“By the way, we killed an Unspeakable.” He stated bluntly gesturing behind us with his thumb.

The balked expressions on our friends faces, had Lycan and I laughing hysterically. Knowing what we were, it was like I was seeing my life more clearly than I ever had before. Not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up made perfect sense now, how was I supposed to integrate into human society when I had such a huge secret?

We piled into the Camaro, Echo in the front with Accalia and we just started driving. Accalia looked uncertain about running as a wolf, like she was afraid of what could happen…I didn’t want to force her, but at the same time, she was part of my pack and I needed to know she had my back if anything were to happen.

“Cali, are you okay?”

“I don’t know how you guys seem so…accepting of what we are. Our parents lied to us for sixteen years and you guys just keep on living like its normal.”

“It’s our normal Accalia, I wish you could accept it.”

“I’m trying.”

“Run with us tonight, give it a try…if you don’t like it then you don’t have to shift unless it’s for training or an emergency, okay?”

“Okay Snow.” She wasn’t convincing, but I had a feeling that if it came down to it, she’d shift.

Accalia parked the car on the shoulder and we piled out, stripping off our clothes behind some trees before revealing our shifted forms. Lycan and I shared a look before running off into the darkness. We all went our separate ways, Echo and Luna, Lycan and I, and Accalia I’m sure went off on her own trying to enjoy what we are.

 We came to a creek I had never seen before but Lycan had. We both, Lycan and I, changed back into our human forms so we could hear each other's voices.

"So Lycan how did you come across this beautiful place?" I looked into his beautiful green eyes and waited for an answer.

"On my run last night, I was thinking about you and feeling guilty about it."

"Wow. You actually were thinking about me? Lycan I've liked you for like forever. I only went out with Travis because I thought you really didn't like me that way."

"Really? Me too, I mean I've liked you that way forever but I thought you really liked Travis."

"What a pair we are, huh?"

 I smiled and pushed him gently. But I must have pushed too hard because he fell off the rock we were sitting on and into the water below. I hurried to the edge and he hadn't come up yet. He finally came up sputtering and splashing in the cold water even if it was June. He looked up at me and smiled devilishly and since the rock was low, he grabbed me and pulled me in. I came back up shivering and crawled back up onto the rock. I shifted into my wolf and shook the water from me. I was dry in seconds. Lycan appeared from the water as his wolf and shook out his fur.

The five of us met up by the water and decided to chat and decompress together. Accalia grinning madly, produced a baggie with a familiar herb inside.

“Look who just re-upped.” she sing-songed.

I rolled my eyes but watched silently as Accalia rolled some into some rolling paper and lit the end. The familiar skunky smell wafted to my nose, and it was much more pungent than before.

I started choking on the smell alone; what the actual hell? Just because I had wolf, I couldn’t enjoy smoking with my friends?

“Maybe smoking isn’t the greatest idea Cali.” Lycan quipped, producing a bag of cookies that had a faint odor of skunk but nothing as bad as the joint Accalia was still holding.

“Fine, suit yourselves.”

Accalia shrugged and walked off a slight way from the rest of us. Determined not to waste what she had already lit, but surprisingly considerate of the way the wind was blowing so as not to smoke out the rest of us.

“Now these are ridiculously strong. You only need like half a cookie for a decent high.”

We each took a half, if anyone deserved to get high and relax, it was us. The cookie tasted like peanut butter but there was definitely something more to it. It went down easy and I still felt normal…I was about to ask Lycan for another half of a cookie when I felt…buzzy.

Does that even make sense? How can you feel buzzy? I felt like I could fly, and that made me giggle, and then I couldn’t stop giggling, and that made everyone join in.

I just couldn’t stop, and I didn’t know how long the high was going to last, but I also knew our usual hang out wasn’t open all night so we had to get going, high out of our minds or not.

I told everyone to shift, and run back to the car…

“Don’t forget your clothes!” I shouted before shifting, even though everyone already started trotting off.

How funny is that? I gave an order to my friends and then they ignored me, Alpha my ass.

Lycan

I looked to the side of my running wolf form to see Snow running in pure happiness. She was never too far from sight and was never out of my heart. I have to admit I never really felt this way with Echo. I felt odd, because we’d only been broken up for eight hours, and I already had a new girlfriend; but so, did she. I was glad she was happy now. So was Luna, her parents are going to flip when they find out who she’s dating now.

 I barked in laughter and the four other wolves around me looked at me strangely but kept on running deep within their own wolf-like thoughts. When we came to the edge of the forest we changed and put on our clothes it was strange for me to be the only guy in the group but over the years I had gotten used to it. Snow found my hiding spot where I was getting dressed and laughed when I blushed.

“It’s not like we’re strangers you know. Remember last summer when we went swimming and your trunks got caught on the rope and ripped them off? Yes, I saw it, and well I didn’t look away as fast as I should have.” This time she blushed.

