Kade's POV

I walked into English class the next day, noticing how the three people I usually sit next to are staring at me as I sit on the opposite side of the classroom. After I get out my notebook and start scribbling along the white page, a hand comes down on my shoulder, making me jump back in surprise as I look up to see a beautiful African American girl and I realize that it's Tyler, the girl who's my partner for the dance routine that I had gotten lead for.

"Oh, hey, Tyler, what's up?" I ask, looking back down as my pen makes random lines on the paper and I can still feel the stares from the people across the room. My palms start to sweat as the feeling of being watched catches up to me and I have to run my hands down my joggers to get rid of the sticky feeling.

"I was wondering if I could sit with you? I don't have too many friends in this class and since you're sitting alone, I assumed that we could get to know each other since we're dance partners and all," she says to me I guess that wasn't a bad idea even though I didn't really feel like talking to anyone at all.

"Oh, yeah, go ahead. Rather you sit here than some random person I've never seen before," I tell her, moving my bag so she has more room to sit. She sits down, pulling out a light blue notebook before looking over at me and I notice the slightly confused look on her face.

"If you don't mind me asking, why're you sitting alone? You and Joey always seemed so inseparable," she asks and I have to hold in a sigh because I knew that someone would ask before lunchtime. I continue my scribbling on my paper as I try to think of what I should tell her because I don't know if he was telling anyone from the pack or not.

"Let's just say that there's some stuff going on between Joey and I that's a little personal," I tell her, wondering if she was a wolf because everyone at school knew that we were together, so just because she knew doesn't mean she automatically was a wolf. I had never seen her around the pack, but that might be related to the fact that I barely ever left the quarter house.

She leans in closer to me to whisper so no one else around heard. "Is it, like, pack stuff that we should be worried about? We all know about the rogue pack because of the meeting, but is there something else we should be worried about?"

Yep, she's a wolf. "No, nothing having to do with the pack, don't worry about that. It's just more personal stuff having to deal with my family that I don't really feel like talking about."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she tells me as the teacher walks in and that was the last thing she said to me in first block since we had a lot of learning to do before finals in a few weeks.

As I was walking to second block, I felt like everyone was staring at me even though I knew they weren't because Joey definitely hadn't told anyone by Tyler's reaction when I answered her question. When I was a few feet away from my next class, I was pulled by the arm into an empty classroom that seemed like the teacher had just stepped away for a few moments and would be back any second with how the computer was still bright.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Melissa asks me, slapping me on the arm and I notice the worried look on her face; whether it was for Joey or me, I had no clue. My headache suddenly got worse as she cornered me in the small room and I genuinely just wanted to run home and never look back.

"Melissa, let's not do this now," I tell her as I try to walk away, but am pulled back in front of her by her strong muscles. When I look at her face again, she looks super confused like she has no idea who I even was at this point, and right now, I don't even know who I exactly was and it was the scariest thing I've ever had to deal with.

"Kade, what's going on? You wouldn't just break up with Joey out of your free will, we all know you better than that," she tells me, reaching out to hold my hand as she begs me to tell her what's going on.

"Trust me, it's already too much for me handle. You don't want to have to deal with all of this," I tell her, starting to feel my eyes burn with salty tears.

She squeezes my hand. "Kade, you can talk to me."

"I can't talk to anyone because this isn't something that I could've controlled," I tell her and she gives me another confused look as she takes a step closer to me to try and give me some silent comfort because I know that if she was to actually comfort me, she would feel like she was betraying Joey who probably asked her to do this.

"Just tell me why," she desperately asked.

The tears are desperately trying to come out and I have to tilt my head up to keep them inside my eyes. "Melissa, please, I'm about to cry and I really, really can't do that right now. Not right here."

She backs away from me as I walk out of the empty classroom to the actual room that I was supposed to be in. I have to rub my hands together to distract myself from crying in front of a bunch of strangers that I've never even noticed are in this class before since I'm usually too invested in my school work or thinking about Joey or something.

After dance is over, I start to walk through the parking lot as I pull out my keys so I can get out of here as fast as I can. I can hear someone's footsteps behind me as I'm a few feet away from my car. A hand comes down on my shoulder and I jump back from whoever it is because I wasn't prepared for anything right now.

When I look at who it was, I see Tyler standing back with her hands up along with a confused look on her face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you!"

I chuckle, pressing my hand against my chest as I open my car to throw my bag in the back before walking back to the front of my car where she's leaning against it. "Hey, how are you? I know I seemed a bit lost while we were practicing for our routine, so I'm sorry for that."

She shakes her head, crossing her arms. "No, don't worry about it. You must have a lot on your plate right now, so I completely understand."

