-Luis's POV-

The last few days have sucked pretty thoroughly.

My eighteenth birthday was supposed to be the start of something wonderful. I was supposed to have my soulmate revealed to me. My mother was ready to assist me in explaining the truths of our world, of me, to my mate if she was a human.

On April 22nd at 2:31 AM, I was struck with a longing that made it hard for me to breathe. I couldn't put a name or a face to it, but I was suddenly pulled from sleep by a piercing pain in my heart.

I immediately sought my mother. She was sleeping, of course.

"Mama," I whispered. I couldn't stop myself from tearing up. It was agonizing.

She had been expecting this and immediately sat up and switched on the lamp beside her bed.

"It hurts," I mumbled.

"Luis?" my dad asked, rolling over.

"It's okay, Jose. Go back to sleep," my mom said immediately. She rose to her feet and hugged me tightly. "I know it hurts, sweetie. What is your heart telling you? Where is she?"

"Not here," I say, flicking my gaze around the ceiling to indicate the pack house. "She's not a wolf."

"That's okay, baby. It happens all the time. Why don't we go make some hot chocolate or something? Help you get back to sleep?" she asked, looking up at me. Her brown eyes were warm and soft. Her curly black hair fell down her shoulders and back. It was then that I began worrying that I wouldn't be as good of an alpha as she is. She is incredible in her leadership and strength. Our entire pack looks up to her as much as I do.

How am I supposed to lead if I couldn't function with this pain?

I nodded numbly. My mom made me some hot chocolate, and I sat quietly at the counter of the enormous kitchen in the pack house as she told me the stories of my father, who was a human when they properly met.

"Luis, I was so scared. I was in pain and terrified. But I went to school the next day and saw him putting his things away in a locker. It was like I was seeing him for the first time. He smelled so good. Like cinnamon. Like a horchata," she told me with a smile. "I stopped in the hallway and he caught me staring. He smiled... he smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I asked him to come over with me and my dad sat him down and explained the whole thing. I showed him my wolf. He was freaked out and probably thought we were all insane, but he loved my wolf. He was covered in hair by the time he left that night. The next day, he came back. Humans don't have the same instincts we do, but they know love when they see it. We will handle this, Luis. We will make it."

At that point, Josiah yawned his way into the kitchen. My beta. I feel that sometimes the general members of the pack resent the betas for their treasured status because they don't lead in the way alphas do, but I know better. Josiah strengthens me. Lifts me up. He always defers to me in our trainings, always reminds the others that I am the one to listen to. He handles the disputes of the other young members of the pack while I plan runs and exercises. His father, Chris, is my mother's beta, and she often says that she wouldn't be sane without him. I feel the same way about Josiah.

"Find her?" Josiah asked tiredly, leaning on the counter. My focused, unendingly loyal beta, sacrificing his sleep because he probably heard me wake up in the adjoining room, or perhaps heard my mother's voice and figured out what was up.

I shook my head.

"Well, we have school in a couple of hours. We'll find her," Josiah said firmly. His eyes were somehow simultaneously tired and alert, and his short brown hair was messy.

I didn't sleep that night, but I pretended I did. Josiah and I headed for school about half an hour before we usually did. As I drove us through the winding mountain roads to West Lake High, I thanked him for his support.

He grinned and clapped me on the shoulder as he sipped coffee out of a travel mug. "I'm not just your beta, Luis. I'm your friend. Plus, I'm excited to meet her. I can't wait to meet the lady with the skills to keep your ass in check."

I smiled at the thought.

When we arrived at the school, I smelled it. Pine needles and a sweet undercurrent of chlorine. The scent was familiar, but this was the first time it had had this effect on me. The smell was so intoxicating, I almost fell against my car as I stared up at the school.

"She's here," I whispered.

"Hell yeah," Josiah said happily. He began running across the parking lot. I jogged after him, feeling foolish as my backpack thumped against my back. Normally I am cautious and careful as I move through the school. There are lots of members of the rival pack, Northwest Collective, here, and all of them would love to catch me off guard like this. My mom has been careful to cultivate a trusting alliance with the Northwest Collective and was in fact good friends with their alpha, but neither pack could truly control the territorialism and schoolyard fights of their teenage children. However, we were here much earlier than the rest of them.

I followed that delicious scent through the cafeteria and toward the library. Josiah had the good sense to grab my shoulder and stop me from barreling into the library. Instead, we peered through the glass door together.

There were two people in the library, both with their backs turned to us.

