Kate
I knew exactly how childishly I was behaving but I simply didn't feel like being mature about this. I'd been perfectly happy with the way everything had been, and then mom decided it would be a good idea to let complete strangers onto our territory. As if that wasn't enough for her, they were supernatural strangers, and of course they couldn't just stay for a cup of coffee, no, they'd be here for at least a month.
I took after my dad in the sense that I hated having strangers on my territory, and I was definitely not comfortable with the idea of having to live with what I saw as potential threats to my family for so long. Four potential threats to be exact, because apparently sending just one of them wasn't enough.
Technically there were five people coming, but I knew Sean well enough to trust that he wouldn't try to kill us all in our sleep. It helped that he'd been the only Nast to be nice to Savannah right from the start, who'd spent enough summers at Stonehaven for me to see her as family.
I could see why the mutt was coming - they wanted him to learn about being a werewolf and his only experiences with them hadn't really been very useful. Two mutts had tried to kill him and his mate, something that can't have been great for his general image of other werewolves and was in no way educational. I could also see why his mate was joining him, but did he really need to take his brother and sister with him too? They weren't even technically related for heaven's sake, so surely he could live without them for a few weeks?
Of course it would have been ideal had the mutt not needed to come at all, but I could have settled for having just the two threats in my house, especially since his mate was only a necromancer - not much of a risk in my opinion. Mom, unfortunately, didn't seem to see it that way.
No matter how much I shouted about how it was a stupid idea and listed reasons for why she shouldn't have given them permission to come here; most of them along the lines of 'I don't want them here'; she simply ignored them, and eventually ignored me too. Only I wasn't giving up that easily. I had a week.
I'd make sure they didn't come.
...
Logan
We'd been called down for breakfast, and even by our standards my parents had outdone themselves today. Usually we had all sorts of food piled on the table, leftovers from dinner the night before always making it onto the table too, but today they'd even put out a range of puddings and jellies for us. That was something they only did on special occasions, always joking that too much sugar would be bad for us and knowing full well that our heightened metabolism and active lifestyle would break it all down in a couple of hours. I started feeling wary as soon as I saw that they'd put in a lot more effort than usual; it felt like they had something to tell us and that they doubted we'd like it.
Kate seemed to have no such premonitions and made a beeline for the table, reaching for the stack of pancakes and the tub of ice cream when she sat down. I followed more slowly, feeling the food calling to me but still not quite trusting it. She reached back and twisted her curls into a bun, sticking a knife through it to keep it in place and glancing back at me questioningly as she did so. I shook my head at her slightly and sat down, picking at my food while I waited for my parents to spill the beans.
They waited until Kate was almost done eating, then mom spoke up. "Sean asked to me to train a young werewolf of about nineteen. He's been Changing for the last three years but the only contact he's had with werewolves was when two of them tried to kill him and his mate, a necromancer. They'll both be coming to stay with us, as well as Derek's adoptive brother, a sorcerer called Simon, and Simon's witch sister because they found out about it and invited themselves along. They will be here in a week's time."
I was barely listening by the end, intent on watching Kate's reaction. She was sitting very still and seemed to be making a conscious effort to keep her breathing even.
"We have four supernaturals we don't know coming to visit. Then you want to train the mutt, which would take at least a month. You gave four unknown supernaturals permission to come into our territory for a minimum of a month. Have you lost your mind?"
Mom didn't even flinch at Kate's tone, just looked her calmly in the eye and said, "Actually it's five supernaturals. Sean will be accompanying them for the first few days."
Kate didn't react for about a minute, seeming to study her plate very carefully. Then she leapt up, her chair flying back against the wall, and grabbed the nearest plate of food. She hurled it at the wall and picked up the next one, which followed. She kept going until all the things within reach had ended up in pieces all over the floor, the wall now covered in food remnants, then grabbed the table edge and flipped it, still screaming abuse.
She started reaching back to get her chair to throw that too when her skin started to pulse, fur sprouting quickly and her nails thickening and lengthening to claws. Her eyes snapped shut and she went still again, breathing hard and concentrating, and after another minute the fur retracted and her hands went back to normal. The chair got thrown into the wall too.