"So people know now?" I ask, noticing how she seems to know a bit more than what I told her this morning. She glances at me worriedly before letting out a long sigh, reaching out to set her hand on my shoulder to give me some silent support.

"I don't know how people know, but someone must've heard Joey talking to Melissa or Cody because now the whole pack is saying that you broke up with him because you're having problems at home and it's just a huge thing when it's no one else's business, except for you and him," she tells me.

I shake my head. "We're the alphas of the pack, I don't really feel like anything is just our business anymore. I mean, I understand why, but everything that Joey and I have done has been discussed by at least one person in the house or someone in the pack."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I've just always believed that everyone should just leave you two alone because if it doesn't directly relate to the pack, then it's not our problem," she tells me with a sigh as she crosses her legs while leaning on the hood of my car.

"Well, I wish everyone agreed with you," I say before looking at her with a confused look. "I'm sorry, but I've never seen you around the pack or in the courtyard at all. Why's that?"

She blushes a little, running her hands up-and-down her jeans. "Oh, my family and I just transferred to the White Water Pack this year because my dad got in a bit of trouble with fighting at my old pack. We were told to come here, so I'm still new and haven't really had too much time to make friends within the pack and whatnot."

"Why not?"

"I try to focus a lot on my schoolwork and since I got the lead role in the dance routine with you, I've been practicing so much because I feel like I gotta bring my all to stay up with you," she says with a small giggle.

I chuckle. "Well, don't get too nervous. If you ever need me to slow down, then go ahead and tell me to. I would be more than happy to practice with you out of dance and it would probably help us even more in the end."

"Yeah, sure, that sounds good. I think that would be great," she tells me.

I look around, knowing that if I just went home now that I would just have to either deal with my father's persistence of trying to figure out what had happened between Joey and I or I would end up just going up to my room and falling asleep. "Well, if you wanna do it now, we could go to your house and practice."

Tyler looks surprised, checking her watch for the time. "Uh, yeah, that would be great. My dad's actually supposed to be getting off of work soon to come pick me up, but if you wouldn't mind just you taking me so he doesn't have to rush, that would be better."

I nod my head. "Oh, yeah, that's perfectly fine. Get on in."

We both get in my car and I pull out of the parking lot to make my way to the... pack house. Holy shit, how did I not even think of this? I'll have to pass the quarter house while on my way to Tyler's house and I feel like if someone in the pack was to see me that Joey would hear about it instantly. I clear my throat, starting to become super nervous about what was about to happen. I run through my mind, just trying to distract myself from Joey and everything else having to do with that whole situation.

"So is Emilie your sister? I see you two walk into school at the same time most days," Tyler asks me.

"Oh, yeah, she's my sister. You know her?"

"Yeah," she says in an excited voice. "we're actually in the same art class. We got assigned to create an abstract piece based off a picture of our choosing and she is such an amazing artist, like it's unbelievable."

"She's an amazing artist. When she was little, I bought her a canvas one day and she created this very beautiful portrait of my mom for her middle school art class and was entered into a contest and won first place. My mom decided to put her in more art classes and ever since then, she's been flourishing with it," I tell her, remembering the canvas that won her first contest that's now hanging up in our living room for everyone to see when they walk in.

"I would love to see that to see how her style has changed since then," she tells me.

"I'll find a picture of it and show it to you," I tell her as I turn onto the dirt road that lead to the gate to enter the pack and I start to realize that I'll have to see the guards that I usually see everyday to go to the quarter house. I mentally start to freak out as I open my window to talk to them while Tyler gets her bag to pull something out.

"Hello, Kade, how're you doing?" Nicole, one of the best guards, says to me when I pull in next to her.

"Hey," I tell her and Tyler touches my arm to get my attention to hand me some card that I hand to to Nicole and I see the confused look on her face as she probably assumed that I would be going to see Joey who must've not had football practice today since I didn't see anyone on the field after school.

"Tyler Bennett?" Nicole asks as she writes something on the clipboard before handing the card back to me as I give it back to the girl who sits in my passenger seat. The gate opens as the rest of the guard wave at me as I drive through the opening. As I get down the road, I see the huge quarter house sitting on the left side of the road while a bunch of other houses line up on both sides of the road on the right.

I ignore the house that I usually park at to go down the road I've never even been down before to wait for instructions from Tyler of where to go. She points to a cute, light brown house that sits on the right side of the road with a huge front yard with a tree sitting in the front yard as it looms over the house. I park in the driveway that already has a car sitting in it that seems to be a old car that must've been restored by someone in the house.

