The knock on his door was what woke Nate the next morning. He practically jumped from his bed, stumbling over to the door and opening it. The look he gave whoever it was on the other side of the door was one that would have certainly inspired ill feelings if it hadn’t have been Lucy.

‘Oh Nate, get that look off of your face, it’s almost nine in the morning,’ Lucy announced, walking straight past Nate and taking a seat at his desk like she owned the place. She sat with one leg crossed over the other at the knee, one arm lazing over the back of the chair.

Nate stood at the still open door, rolling his eyes.

‘Quit that, shut the door,’ somehow even a command seemed like a joyous statement coming from Lucy’s pink lips.

Nate shut the door, as per her command, the painted wood locking back into place.

‘Why are you in my room, it’s basically still night time,’ Nate said walking over to his closet and throwing on a shirt. He wondered for a second if he had made his friend uncomfortable by opening the door in just his boxers, but then threw the worry out the window when he remembered the way she barged into his room, uninvited.

Once the shirt was over his head he sat down on the bed, facing Lucy.

‘Why weren’t you at dinner last night?’ she asked.

‘No reason.’

Lucy rolled her eyes, ‘That’s a lie. Now, tell me the truth.’

‘Tye and Jace were being idiots in the gym and I had to deal with the broken window and after that I didn’t feel like leaving my room.’

‘They told me about that last night,’ Lucy admitted, ‘but you know how they can be,’ she said, as if brushing the whole incident off.

‘They were awful to the poor guy,’ Nate told her, images of green eyes on the ground flashing in his mind. Nate thought about his encounter with the green eyed boy. The kid had basically refused any help from him, and yet Nate wished that he could help him. He didn’t know whether it was because he was Hunter’s brother or what, but he felt like he wanted to help him.

‘Nate, they are two Alpha’s meeting another Alpha male for the first time, of course they are going to try to prove their superiority. It’s how they work, it’s how you should work too.’

‘I don’t feel like punching people just so they know I’m superior,’ Nate said.

Lucy laughed, ‘I know, but that’s not how all Alpha’s act. Most of them are insecure, especially in a place like this, other Alpha’s around every corner.’

‘That’s no excuse for how they acted.’

Lucy nodded, ‘I know, but they aren’t going to change anytime soon, and we have stuff to do today, so go put actual clothes on.’

Nate groaned, ‘Fine. I guess I have that mentor meeting this morning anyway.’

‘Yes you do,’ Lucy told him, standing, ‘As do I.’

‘Bye Luce,’ Nate ushered her out, ‘I’ll see you this afternoon.’

Lucy obliged, walking towards the door.

‘Wait,’ and Lucy paused in her steps.

‘Yes?’ She turned her head, her body still facing the door.

‘What time is the mentor meeting?’

Lucy smirked, ‘About five minutes, you might want to put some pants on.’  

He was running late as he entered the library, frazzled and messily dressed, a hand running through his hair to tidy it up as he walked into the grand room. The library was filled with books, unsurprisingly. It covered three floors, shelves pressed up against the walls and around the main room like dominos, standing tall and straight, equal distance from each other.

In the centre of the room were the tables, long tables made of hard, dark wood with chairs to match. Those tables were where he was supposed to meet his mentee, as well as their partners. The piece of paper held in his hand stated that at nine he was to meet these other three people at the tables and have the first of five meetings where the two final years would assist the younger ones in whatever they needed.

There were four names on his paper,

Brody, Nate – Mentors

Lucas, Annie – Mentees

He found one table that only had three people sitting at it, and he felt awfully embarrassed to be late to their first meeting.

The other tables were all full with four people, everyone talking adamantly about anything and everything.

His table however was silent. The two people who were facing so that he could see them were obviously the mentees, the girl and boy looking way too young to be anything but. The boy was tall for his age, he could see that even as he was sitting at the table. He looked like he was sure that he had himself at the same age, excited and nervous, getting the first taste of what was to come over the next years, and the girl looked about the same, her blonde hair in a tight bun and her eyes focussed on the person across the table, listening intently to his words.

That person, however, Nate could not see as he hurried towards them.

He sat down in a hurry, pulling out his chair and plumping down on the seat with a sigh of relief. The three other people at the table looked at him and Nate was quite taken aback to see that the person who sat next to him was in fact, green eyes.

Brody, he supposed, his name was Brody.

‘Hi,’ Nate said, the word spilling from his mouth as he stared into those emerald orbs.

‘Uh, hi,’ green ey-Brody said, the word quiet and somewhat embarrassed.

‘I feel like we are missing something?’ Annie said, and Nate tore his gaze from Brody to see that Annie was now leaning forward, looking at the pair through curious eyes.

‘Mm me too, are you two like, friends?’ Lucas asked carefully.

Brody shook his head, ‘No, we aren’t anything.’

Nate didn’t know why, but Brody’s muttering had more of an effect on him than he had hoped. He felt like moping for a second, but then he remembered why they were there, the role they were yet to play.

‘I’m Nate,’ Nate nodded at the two who faced him.