Dad was watching her, face blank, but I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of pride and humour in his eyes. The same couldn't be said for mom, who waited it out calmly and said, voice dangerously low, "This isn't up for discussion. It's not your decision, it's mine and mine alone. They will be coming here, and you will be on your best behaviour. Now clean this up."
She stood up and strode from the room, dad following her, and I picked my way through the scattered remains of breakfast over to Kate.
I leant down to look her in the eye and said, "We have a week."
...
Kate
A week later the situation hadn't changed one bit. We were still going to have to enjoy the lovely company of four people who, for all we knew, might be more than happy to find a nice sharp carving knife to end us with. Only no matter how hard I'd argued with both my parents, using logical(ish) arguments with mom and pointing out all the ways they could hurt us to dad in the hope of getting a defensive reaction that would put him on my side, neither of them gave in. The trespassers were due here in less than five hours. Joy.
Logan and I had been Changing for just under a year, so our Changes weren't completely under control yet, so we were now being accompanied by dad to Change in preparation of their arrival. They hoped it would help us (me) stay in control.
When mom and dad first told us about them being werewolves they hadn't told us straight away that there was a chance we wouldn't get our werewolfy powers. Out of the two of us I'd had the smaller chance of Changing, so when we both started getting larger appetites and better senses as well as increased strength, we all waited with baited breath. Then, after four years of waiting, I Changed. Against all odds, I Changed before Logan. Only an hour or so before, but I still got there first.
It had been just as amazing as I'd always thought it would be. The pain was excruciating to the point of me never being able to remember quite how bad it was until I Changed again and wondered why the hell I'd wanted to be a full werewolf, but it was worth every single second. Being in another form was amazing, racing through the forest faster than any human could, eyes slitted against the wind whistling past and the branches and undergrowth, feeling the whole forest around me go silent as the animals realised there was a predator amongst them. I loved the feeling of power and adrenaline coursing through my veins, the company of my big brother and the warmth of finding somewhere to hole up together as wolves in winter, the hunts as a full Pack at a Meet.
Everything about being a werewolf had its ups and downs, but no matter how corny it sounded, I wouldn't change any of it for the world.
...
When we were far enough into the forest we each found our own clearing and Changed. I was done second and started prancing around outside Logan's clearing, showing off, when a yellow coloured bullet flew into me. We rolled around and soon I had Logan pinned by the neck. He was the clever one, better and school and plotting, but I was better at fighting. Due to my lack of tact when planning ambushes we made a decent team.
He sighed, surrendering, and I jumped off him, landing in a playful stance with my tongue lolling out in a grin. He mimicked my stance and growled at me, tail wagging, so I growled back and was about to launch myself at him when we heard dad approaching. Logan turned and ran out of the clearing, me following. It was time for trick the adult wolf.
We separated and raced in random patterns around the trees, jumping into the river and little streams every now and then to confuse dad. We then met up again near our Changing places and tracked dad, creeping forward slowly as we followed his scent, being careful not to make any noise and to stay downwind. When we were close enough we split up again, each taking one side and still doing our best to stay silent. When dad was in sight we charged and tried to jump on his back, determined to use our combined strength to bring him down, but he was already gone.
We'd never managed to bring mom, dad or Jeremy down, but we'd fooled Noah a few times, and Reece. Nick had Changed with us once before and swore he was never doing it again, but we'd get him one day.
We couldn't best dad, as usual, and the game ended when he pinned me by the throat and Logan stopped trying to attack, forfeiting.
We continued playing different games, most of them designed to improve our tracking and fighting skills as wolves or burn off excess energy. It took a few hours, but we finally ran off the extra nervous energy and started heading back to our clothes so we could Change back, hunting down a fat rabbit on the way as a snack. We were almost there when we heard a car pull up near what seemed to be the bottom of our driveway. They'd gotten here early, and mom was alone in the house with no-one to protect her.
Despite knowing she could protect herself just fine our instincts told us that our Alpha was possibly in danger without us there to protect her, so we did the only thing we could. We attacked.