"This is cute," I tell her as get out. I admire the house with it's wooden door matched with the wooden floor of the porch that has two wicker chairs sitting along with a table that has some cards spread out on top of it. Tyler guides me into the house where she unlocks the door with some keys before we go in. As soon as we walk in, I'm bombarded by very sugary scents that make the entire place feel very homey.

When we walk in, we walk through a tiny hallway to come into what I assume is the living room by the two couches along with a TV sitting in front of it. There's pictures sat on top of a bookcase that show a very nice looking couple at various locations. One of the picture frames says London on the bottom with a double-decker bus decoration on the side as the picture shows the couple in front of Big Ben.

The lady in the pictures, who I assume is Tyler's mother, is a beautiful woman with dark hair that looks to be dyed blonde in a few of the pictures. I notice a picture that's of her with an older looking couple at her side and on the bottom says Nana & Papa to whom I assume is Tyler's grandparents. I'm brought back to real life when the same woman in the pictures walks into the room with a cloth in her hands as she dries them.

"Oh, I didn't know we were having company," Tyler's mother says and I immediately notice the accent she holds in her voice and it's beautiful.

"Hi, I'm Kade, you must be Mrs. Bennett," I tell her, reaching out to shake her hand.

"Oh, please, call me Imara," she tells me as she reaches out to shake my hand as Tyler sets her bag down next to the couch before coming over to us. I notice the way Imara is giving me a look like she was trying to figure out who I was.

"Nice to meet you," I tell her, retracting my hand to hold it next to my side.

"Same to you. The name Kade sounds familiar, have we met before?" Imara asks, taking a step back to look over me as she crosses her arms over her chest as she slings the cloth that she held in her hand over her shoulder.

Tyler clears her throat. "He's the alpha, Mama."

Imara's face clears of all confusion as she nods her head, giving me an even softer smile. "I apologize, Alpha, it's so lovely to have you in my home. I'm sorry for the mess, I was in the process of cleaning."

I shake my head, holding my hands out in apology. "No, it's totally fine and you can call me Kade, 'Alpha' is way too formal for me. Your home is lovely, I love what you've done with the place."

"Well, thank you. We're still in the process of getting comfortable since we moved here and some of our items have gotten lost in the shipment, so we're having some trouble tracking them down," she tells me.

"Where did you move from, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Kenya," Imara says and I realize how much I didn't understand when Tyler told me that she was new here because she was genuinely new to the U.S. from what I was understanding.

Tyler notices my surprise and sets her hand on my shoulder with a giggle. "Sorry, I should've mentioned that. My mom got her green card a few months ago to come to the United States because she was married to a U.S. Citizen, so we decided that it would be best to come here."

I look at Tyler. "Were you born in Kenya?"

Imara shakes her head. "No, my Tyler was born in Ohio where my husband is from, but when my mama got sick back in 1998, we decided to go to my home to help take care of her. She unfortunately passed about two years ago and she was the only family member we had over there, so my husband suggested we come here where we could experience more of the pack life since it was forbidden to shift into a werewolf where I'm from."

"I'm so sorry to hear about your mother," I tell her, reaching out to set my hand on her arm before giving her a confused look at her last statement. "also, they can ban shifting? I didn't know that was allowed."

"It's very different over there, you can get a fine from an elder if you shift. Werewolves weren't something we were allowed to openly talk about and we had to hide it the entire time we were there, so this is completely different for us. I'm just happy that my daughter is able to experience this life because this is definitely how it should be everywhere."

I try to find any way to figure out if she was a wolf, but realize that there's no telltale signs to figure it out. "If you don't mind me asking, are you a wolf?"

Imara shakes her head. "No, my husband is though and that's how I figured all of this out. When I found out that we were 'mates' as he says, it was a genuine shock to me, but I feel like it's easier to know that you had found the person that you were destined to spend the rest of your life with."

I notice the look Tyler gives me as flashes of the night that Joey told me that he was a wolf runs through my mind. I remember how he shifted into his beautiful wolf and how happy he was when I told him that I accepted him and now... here I was, telling him that I wasn't interested in moving forward with the relationship just because my dad made me make a very selfish choice to help protect him, not me.

"Mama, we're going to go practice our dance routine," Tyler says, grabbing my hand to pull me up to an empty room with a bunch of mirrors hung up and I assumed that this was an extra room that they used for her to use to practice dancing and I was jealous of how big it was.

After practicing for a few hours and eating dinner with Imara and Tyler while her father was stuck on a work trip, I made my way home to ignore my mom and dad who had fallen asleep on the couch while Emilie seemed to be in her room by the music playing inside of it. I just make my way to my room to take a shower and go to sleep because I know if I continue to think about Joey that everything will get so much worse.