‘We know who you are,’ Annie admitted with a small smile, her cheeks reddening in just the slightest.

‘Yeah, of course we know you! You’re practically famous around here,’ Lucas told him.

Nate heard Brody make a sound of annoyance at their comments, and he turned his head to see what his problem was, but Brody’s expression had already converted back to neutral.

‘Well, I just hope that I, well, we can make this first camp a good experience for the both of you,’ Nate told them.

‘What’s it like having a council member as a father?’ Annie asked, expecting the answer to be something inspiring and wonderful, but little did she know that it wasn’t much fun at all.

‘Yeah,’ Lucas agreed, ‘Is it cool?’

Brody huffed next to him, ‘I don’t think that these questions are going to help you learn to be Alpha’s’

Nate shrugged, ‘They are just curious.’

‘Perhaps we should talk about what makes a real leader, read some werewolf history books?’ Brody offered and Nate smiled slightly at his hopefulness. Kids like this didn’t care for history, they wanted to explore and have fun.

Annie and Lucas shared a look of mock horror, and Nate jumped in, ‘Or maybe we can explore the camp grounds together, walk around and talk and find some food?’

That caused the two fifteen year olds to smile, ‘Yes.’ They approved, their voices ringing out in harmony.

Nate watched Brody in the corner of his eye, trying to gage his expression. He hoped that he had not offended him with the alterative offer. He wasn’t too surprised to see the expression which he held. Brody was biting at his plump bottom lip with his top teeth, as if he was trying to hold in what he wanted to say. His eyes were hard, and Nate could see that he wasn’t exactly pleased with the turn of events.   

Nate wondered how someone could look so cute while being annoyed.

It took a few moments for the thought to catch up to him and he stilled in his movements, running the thought over in his mind. Why did he think that?

‘Fine. Let’s go,’ Brody stood up quickly, the two younger ones following suit.

‘Are you coming Nate?’ Lucas asked, tilting his head slightly as he watched Nate, who was the only one still sitting.

Nate pushed away his confusing thoughts and stood with a smile, ‘Yep.’

The four of them left the library, ‘Where do you want to go first?’ Nate asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Annie admitted, ‘This place is so big and confusing, I will probably get lost just finding my own room again tonight.’

‘Well, there’s a pond if we head that way,’ Nate pointed past the buildings to where a group of trees were.

‘Let’s go there,’ Lucas said, already heading in the direction where Nate had pointed to before. Nate ran up to meet Lucas, matching him stride for stride.

Annie was close behind them, walking side by side with Brody who was telling her random facts about werewolf history.

‘You know,’ Brody was saying, ‘There originally used to be more council members, one from each state actually.’

‘Why did it change?’

‘Well,’ Nate could hear in Brody’s voice that he was happy that she actually wanted to learn, even if it was just one fact, ‘some states had much larger packs than others, and so the council members weren’t really equally representing the werepeople.’

‘Is that why it’s the leaders of the biggest packs?’

‘Yes,’ Brody confirmed, ‘They figured that the council would be able to represent the majority of the people that way, and so now one person from each pack reports to the council member closest to them, and that way all worries and issues are heard from all packs.’

‘That’s actually really interesting,’ Annie told him.

Nate could almost sense Brody’s smug grin from behind him.   

Nate smiled at Brody’s solid attempt to teach the newbies, even though he was a newbie himself. Nate listened to what he was saying to Annie and was pleasantly surprised to hear that Brody actually knew what he was talking about.

The things he was saying were what he had been taught in camp over the past few years, and yet Brody had probably never left his home town. How did he know all of this stuff?

They walked through the trees and found the small pond. It was a place that not many people went to, and Nate had always thought of it as his own private sanctuary when he came. He would usually sit by the water, his toes dipped into the warm, clear water as he just thought about life. He would imagine his mate, his future and everything in between while he sat on the grass, his toes wiggling in the warm water.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Annie smiled at Nate, obviously appreciative that he had shown her this place.

‘There’s fish in there!’ Lucas suddenly proclaimed and Annie rushed over to him.

The two of them ran right up to the waters edge, kneeling into the grass and leaning over.

‘Don’t fall in!’ Brody exclaimed, but the two ignored his worry filled words of warning.

‘They will be fine,’ Nate said as he came to stand next to Brody, ‘Let them have their fun.’

Brody rolled his eyes, ‘Not everything is a game.’

‘No,’ Nate agreed, ‘But some things are meant to be fun,’ he looked over to them both, the almost childlike look of wonder on their faces as they watched the fish swim by.

Brody didn’t say anything, but Nate observed how his face softened when he actually took a moment to realise that Annie and Lucas were actually having fun.

Nate took a few steps towards the water and sat down, his legs lying flat against the warm grass as he patted the ground next to him.

Brody plopped down in the spot a few seconds later, leaning back on his hands and crossing his legs.

‘How did you know those facts that you were telling Annie?’ Nate asked casually.

Brody shrugged, ‘Hunter used to bring home books from camp, and I used to read them, knowing that he never would.’

