawl she wore. There was a sigil on it that should have sent me running far far away. The only thing I remember about the sigil was that it was red. Blood red.

She took me to a little cottage in the middle of the woods. I asked why she lived there. She smiled, her teeth was crooked. It looked weird on her. She looks really pretty with her mouth closed. It is a strange contrast when she smiles. She told me werewolves didn't like sharing power. She said the Alpha of the pack she was born into banished her. Her only crime, she said, was being born stronger. I didn't understand what she meant then. I thought she was crazy. But I didn't mind a bit crazy if it got me through the night.

But she wasn't crazy. No! She was a witch. She cut my palm open and collected my blood into a black bowl, she added some weird ingredients to it and stirred the mixture. She then heated it, chanting incantations in Latin. A weird purple smoke comes out and she caught it in her hand. When she opens her palm, there was a pill there. She motioned for me to take it and without hesitating, I swallowed it.

Only when the pain subsided did she tell me what she did. She said it was rare for witches to give birth. Infact impossible. The fates gave them this much power but it came with a catch. The power dies with them. They can't pass it on to anyone. The witches didn't like it. How come the werewolves can reproduce and fill the world with their kind and they can't?

She smiled, a smile I will never forget. She told me there was a flaw in the Fates design. A flaw all the witches came together and worked hard to find. Witches don't like working together, she told me but for this they set aside their pride.

She told me the only way a witch could procreate is if they offer help to a lady in need and in exchange, the lady voluntarily offers something of herself in return to the witch. She took off her shawl and for the first time, I noticed the white hair and violet eyes that should have given her away. She told me I offered her my blood freely. She didn't pressure or trick me. She simply asked for my blood and I offered it to her. She went further to tell me that any first born birth of my generation will result in a still birth to honor this bargain.

I lashed out. All I saw was red. Blood red. I didn't even know how I did it but she was gagging on her blood. She begged me to end it that she would find a way to break the bargain but I was past talking. I didn't know how I did it but I killed a witch. I ran out of the cottage, crying. I don't know if the bargain is broken seeing that I killed the witch who made it or not and I don't like not knowing.

I distract myself from my thoughts by shopping with Mandy. She said she lives in the town with her grandma. I know she has family here already and I wonder how she cope being the only human around. I ask her as we round up to a*****e that sells dresses.

"Well the locals are really nice to me. My parents came here with my grandma long before I was given birth to. They were the ones who had to do the adjusting. By the time I came along, they were already used to having us around." I nod at that. I try to imagine how high school would have been like for me if everyone knew I was a werewolf. I imagine it going very terribly.

We ring the bell for the dress shop, waiting for the owner to let us in. It's weird. In the cities I have lived in, you walk straight right in and pick whatever the hell you want. You only meet a worker when you want to pay or if you want help picking out your dress.

"Oh hello there Mandy. Whose your friend? Please come on in." The owner is a man in his late fifties or early sixties. He has a British accent. He is clearly a werewolf. I can tell from the way he walks and his posture. "What do you want? We have party dresses, work dresses. Oh.... Or are you getting married, Mandy or is it your friend? We have lovely wedding dresses too."

Mandy laughed at that. I don't. I find it very absurd picking party dresses alongside a man older than my dad.

"No Alfred. We came for normal dresses. Do you think you have something that will make the guys go crazy and forget all about their mates?" I look at Mandy. Surely, the man must be offended at what she said.

He throws his head back and laughs hard. "I have always enjoyed having you come around. I think I have just the right dress. Come with me." We follow Alfred to the back of the store where he shows us some really nice dresses to choose from.

Mandy picked a black dress, tossing it to me. "Try on this dress. I feel like it will look magical on you." She lean in and whisper. "Try it on and I will try to mimick his reacton." She winked at me like I don't know who she's talking about. I laugh, shoving her playfully.

"Stop it. It's not like we will be seen together. We are keeping things on the low, remember?" I ask her, in case she has somehow forgotten.

"Of course I remember but he will still see you. Okay? At least make him regret agreeing to keep things quiet."

I laugh at that "And why will I do that, huh?"

"To mess with him, of course. That's what you do to your mate." I'm laughing hard right now. "Yes. When he sees other guys staring at you like fresh meat, how do you think he will react, huh?"

"I don't think I want guys looking at me like I'm fresh meat, Mandy." I tell her, still smiling.

"That's not the point, Camille." She said, glaring at me now. She looks like a school teacher trying to get her students to understand calculus and they are lost. Can't say I blame them.

"Okay okay I will try it on. I will need heels to match though."

"I know just the place."

We finished shopping around 5pm and we walk back to our building giggling dramatically. There is a fight at the front of our building. Two wolves are going at it. One brown and one black. They snarl at each other, moving in circles. The black wolf is bigger than the brown wolf but the smaller wolf looks like it will be quick on his feet.

I'm proven right when the black wolf lunge for the other and he moves away so fast, all I see is a blur. The brown wolf is a blur as he takes a chunk out of the bigger wolf. It howled in pain and slams the brown wolf hard. The brown wolf took the hit but before it could be pinned to the ground, it gets up and tackles the bigger wolf to the ground.

There is a lot of dust gathering and all I can see is a mess of paws, snouts and teeth.

"Blake cut it out." I recognize Sawyer, Seth's Beta come to stand close to the fighting wolves. I wonder which of the wolves is Blake.

Mandy and I just stand still, staring at them as we watch Sawyer and some other guys break the wolves apart. It took 5 guys to pry the black wolf off of the brown wolf.

He immediately shifts. "What the f**k Sawyer?" He push at his chest.

"I should have let you kill Daniel? That's what you want? f**k Sawyer. You can't go around picking fights." So Daniel is the name of the brown wolf.

I see him stand up. He also shift back immediately and he is handed a pair of trousers by one of the guys. I'm surprised when I see Daniel is the same guy that ushered my parents and I into the gate when I first came to the Academy.

"The Alpha will hear of this, Blake. It's a promise." Daniel says as he walk away.

"Damn!" I look over at Mandy. "What the hell was that about?"