Sarah POV
After lunch, they walked back towards the gym.
"Heads up, Will. Keep it together," she warned. He looked at her like she was crazy until he
bumped into Gwen Grayson and completely forgot her advice.
She looked at Layla, seeing her friend's heartbroken face. It was glaringly obvious, to everyone
but Will.
"I'm-" he stammered.
"-Will Stronghold," the pink monstrosity said, smiling innocently.
"Aha! Mind reader!"
"No. Name tag."
"Right. Uh…" Sarah sighed as he looked around grasping for something intelligent to say.
"I'm Sarah."
"Right," he said, shooting her a grateful look. "These are my friends. That's Zach."
"What's up?"
"And…"
"Layla. Got it," she said dismissively, causing Sarah to bite back a growl. "I'm Gwen."
"Hi," Layla said shyly.
"I love your skirt."
"Th-thanks," Layla stammered.
The preppy girl immediately turned back to Will, clearly ignoring Layla.
"How's Power Placement going?"
Sarah slapped Will before he could lie about it going great and whispered into his ear, "If she
likes you for you, you won't need to be a Hero to impress her."
Gwen was glaring at her, but Sarah was more focused on another pair of eyes looking at the
scene. Wren was staring at Will, jealousy and almost hatred in his eyes.
She caught his eye and rolled hers, pulling back from Will all the same. Will did not need a
jealous werewolf on top of his soon-to-be troubles.
"Come on, we're going to be late for the rest of Power Placement," Sarah said, dragging Will by
the arm before letting go as he and the rest of the friends followed. Sarah almost shivered at the
glare that her power showed Gwen staring at her back. She would have to be careful around
that one.
"Will. Be careful with Gwen. She's glaring at me something fierce."
He went to protest, but she cut him off. "Just…don't let her separate you from us."
"That won't happen. I promise," he said earnestly.
Sarah really hoped he would keep his word.
She slowed down a bit, allowing her friends to pull ahead of her and for Wren to catch up.
"Jealous much?" she asked, causing him to stammer.
"Relax. Will and I are just friends. He's like my brother," she reassured. "...a clueless little
brother," she mumbles, laughing when Wren scrunched his face.
"Layla really likes him but he doesn't see any of it. He has a crush on Gwen, but I get a bad
feeling from her. I just hope nothing goes wrong."
Wren put his hand on her shoulder, causing her to freeze before relaxing. She patted his hand,
continuing to the gym. He quickly caught up to her and they entered the gym together.
Zach gave her a questioning look and glared at Wren, who started to growl lowly. Sarah slapped
him gently.
"Behave."
"Whatever do you mean?" he said, pretending to have no clue what she was talking about.
"Also a brother. In this case like an older one."
He stopped growling.
"How'd you know that mattered?" he said, bravely.
"Because I know jealousy when I see it, Moony."
She laughed at his disgusted expression at the nickname and sprinted to her friends, smiling
back at him as she stood.
The coach entered the room just then, and barked. "My boy! Why aren't you in line?"
"I got held up," Wren said, pointedly ignoring her chuckle.
Wren POV
She continued to surprise him. When he had seen her mouth about an inch from Stronghold's
ear, he had been ready to pulverize the kid then and there. When she grabbed the boy's arm,
Wren had nearly lunged at him.
His feelings had done a complete flip flop when she lagged back and somehow knew that he
was jealous and reassured him that Stronghold was just like a brother. Her muttered comment
had nearly made him laugh.
When she had relaxed with his hand on her shoulder, he wanted to scream to the world that she
was his. Only his fear of scaring her away held him back. Afterall, she didn't have any idea he
was a werewolf, probably. And even if she did, would she accept the concept of a mate? They
had just met. But she had sat with him at lunch and did not seem to mind his jealousy.
When they got to the gym and he saw Zach glaring at him, he was ready to snarl, but she again
noticed his feelings and reassured him, somehow knowing what he needed to hear. It seemed
Zach was feeling protective of his mate. The boy had no reason to protect Sarah from Wren, but
he had no way of knowing that.
He hurried to Warren, who shot him a questioning look. He mouthed, tell you later. Warren
nodded.
"Next up, Wren. Get up here boy!" his dad said in way too fond of a tone for the words to make it
seem as if they didn't know each other.
"Power up," he commanded.
Wren let out a snarl and his fingers elongated into claws, his teeth became sharp, and he shifted
to all fours as he turned into an ebony black wolf.
He perked his ears as he heard Sarah stop breathing. He was worried that she was scared
before he saw the look of awe in her eyes and her breathing started softly again.
His wolf wanted to howl with pride for evoking that reaction, but he stayed silent, instead looking
at his father. His father was looking at him with prideful tears, knowing the hours of work that
Wren had put into convincing his wolf to cooperate with him. Afterall, eating raw steak was
something he wouldn't do unless his wolf cooperated. But the bribery had become moot when
his wolf and he bonded. His wolf now liked him as a younger brother, and had even said he
didn't need to eat the steak anymore. Of course, he still ate more meat than most people. He
didn't want to starve his wolf afterall.
"Hero!" his dad said before gesturing for him to leave the stage. Wren shifted back into a
human, with his shirt and shorts, unfortunately, in tatters due to the transformation.
He ignored most of the girls ogling his muscular chest and was thankful that it was only the
bottom of his shorts that were ripped. He did however catch Sarah staring at him and winked at
her. She blushed! She blushed! He was so happy he could scream. But he controlled himself
and grabbed a shirt that was in his bag to change into. He could hear the barely audible sighs of
disappointment as his torso was no longer visible.
Whatever. Sarah hadn't sighed. He looked over and didn't even see any jealousy. No. What he
saw…was pride. Why was she so proud of him? She didn't know him. She wasn't even so
proud of her friends when they showed or didn't. She had no way of knowing how difficult it was
for him to befriend his wolf. He had already done so, so he seemed like a born werewolf.
He shook it off. She had no way of knowing his secret. And even if she did, she hadn't run away
screaming yet. Funny how the thought of her telling anyone never crossed his mind.