“Yes, and afterwards I walked in on you showering, I am really sorry about that by the way.”

“It’s fine, really its history promise.”

“But I enjoyed it and I was with someone else, your best friend.”

“It’s fine really Lycan. Come on before we have to kill anymore Unspeakables tonight.”

“Yes, let’s go. One Unspeakable in one day is too many.”

  Before I could make my move to leave, she pushed me back against the tree and kissed me with her new found strength, she kissed me roughly, and for so long that I was dizzy with excitement, Echo never kissed me like that. When we pulled away, I was smiling, and so was she. I grabbed her hand and together we walked to the car.

I didn’t know what else was in that cookie, but I wasn’t going to complain if that was what I could expect from Snow from now on. I was still smiling like an idiot when the car came into view.

I saw Luna and Echo leaning against a nearby boulder, they quickly released their hands when they spotted us and I mouthed to Echo ‘it’s okay’ and motioned to my hand. She looked and smiled and eagerly retook Luna’s hand as they ran to the car laughing. I smiled to myself we were both finally happy. 

Accalia was shaking her head in annoyance and I laughed even more. She hadn’t eaten her half of the cookies, like everyone else. She opted for her joint by her lonesome and she hated when she had to do stuff by herself.

Once we were all in the car we decided to go bowling. It was a Friday night ritual for us and we planned to keep it that way even if we are Guardians. When we reached the bowling alley “Strike ‘em Down!”, we quickly and excitedly exited the car and since we were regulars, they had shoes waiting for us and a pitcher of grape soda as well on lane twelve. Ralph the alley owner came up to us with a big smile on his face and noticed our partner change and shook his head, he turned to Terry his wife and said,

“You owe me ten bucks Ter.”

“Oh, I don’t owe you anything Ralph. I was the one who bet that Echo would end up with Luna not you!”

“Whatever but I bet that Lycan here would end up with our beautiful Snow. Rightly named Snow White.” 

 

That was his nickname for Snow, she had pale white skin and hair, dark as a Raven’s wing, and she was beautiful just like the fairy-tale. I felt a sudden need to mark her as mine, I had never been so possessive with Echo, but I kissed Snow’s cheek anyway, causing her to blush a deep red.

                “So, Ralph you bet ten bucks on us breaking up?” Echo teased, her accusation was asked in a joking manner, but Ralph blushed all the same,

“Well, it was Terry’s idea.” Ralph said sheepishly. Blaming his wife wouldn’t go down too well with Terry.

“Whatever so we’re going to go roll some balls and knock down some pins.”

“Have fun kids, show ‘em how it’s done here!”

 Ralph called after us. In the first round each of us had ten strikes in a row, and everyone around us stopped bowling to watch us. The athlete in me put on a show for our spectators, and we were all having a great time until Snow saw her ex-douche Travis making out with yet another girl. She wasn’t from our school; she wasn’t from any school she hadn’t been in school for a really long time because she was an Unspeakable. To think it had to happen in the most crowded spot since our little suburb didn’t have a movie theater, or anything else. 

The Unspeakable smelt us as well and stopped sucking Travis’ soul or what remained of it, and went straight towards us and ran outside, we chased after her; changing into our wolves as we went.

So much for our one Unspeakable a night rule. No rest for the awesome, I guess.

The Unspeakable was on top of Luna the slowest of us to change as soon as we cleared the tree line. She had bit a large chunk from Luna’s leg; her scream of agony made me inwardly cringe. The Unspeakable was trying to bite all of us but the rest of us were too fast. Snow being the fastest bit off the head of the Unspeakable and it was over. I had expected more of a fight. 

Luna’s whimper of pain brought us back to reality and we rushed through cleaning up the evidence of the supernatural fight to the death. I scooped Luna into my arms and ran like my life depended on it. We were naked and I highly doubt even Placksworth or my dad could get us out of indecent exposure charges.

 We hurried and got to the car and changed back. Accalia turned the key in the ignition and stayed on the unlit streets. She dropped each of us off at our houses and before each of us got out we changed and ran like hell to our doors.

Snow followed me into my house, and I got her a   t-shirt to put on and a pair of my mom’s joggers. We sat on the couch and she cuddled into my side as I put a movie on. We watched a few stupid movies, kissed a bit, and then she went home as to not raise to many questions.

I went to bed with a smile on my face for once instead of a scowl.

Unknown

Something was wrong, something had shifted in the air. I tried reaching out to Victoria through our blood link and I received nothing but static. This had never happened before, not even when Victoria had intentionally turned the link off. I checked the sky to be sure I had enough time to investigate and rushed into the trees hoping that my Maker was okay.

I heard a struggle and crept closer, careful not to draw attention to myself. There was Victoria, in a losing battle with five Guardian wolves. I watched in horror as the pure white wolf tore off my Maker’s head.

I wanted to scream but I knew I was no match for all five of them at once. I would bide my time, wait until they were separated, until their guard was down.