Nate knew that they were on dangerous ground, talking of Hunter, but he did wonder how Brody was handling taking his brother’s place, not that he felt comfortable to really ask.

‘Hunter never was much for book learning,’ Nate admitted.

‘Did you actually know my brother?’ Brody asked, somewhat timidly.

‘Yes, we were quite close last year,’ Nate admitted, ‘I was very sorry to hear about what happened.’

‘Me too,’ Brody cast his eyes down to the green grass, ‘me too.’

Nate waited a few moments, ‘You have quite a few tattoo’s, do they all have meanings?’

‘Yes,’ Brody admitted, divulging no more information.

‘Hunter had a tattoo, didn’t he?’ Nate asked, remembering the ink on Hunter’s back he had caught glances of from time to time.

‘Yeah, the same as this one,’ Brody pulled at the neck of his shirt, revealing a small list of names that ran from the base of his neck to his collar bone in flowing, fancy writing in bold ink. The names were inside of the rest of his tattoo which Nate couldn’t make out from just the top of it, but the names in the gap were clearly readable.

It read;

Paul

Jane

Hunter

‘Are they your family?’ Nate asked, his eyes caressing the names.

‘My mom, dad and brother,’ he explained, ‘Hunter and I got them together, but his was on his back and had my name at the bottom.’

‘Family must mean a lot to you.’

‘Everything. The pack is my family, we are small, as you know, and every person is a part of my family.’

‘That must be nice, I don’t know the names of most of my pack members,’ Nate admitted.

They heard a splash and looked up to see that Annie and Lucas were splashing water at each other.

‘You know, these guys are going to be taught a lot these few weeks by the camp teachers, so maybe we should just have fun with them.’

Brody looked unimpressed, ‘They are future pack leaders, just like us, they need to be preparing, not having fun.’

‘They are fifteen, they are allowed to have fun,’ Nate objected.

‘I know that you don’t take your responsibilities seriously, but I do, and so I’m going to actually try and teach them,’ Brody stood up in sudden irritation, an annoyed expression on his lips.

‘Teach them what exactly?’ Nate taunted, standing up too, coming to stand face to face with him, meeting those emerald eyes, but this time he wasn’t captured by them, he was just angry. Brody wasn’t listening to him, Brody was acting like he was better than him. ‘Maybe you should listen to my ideas, seeing as I am an actual first born Alpha!’

Brody looked like Nate had just punched him in the stomach, and he stepped back, obviously shocked and hurt at what Nate had implied.

Nate’s hard expression softened immediately when he realised what he had said, ‘I’m sorry, It just slipped out, I’m so-‘

Brody looked Nate dead in the eyes, and Nate’s heart broke a little as he noticed the tears welling in those big emerald eyes. Brody spoke in a hurt voice, ‘Don’t even bother, I know what you meant.’  

Nate’s mouth gaped open and he had no idea what to do, ‘No, I didn’t mean it like that, I-‘ He stood in shock as Brody turned on his heels and disappeared into the tree line, heading back towards the main buildings. The sentence went unfinished and Nate just stood, watching where Brody had disappeared into the trees.

Nate felt terrible at what he had said. He should have never implied that Brody wasn’t a real Alpha because he was second born, he should have never implied that Hunter was better than Brody. He didn’t say it out loud, but he knew that was what Brody would have thought. Hunter was the first born, and Brody wasn’t and it made Nate’s heart ache inside of his chest.

Nate was abruptly aware of the two people who were now standing next to him. 

‘Where’s Brody?’ Annie asked.

‘Why did he leave?’ Lucas asked at the same time.

‘We-Uh-We just had a little disagreement,’ Nate divulged, ‘Look, let me take you two back to the rooms or something.’

‘But we only just got here,’ Annie huffed, her eyes travelling back over the lake for a few moments, obviously not wanting to leave.

‘We can come back next week,’ Nate assured, ‘let’s go.’

Annie and Lucas nodded, following Nate back towards the trees and towards the main buildings.  

Nate left the two of them at the lobby of the accommodation building, sulking slightly as he walked into the garden. He sat down on one of the benches, putting his head in his hands.

Why had he said that? Why did his Alpha, dominating side have to come out in that moment? He sat up straight, looking out over the gardens and watching as the colourful flowers swayed in the wind.

Nate couldn’t explain it, but he felt eyes on him and he looked up at the accommodation building to see a figure standing at one of the windows. He couldn’t make out his face, but he could see the tattoos which stood out against the pale skin of his arm which was illuminated by the way that the light hit the window.

It was Brody, he realised and he imagined those emerald orbs being filled with unshed tears like they were by the pond earlier and another wave of guilt washed over Nate. The shades were then drawn and he suddenly felt all alone in this big, beautiful garden. He felt like a monster for what he had said, and he could imagine himself crushing those pretty flowers under his feet, hurting them like he had hurt Brody, and the thought made him sick, like an evil feeling in the pit of his stomach and he vowed to never be the reason those eyes filled with tears ever again.