Josiah silently pushed open the door and caught me when I stumbled from the sheer force of that smell. I was very glad that I had followed Chris's muttered advice regarding the possibility of finding my mate at school and had opted for compression shorts over my underwear. The smell set my entire body on fire, including my dick. The compression shorts made me distinctly uncomfortable, but they concealed the bulge well.

I recognized one half of the pair. Serena Gladney. She's a member of our pack. I immediately disregarded her for a multitude of reasons, including her sexual preference and the fact that I hadn't smelled this scent when she was in the pack house last night.

The person sitting beside her was a man. My mind twisted in on itself in uncomprehending as I identified him.

Rowan Arti. The principal's son.

I watched the two of them laugh about something in Rowan's notebook. My heart swelled as I caught a glimpse of his beautiful smile as he looked over at her. He held himself with a relaxed sort of gracefulness that was hard to pin down but markedly unique. My eyes followed the curves of his shoulders, and I wanted nothing more than to run over and kiss him until we both ran out of air.

"Well, how the hell were we supposed to figure that out on our own?" he muttered, shaking his head at the textbook in front of him. "If it wasn't in the textbook?"

"Research, Rowan," Serena replied. "Research."

Josiah followed my stare and looked between me and the pair. "It's not... Serena?" he whispered.

I shook my head mutely. "Rowan," I whispered. His name felt like heaven on my lips.

Our kind usually grow tall and strong. Alphas exceptionally so. Still, Rowan was as tall as me with lean but powerful muscles, the product of his spot on the college's swim team. He held his head high and got along with just about everybody. Despite his mother's blatant Southern Asian heritage, his skin was light and his hair was golden brown. I had noticed his eyes before. They were startlingly dark for a boy who was otherwise white-passing. He had come out of the closet by talking about it openly at someone's birthday party a few years ago, and it had spread the gossip wires like wildfire. I had always quietly rooted for him as a fellow minority. His refusal to hide who he was made me as proud as Serena's did. It had given me hope for years.

Serena paused, then subtly cast a glance over to Josiah and me, undoubtedly smelling our presence. We weren't particularly close, but I've always liked her raucous sense of humor. And that girl was the only person on the planet who had succeeded in explaining chemistry to me.

Serena is sharply intelligent. She knew it was my birthday, and that there would only be one reason I would be lurking in the library like this.

"I'm going to go meet a lady friend before class. You got this?" she asked Rowan.

"Yeah, thank you for clarifying. Have fun with your lady friend," Rowan said, returning his attention to his phone.

"Oh, I will," Serena said with a laugh. She walked toward Josiah and me, with Rowan none the wiser about her fib. Josiah tugged me back into the nearly empty cafeteria and Serena followed us as he led me outside and behind the building, where we could speak without being heard. It physically hurt to put walls and doors and distance between myself and Rowan, but I recognized that this was necessary.

"It's Rowan?" Serena asked. Mercifully, her face and voice were empty of all joking inflections.

I nodded. Surprisingly, Serena grinned.

"Oh, you two are going to be perfect together," she gushed. "He's so amiable and you're so... rar." She mimed claws. "Plus, he doesn't put up with bullshit. Our pack might survive your reign as alpha okay after all."

On an ordinary day, I would have rolled my eyes and shoved her in the playful way known intimately by werewolves. I will not be alpha until the age of twenty, so there is no insubordination truly happening. Serena and Josiah are regularly filled with these sorts of comments and I ordinarily take them with the grace and patience of a future alpha.

That day was not an ordinary day.

"Serena," Josiah muttered.

"That was a joke," she told me flatly. "Come on, Luis. What's your problem? This is perfect. We know him. He's a great guy."

"He's a man," I whispered.

Serena realized. "You're not-"

"Not until today," I replied. I shook my head. "He's a man. He's human. He's the principal's son. Jesus."

I turned and pressed my face to the painted brick of the school wall, dreading the inevitable conversation with Sarika Arti, my principal. A few years after I was born, when Arti took over as principal of the school, my mother and the alpha of the Northwest Collective approached my mother and told her everything. All the secrets. As principal, it was important for her to know why two groups of students would always bicker and fight. It would be important for her to know why about half of the school was always too exhausted the day after a full moon to attend class. Arti needed to know about werewolves so she could help contain any weirdness. In exchange for her help, we keep Arti up to date on the pack goings-on so she could keep a lid on situations before they arise. My mother had already agreed to tell her the identity of my mate.

"We should call your mom," Josiah suggested.

"Please do it," I muttered.