Chapter 3
“Where’s Jonah?” Toby asked Zev as he peeled off his black, lightweight sweater.
The two young men stood in the high school locker room, changing into their running shorts and T-shirts. After three years of middle school together, Zev and Jonah had become close friends, and Toby also spent a considerable amount of time with them. When he wasn’t with Lori, that was.
It was their first week of high school and it’d already been difficult. Only a handful of shifter families had sent their young to the city middle school, and those families generally did so because they believed in integrating their lives with the humans’. Those particular shifter kids had been taught acceptance at home from a young age and had been easily able to blend in with the human kids. As a result, their differences weren’t noticed and never caused issues.
Within ten minutes of walking into the Etzgadol High School, however, Zev knew this experience would be markedly different. The pack didn’t have its own high school—there weren’t enough youth in each grade to create the separate classes needed for teens—so the pack middle school, along with the other two middle schools in town, fed into the city high school. Despite being in the same building with humans, pack kids stuck together and made no effort to assimilate.
When Zev, Toby, and Lori had walked in the door on that first day, they’d seen the pack friends they’d grown up with clustered together. The humans with whom they’d spent their middle school years stood apart, looking in confusion at the kids they didn’t know. Within a matter of days, all the older human kids had sent the message to the younger ones—stay away from the kids in the pack. Not that they called them “pack,” of course. Some said they all belonged to a cult, others said they were part of a weird religious sect. But everyone understood the basic principles: they’re different, they’re not like us, don’t talk to them, don’t study with them, keep apart. Depending on whether a pack kid or a city kid was talking, the “they” and the “them” would interchange, but the meaning always stayed the same: shifters and humans don’t mix.
Zev looked at the clock on the wall. Track practice was about to start and Jonah wasn’t there, which was very out of character. The human hadn’t missed a single day of school or practice throughout their middle school years. And he’d seemed fine in the sixth-period English class he shared with Zev.
“Hey! You’re not supposed to be in here!”
A commotion coming from the front of the locker room disrupted Zev’s thoughts. Then he heard his sister’s panicked voice.
“Whatever. I’m not here to look at you, okay? I’m looking for Zev Hassick and Toby Harrison. Have you seen them?”
Toby pulled the jeans he’d lowered to his knees back up and practically tripped over himself hurrying toward Lori.
“Lori? We’re right here. What’s wrong?”
Zev joined his friend and carefully looked his sister over. She didn’t seem injured, just scared and winded.
“It’s Jonah.”
Zev’s stomach dropped. He clasped Lori’s shoulders.
“What about Jonah? Where is he?”
Lori’s shoulders slumped and her hands dropped to her knees; she was gasping for air.
“He’s in the back of the school, Zev. You have to hurry. They had him surrounded and they wouldn’t listen to me.” She straightened herself and locked her eyes with her brother’s. “Hurry!”
Zev leaped over the benches and ran out of the locker room at full speed. Thankfully, he’d already dressed in his shorts and tied his shoes before Lori had arrived, otherwise he’d have run through the school naked to get to Jonah. His heightened hearing allowed him to get an idea of the problem before he was close enough to intervene. Brian Delgato and two other shifter teens were yelling at Jonah.
“We warned you to stay away from her! She’s not for you, understand? Since you’re obviously too stupid to listen to reason, we have no choice but to show you what happens to people who don’t do what they’re told.”
Zev’s heart thumped wildly, and he somehow managed to increase his speed, running faster than he’d ever previously managed. Jonah was a big kid, almost as big as Zev. And he was strong. But shifters were stronger than humans, even when wearing their human skins. And with three of them surrounding Jonah, he didn’t stand a chance. Hell, even very few shifters would manage to come out victorious against those odds.
The sounds of fists hitting bodies intermingled with shouting ratcheted Zev’s anxiety even higher. Just as he was about to turn the corner, the noise stopped. That unexpected silence increased the fear that racked Zev’s body to such high proportions that he thought he might vomit.
“Get away from…”
Zev’s warning stuck in his throat as he finally managed to get around the edge of the building to survey the scene in front of him. Brian lay on the ground, cradling his arm. A shifter who was two years older than Zev was flat on his back with his eyes closed. The third shifter who’d threatened Jonah held his nose, trying to block the blood that poured out from between his fingers. And in the center of the damage stood Jonah, his fists clenched, face sweaty, blond hair disheveled, and expression fierce.
“Jonah? Are you okay?” Zev approached his friend slowly with his hand held out, palm up.
Jonah’s black eyes widened as he seemed to notice for the first time what he’d done. He stepped toward Zev and then froze when more shifter boys came out of the school, saw their wounded comrades, and realized a human was responsible. They stormed toward Jonah.
“Hey! What’d you do? Get him!”
Zev completed the few steps necessary to reach Jonah. He stood in front of his friend, blocking the group of shifters, then curled his lips back over his teeth and growled low in his throat. The newly approaching boys hesitated, bumping into each other in their haste to stop in the face of the boy everyone knew would one day lead their pack.
Two of the shifters on the ground scrambled to their feet, while the third tried to rise, but swayed and landed back on his ass.
“He fought by your side. That means you help him up when he falls,” Zev growled. As angry as he was at the threat to Jonah, he couldn’t ignore his need to lead and teach his pack members. He wasn’t their Alpha yet, but the instincts were deeply ingrained.
Brian quickly knelt down and lent support to the boy on the ground. When they were on their feet, they backed up to join the other pack kids.
“Zev, he hurt our own.” Conrad, a strong shifter in his final year of high school, met Zev’s eyes but kept his head slightly lowered as a sign of respect. Clearly, he wasn’t sure how to deal with the Alpha’s son defending a human who seemed to have attacked three pack members.