...
Dad took off first, Logan and I close behind, and it took mere minutes to get close enough to start making out voices. They didn't seem to be going anywhere but I couldn't be sure, though I did catch a female voice complaining about how annoying our forest was. Ignorant human. She had no idea how beautiful our forest was.
The wind changed direction for a second, carrying the mutt's scent to us from our right, so I automatically veered that way, dad and Logan following. To me he was the biggest threat, so he needed to be dealt with first. Logan changed direction and ran around to the other side of the clearing, blocking them in, and we burst into the clearing.
We were greeted by the sight of a huge black wolf with a short blonde girl standing with her back to us, facing Logan. For a split second I thought it was Jeremy facing us because I only registered the same black fur, but then I saw the green eyes flicking between my dad and I, coming to rest on dad, apparently having dismissed me as a minor threat. My fur bristled and I got ready to leap at him when I was distracted by a very loud shout and skidded to a stop. I wasn't concentrating enough to make out what the girl had shouted, but Logan had stopped too, growling at her. I listened more carefully to what the girl was saying.
"Please stop. We're two of the people meant to come today, but we arrived a bit early and Derek needed to Change. We didn't mean to startle you, we just -"
Logan lunged for her and she dropped without any hesitation and dove out of the way, screaming, "Now!"
Logan twisted in midair and hunkered down, about to leap at her again, and I saw the mutt crouch down, facing Logan and clearly planning on attacking him if he leaped. I reacted without thinking and raced forward to jump onto the mutt's back when I saw a big branch lift up and swing towards Logan, smashing against his face and making him drop to the ground mid flight. I didn't stop to consider what might happen if I attacked her, just changed course and jumped on the girl instead, certain she was the reason the branch had hit my brother.
We both went down and I felt her twist underneath me, bringing her knee up and slamming it against the sensitive bit right under my ribcage and I felt all the air whoosh out of me, followed by a blinding pain coming from the base of my skull before everything went dark.
...
Logan
I leaped for the girl in front of me again, annoyed about missing the first time, when a branch came at me out of nowhere and hit me square in the face, cracking in half from the force it had hit me with. I slitted my eyes against the splinters that rained down around me, and I could barely make out Kate jumping on the girl from behind through the pain radiating from my snout.
When I saw one of the halves of branch lift up again I tried to get out some sort of a warning, but Kate didn't hear me. It hit her on the back of the head just after the girl kneed her and she collapsed. The girl crawled out from under her and scrambled to her feet, shouting something as she did so.
I vaguely registered another two figures racing into the clearing, but I was too focused on getting to Kate to notice much more. I crawled forwards until I reached her, then kept nudging her with my shoulder until she stirred, my snout too painful to use. Her eyes opened slowly and she looked up at me with a kind of unfocused and confused look, so I kept nudging her until she sat up a little more and shook her head. She winced, presumably from the pain from the blow to her head, and I propped her up, careful to avoid bumping anything with my snout.
I turned my head to look at what was going on and saw dad standing with his back to us, facing off with the mutt and three others standing behind him. Dad was clearly protecting us, and it seemed like the mutt was doing the same for the people behind him.
There was a boy glaring at dad and holding up his hands, fingers splayed as little sparks shot from the tips, with a tall girl standing next to him casually with an arrogant tilt to her chin. I guessed she was the witch. Standing slightly in front of them was the girl who'd hit both Kate and I with the branch, which was still hovering beside her.
I stood up and walked over to stand next to dad, hearing Kate do the same thing. The mutt growled and took a step back, but the smaller girl walked forwards, hands held out.
"Let's try this again, preferably without fighting this time because that clearly won't go well for us."
Both the sorcerer and the witch turned to her with disbelieving expressions, as if she were giving away a huge secret, but she didn't seem to notice them and continued.
"I'm Chloe, a necromancer, and the person who hit you with that branch is my friend Liz. She was a telekinetic half demon so she's now my personal poltergeist. The other girl is Tori, a witch, and the wolf is my boyfriend Derek. The guy is Simon, a sorcerer who is now going to lower his hands."
