Mate Bond - Finished

Chapter One - School

SERENITY POV

When my parents were fifteen, they were homeschooled by their parents to allow them to get an education while also training their wolf-skills. They learned pack etiquette and how to fight an attacking pack alongside calculus.

Now that I was fifteen, things had changed. Most teenage wolves went to human school. Young children could not be trusted to keep the secret from the humans they went to school with, so no one went to school until they were twelve years old. Children from five years old until twelve were taught by their own parents or in small groups by parents who were better suited to teach them. Once you turned twelve, you went to a human middle school, and then a human high school.

This changed occurred because when our parents were children, most of the packs were allied or at least civil. Now, most packs did not get along and all seven wolf packs lived on edge. Everyone was afraid that another pack or a group of allied packs would attack. Sending their children to human school meant they would be safer during the school day. No pack would ever attack a human school as then the wolves who were spotted by humans would be killed by the High Counsel. It was against the law of supernatural creatures to tell a human, unless that human was trustworthy and wouldn't tell anyone, or the mate of a wolf. It also meant that the pack was less likely to be attacked, because if several teenagers passed away on the same day and stopped showing up to school, well, the humans would get suspicious and attempt to investigate.

We still had to learn the wolf side of our lives as well. It made for a long, crazy schedule, but it was something you got used to as a young wolf. Children as young as five all the way up to the oldest adult wolves who were able to fight would wake up at four in the morning. Early in the morning, everyone would learn fighting skills and practice with each other. Children aged 5-10 would be taught by an older teenager who had mastered the teenage class. Teenagers 10-15 would be taught by an adult. Anyone older than fifteen would be taught by our Alpha and training leaders. This included men and women. Women were only excluded while pregnant, and teenagers took turns each day being the one to babysit the youngest children on the side lines while their parents practiced.

After school and work, late in the evening when families had had time to eat dinner together, the pack often came together. We studied textbooks Elders had written as our pack's Elders were getting older, and we would need the knowledge. We learned about our history, we learned about right and wrong in the wolf world. We all turned in for the night around 8pm.

Being a teenager was hard. Being a werewolf teenager surrounded by humans every day was harder. Wolves had a very different way of life which caused complications when bringing humans into the mix. Wolves found their mate, assigned by the moon goddess, at age seventeen. They were often still in human school by then. Seventeen was the normal age of marriage and children for wolves, which was strange to humans. Having pregnant seniors in high school was somewhat rare in the human world, as they often waited until they were much older to have children.

It was also tough when they found their mate at seventeen. For many of us, we dated humans or other wolves during our teenage years. We participated in human activities like parties and proms, so it only made sense that we would also date humans. It was a sad reality, though, as we knew that no matter how much we liked who we were dating, the time would come where we would find our mate and break up with our human boyfriend/girlfriend.

Of course, no one was sad once they found their mate. When a wolf turned seventeen, they would feel a bond with their mate as soon as they saw them. They feel drawn to them and that they need to be with them constantly. They are instantly in love, obsessed even. Once you found your mate, you forgot all about the person you were dating before. It wasn't sad to break up with them, although we often did feel bad to see the human we once cared so much about be upset about the break up. It was often abrupt and the human had no warning.

It was also extremely hard for teenage mates, when first finding each other, to behave properly around anyone. Finding your mate opened the flood gates for emotion and hormones. New mates spent a lot of time cuddling and kissing and having s*x. This made the school day complicated, although human teachers were used to horny teenagers lacking restraint. It was a totally different level, though, when it came to wolves.

The other difficult part was that many packs were mixed in to one school. It was forbidden to date someone outside of your pack unless it was your natural mate. Many packs had rivalries and having two kids from the packs dating each other would cause too many issues. Many of us did it in secret, but none of us wanted to learn the consequences if our parents found out. We hadn't lived through all of the fighting between the packs, and we didn't harbor the hard feelings the older generation did.

Regardless, I got up to go to school every day without complaint. Today was no different. I woke up to my alarm at four in the morning. My father, Seth, was the Beta, and I was not allowed to be late to training because it would make him look bad. I ran down the stairs and grabbed a granola bar. I saw my half-brother, Mika, running out the door just ahead of me. I was relieved we would both be on time. My other siblings, Haley, Layla, and Garret, had already gone.

I pulled my long, blonde hair into a pony tail to keep it from being pulled or caught during training. When I got in line with the other teenagers, my father gave me a disapproving look. I was slightly late, and wearing a sports bra, which he hated. He'd really like me to dress more modestly, but my mother, Makayla, constantly reminded him I was growing up.

After practice, I showered and put on school clothes. Jeans and a long sleeve shirt, nothing special. I ran a brush through my hair which was naturally relatively straight, something I was often grateful for. I ran outside to see Luka, Mika, and Melanie already in Luka's car. Luka was sixteen and had recently gotten his license. Melanie was his little sister and one of my best friends despite being a few years younger. Mika was my half-brother and also Luka's half-brother. Luka and I weren't related, but his mom had Mika with my dad, so we shared a brother.

“Saved the front seat for you, ready to go?” Luka asked, beaming at me. I threw my backpack into the car and slid into the passenger seat.

My boyfriend, Kale, met me by the front doors. Luka gave me a disapproving look. Kale was the Alpha's son in a rival pack, Hell Moon. We dated despite the bad blood between our packs and although my siblings and other kids in the pack disapproved, none of us snitched on each other to the parents. We all knew there would be a time when we would need a secret kept.

The school day started coming and going quickly, for which I was grateful.