“They instigated it!” Lori’s voice was frazzled and unusually high-pitched.
Zev didn’t turn around, keeping his eyes on those who threatened his human friend. Within moments Lori and Toby were by his side.
“What happened, Lori?”
The surprise on the other shifters’ faces was evident when Zev asked Lori to weigh in. During a standoff between males, a female shouldn’t even be in the area, let alone consulted for her opinion.
Finally able to calm down now that the immediate danger had passed, Lori regained her composure. When she spoke again, it was with the strength of a young woman destined to lead the females in their pack.
“Brian and the others have the same lunch hour as me and Jonah. They weren’t happy that I ate with him instead of them. So they waited for us to leave the building after school ended, and then they went after him.” Her eyes blazed with anger as she turned toward Brian and looked at him accusingly. “Even after I told them to stop.”
Zev growled, his body vibrating with the need to shift and punish those who had disrespected his kin and threatened the person who meant more to him than any other. The realization of just how much he cared about Jonah startled Zev, but it didn’t slow him down.
“Stay here,” he rumbled.
Lori and Toby complied instinctively, locking their feet in place and staring down the group of shifters, who had backed away far enough to put a comfortable distance between them.
“What do you think you’re doing, Zev?” Jonah seemed to have finally snapped out of his daze. His hand landed on Zev’s shoulder, holding him back.
“I’m going to take care of this so they never bother you again, that’s what.” Zev tried to move forward, but Jonah’s grip was surprisingly strong.
“Did you happen to notice that I took care of myself just fine? I’m not some damsel in distress you need to rescue, Hassick. I can hold my own. Besides, I don’t remember asking for your help.”
Lori noticeably winced in reaction to Jonah’s words and tone. He was questioning Zev’s decisions, his leadership, his right to manage a situation involving his pack. But instead of punishing the human, or demonstrating his superior strength so Jonah would back off, Zev turned around to face his friend, his posture relaxing, head tilted to the side, and his voice soft.
“I saw what you did, Jonah, and I’m impressed. More than impressed. But I’m asking you to let me handle this. Those guys who attacked you, and the other ones over there, I’ve known them my whole life. They’re…family friends. Will you please wait here while I talk to them?”
Toby’s jaw dropped in surprise at Zev’s reaction. Yeah, Zev realized his method of interacting with Jonah was unusual. After all, a stronger shifter never asked another for permission on how to act, let alone a human. Even Lori, who was well accustomed to her brother’s idiosyncrasies, gasped at the quiet, placating tone Zev used when he spoke to Jonah.
Jonah’s concern that his friend thought of him as weak or incapable of handling the situation dissipated in response to Zev’s voice and posture. He nodded and relaxed his hands at his sides.
The bloody, swollen knuckles didn’t escape Zev’s notice, and he had to stifle an almost overwhelming urge to take Jonah’s hands in his and lick the wounds until they healed. Pushing down the growl that wanted to escape in reaction to Jonah’s injuries, Zev turned and stalked over to his pack mates. He looked only at Conrad, the oldest, strongest member of the spontaneously formed group, and spoke in a low rumble.
“They picked a fight with a human on school grounds in broad daylight. We don’t need this kind of attention. It’s bad for the pack.”
Conrad nodded in agreement and turned to the three shifters who had been involved in the fight. Two of the boys stood with their heads arched to the side, throats exposed, and limbs loose, showing their submission in every way they knew how. Only Brian kept his head up and dared to smirk at Zev. Conrad growled at the stupidity the shifter exhibited. No matter what had led to the fight, there was no doubt Zev could take Brian down without breaking a sweat. Everyone in the pack knew of the presumptive Alpha’s strength. Conrad glared at Brian.
“Explain yourself,” he said in a harsh voice.
Brian crossed his arms and continued to stare at Zev defiantly, causing his coconspirators to step back, hoping to distance themselves from their disrespectful friend. “He’s been eating lunch with your sister all week, Zev, even after we told him to stay away from her. Girls are weak; we have a duty to protect them. You should be thanking us for trying to keep that half-soul away from Lori.”
Zev growled as loud as he could in his human skin. He curled his lips back over his teeth, pulled his shoulders back, and straightened his posture so that his height seemed even more imposing. When he towered over Brian, he spoke very quietly, barely containing his rage.
“My sister is the strongest female in the pack. She’s capable of speaking her own mind and she told you not to interfere. Even if you thought she needed help, you shouldn’t have instigated a fight with a human. The right action would have been to speak with me or my father. We’re responsible for the females in our den, not you, Brian.”
The boys who had participated in the fight all but dropped to the ground. They whimpered, expressing their regret. Brian also lowered his chin, but Zev knew the other boy did it grudgingly.
“You’ve never interacted with the humans, so I’m going to chalk this up to a learning experience and I won’t mention it to my father or the other pack elders.”
Zev finished speaking to Brian and his two friends, then looked over at Conrad, who, despite having stepped into the situation at the last minute and therefore been innocent of any involvement in the fight, had his head lowered and his eyes pointing downward.
“And, Conrad, I don’t know what went on at this school before I came, but this animosity toward humans stops now. I can’t force you to be friends with them, but I will demand civility. If I hear of any pack members fighting with humans, I will step in. And the next time, it won’t end on school grounds. Any shifter who exposes our pack to unflattering attention by fighting with our human schoolmates will be facing my wolf under the full moon.”
Zev looked at every boy and made sure his threat had sunk in. The frightened expressions, exposed throats, and slight twitches let him know he had made the intended impression.
“Spread the word around,” he finished before returning to his place at Jonah’s side.