-Jaden-

That Friday was just another average day of my life. Yes. Yes, it was.

It was too early in the morning, when I heard the dull beeping of our alarm-clock. I let out a low growl, and pushed my nose deeper under my own tail. Tilly muttered something with the same, annoyed growl, but I could feel Arch lifting his head up, and I heard him sniffing the air. That damned early bird...

I growled again and opened my eyes. The worst part of staying in our own little cabin was the fact that we had to wake up at five in the morning if we wanted to make it to school on time. Last night, we spent a couple of hours outside, roaming around in our wolf forms, and we had ended up falling asleep in our tiny bedroom without turning back to humans. We had our little nest made of pillows and blankets in the corner of the room, where we often slept as a big pile of fur, keeping each other warm.

Arch turned his attention to us, and poked me with his nose. I snapped my teeth at him, but he wasn't having it. All of a sudden, I had big, dark-brown wolf on top of me, flashing his impressive teeth at me. I was pinned on my side and I tried to get him off me. A couple of times our fangs clashed against each other's as our little battle continued, and we both kept growling and snorting at each other.

Tilly let out an annoyed groan and stood up when we took all the space on the bed, stretching her white figure while getting out of our way. I was still caught in the skirmish with my best friend, but now that I had more room to move, I finally managed to slip away from Arch's reach, and got up on my feet as well. Then, I ran.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Tilly, now as human, cursed at me, when I nearly knocked her over on my way out. I could feel Arch following me, when I jumped against the front door, swinging it open. "I'll make breakfast, so you'd better be back in fifteen!" Tilly yelled after us.

This time we only ran a couple of laps around the cabin, before we finally called a truce. I was still too sleepy to run any further.

Just another normal morning.

The drive to school was pretty much me drooling all over Tilly's car in my sleep leaning against the window on my side. Once we got there, I was rudely awakened by being let fall out of the car, when Arch opened my door.

Just another normal drive to school.

The first period went by slowly, like the minutes had somehow become three times longer than they should be. I, of course, didn't do my homework, so I kept receiving ugly glares from our teacher. I assumed I was going to meet Mr. Hanson again, her stare was that bad.

Just another normal day in class.

And yet, I knew. I knew from the moment I woke up. Hell, I think I knew when I was still asleep that night. Something wasn't normal. Something was off. Something about this day was different.

It bothered me, sure, but in the life of a werewolf strange things, feelings and occurrences was pretty normal to me by now, so I didn't pay much attention to it. Whatever it was, the three of us were able to handle it.

...It just didn't occur to me that my perfectly normal day could turn into something like this.

"What took you so long? I'm starving," Tilly groaned at me just before lunch.

"You really want to know what took me so long in a freaking toilet?" I muttered.

"Eww, no," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Good. Now come on – I'm starving as well," I said when I started walking. I heard them following me.

And then... All of a sudden, the weird feeling I had throughout the day intensified to the point I wasn't even able to breath. My whole body went on overdrive. All my senses were suddenly going wild, and I nearly freaked out, but only a second later, I knew exactly what was causing it. There was someone somewhere on my left. I turned to look in that direction, and saw a boy who was hiding behind a big plastic plant.

For a moment, I thought he was a threat, but I quickly realized that couldn't be it. For one, he was basically the size of my arm! And second, I had never felt so energetic, excited and... and... charged in my life. I had never seen this boy, not that I could remember, but when our eyes met, I felt like I could explode. In a good way. And that thought nearly freaked me out again.

I didn't even notice that I had stopped to stare at him. I was ready to fight or run. This situation was way too weird for my taste, and I had no idea what to do or how to react. I just stared at him. He stared at me, and he seemed just as spooked as I felt. It was clear that neither of us knew what was going on.

And as if things weren't odd enough, an uninvited memory emerged in front of me.

"How will I know if I've found my mate?" Me, a few years ago.

"Trust me, you'll know," was my mother's reply.

"Oh, hell no!" I burst out in laughter. Of course this... this... shrimp wasn't my mate! That was absolutely ridiculous. This weird, energetic moment I was having had to be about something else. I mean, come on! A human male as my mate?

"Now what?" Tilly asked in annoyance.

I barely heard what she said. I was still hearing my mother's voice inside my head, and my own voice yelling at her to shut up. This was not my mate. I didn't even want a mate! Even if I did, there was no way I'd ever accept a male as my mate! A human!

"Jade?"

"No," I said as sternly as I could. I wasn't laughing anymore. I gave one last ugly glare at the boy, who was frozen still under my stare. "It's nothing," I added, starting to walk again – to where, I had no idea. I just wanted to get as far away from that little boy as possible.

I saw Tilly and Arch exchanging looks with raised eyebrows, but neither of them said a word.

A few steps later, I started to feel angry. My stomach was turning unpleasantly, and I was suddenly soaked in cold sweat, like I was sick. This was not happening. This fucking day was not happening!

"Trust me, you'll know..."

"No, no, no, no, no..." I mumbled, pressing my eyes shut like it somehow could have blocked Mom's voice out of my head.

"Are you all right?" Tilly asked, and I felt her hand on my arm.

"Hungry!" I gasped, opened my eyes and straightened my posture, probably scaring Tilly since she took a step back. "I'm just hungry. Let's get the fuck out of here, yeah?"

"Out of here, meaning...?" Arch said, stopping me.

"Let's go get some pizza or something," I told him, trying to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. "I need some air."

"Okay..." Arch breathed out with a worried look on his face. "What about Hanson?"

"Fuck him," I spat, and started marching to the nearest exit.

I had to get out. I just had to get away from him. That boy. I knew exactly where he was without even looking at him. I could tell which scent was his even with a hundred people around us. Hell, I could even tell which one was him by his heart beat.

"Trust me, you'll know..."

No... Fuck no!

Once we were out of the school, I slowly started to calm down. Not fully, but at least I managed to get my head back together. Kind of. We hopped in Tilly's car, and I closed my eyes, rubbing my temples and leaning back on my seat behind Arch, who was driving this time.

It took me a moment to realize he wasn't firing up the engine.

"What?!" I spat at both of them, when I saw them looking at me.

"What's going on?" Tilly asked slowly.

"Nothing! I'm just hungry! Can we please get away from here already?!" I did feel bad for shouting at them, but I was losing my patience.

"Sure," Arch spoke, and finally turned on the engine.

I tried to take a deep breath, and I refused to even look in the direction of our school.

In his direction.