She shot him a pointed look and he reluctantly did as she'd instructed, the sparks stopping.
"We came a little early and we were going to wait at the bottom of the drive until Sean told you about the situation so we wouldn't surprise you, only Derek was feeling a bit anxious and needed to Change. It honestly wasn't meant as a threat. Please can we go up to the house?"
Dad growled and bared his teeth at her, a clear no, so she backtracked quickly.
"Sorry, should we wait here while you Change back?"
Dad took a step back and her face relaxed into a smile. "Ok, we'll see you in a bit then. Derek will Change back too."
...
When we got back they were waiting in the clearing as promised, now with a big guy instead of a big wolf. He was over six foot tall and was hunched over slightly, one of his hands linked with one of Chloe's, who stood next to him, the branch lying abandoned a few feet away from them. I eyed it warily - at least when Liz had been holding it I'd known where she was, whereas now she could easily sneak up on any of us and hit us with something else.
Simon was standing next to them, smiling at us tentatively with his hands shoved in his pockets, looking a lot friendlier than before. The same couldn't be said for Tori, who stood a short distance away from the others, leaning against a tree with a slight scowl. I wasn't sure why, but something about her annoyed me. A lot.
They all relaxed a bit when they saw Sean walking behind us, and he hurried over to join them.
...
Kate
Sean was saying something and from the tone it seemed like he was trying to explain something, though I wasn't really paying attention. I couldn't take my eyes off the cute blond guy - Simon. He met my eyes and grinned, the smile lighting up his face and reaching his eyes. I'd met so many guys who'd thought a twist of the lips with no emotion behind it passed for a smile, and I'd thought them all stupid. Now I'd met one who seemed to share my opinion and smiled properly, which I liked.
I noticed with a little shock that I no longer seemed to dislike any of the group, and that I didn't think of them as threats either, just people I didn't know very well. I looked over at Logan and could easily tell he didn't feel the same way. He was standing in a vaguely defensive position and his eyes kept sweeping over them as if to check they weren't showing any signs that they might attack.
I resisted the urge to laugh - usually it was the other way round. Until now Logan had almost always been willing to at least give strangers a chance, while I'd always stood next to him watching the person's every move in case they decided to try something.
I looked back at Simon and saw that he'd been watching me too. He looked away quickly when he saw that I'd noticed, his cheeks going a little pink. I pulled the elastic band out of my hair, letting it tumble freely over my shoulders and down my back, running a hand through it. I turned my face the other way, letting my hair shield it so I could watch him from the corner of my eye unnoticed, and he looked at me again with a strange expression on his face. I decided I was going to have fun this month after all and was smiling to myself when everyone froze.
...
Logan
Kate seemed to be mellowing towards the others, even smiling at one of them, and I couldn't help feeling slightly bewildered. Even when I'd played nice and given strangers a chance it'd been nice to know that Kate would be there to voice everything I'd been thinking and to back me up if I decided I didn't like someone. This was the first time the roles were reversed and I didn't like it.
She reached up and took down her hair, something she always did when she wanted to seem less intimidating. I willed her to put it back up - they were still the enemy, the strangers we couldn't trust, and not having my sister on my side felt wrong.
I shook my head a little and turned my attention back to what Sean was saying.
"The reason I wanted Derek to stay here for a while is that I wanted him to have the opportunity to learn more about his werewolf side, especially because I doubt any cabals would want to employ him due to their," he paused to find the right word. "Aversion to werewolves. However, there's something else I didn't mention to you on the phone. They were all subjects in an experiment run by the St Cloud cabal in which they tried to manipulate the genes of supernaturals to reduce the side effects of having supernatural powers. They succeeded, so while they escaped they are still genetically modified supernaturals, meaning they're a little different to most."
Everyone, including me, froze as we processed what Sean had said. Genetically modified supernaturals? I recoiled a little without thinking, but immediately felt bad about it when I saw Chloe nod to herself sadly, as if we'd just confirmed something for her.
Tori turned on Sean with a horrified look. "Sean! What the hell? You didn't tell them?"