It was, like usual, a rainy Tuesday morning when you walked into Ashwood high, wearing a thick jacket overtop a knit jumper, jeans, a beanie, sneakers. You were warm. Unlike 90% of the student body, you were a human. And like the 10% of the student body and human population of Ashwood, 90% of the people in this town viewed you as what felt like a second class citizen.

Of course, the human population in this town, including you, didn’t know about the Ashwood pack that essentially ruled this town, or about the werewolves that roamed the town, often being mistaken as bears and whatnot to the humans, who avoided hiking in the forests and mountains altogether, even if there were hiking trails.

Nate, a popular football jock, who was Alpha of the Ashwood pack—unbeknownst to you—walked down the hall as you opened your locker. Like usual, you saw some of the girls who you were friendly with be shoulder barged by said football players. Most of them never even acknowledge you, and those girls you were friends with, because you were somehow beneath them on a level you couldn’t understand.

However, for the first time ever, Nate stops in the hallway, turns to you, his face impassive. You hadn’t known he had turned 18 last night, hadn’t known the significance that held for werewolves and how it meant that they had could find their mate. You hadn’t known that, right now, Nate could smell your scent of vanilla, honey, caramel and cashmere, like soft white, warm frothy sweet milk almost.

You hadn’t known you were Nate’s mate. He glared down at you and you could swear the rest of the student body stilled, all tensing, all quiet, eerily so. You hadn’t known of the Ashwood Pack’s existence, or their current war with rogues outside their pack border. Or, most importantly, how Nate had only recently been appointed Alpha, after his father Roman who was the former Alpha, was killed in a rogue attack just one week prior. Now, here you were, in front of him, his mate, a delicate human, who knew nothing of werewolves and would never be able to understand them.

He doesn’t say anything when he grabs you arm in a punishing grip and starts dragging you through the hallway.