Chapter Five: Blaize

I woke up suddenly, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. I was tightly gripping the sides of my bed.

I sighed, prying my fingers away from the mattress. I stared into the darkness for a while before grabbing my clock and checking the time. 4:36. Yeah, no way was I going to be able to go back to sleep.

Blindly, I moved through the darkness of my room, grabbing my clothes for the day. I stepped into the bathroom, planning on taking as long as I could to get ready.

I walked into my room after I finished, pocketing my phone as I left my room. Slowly, I made my way down the stairs, only to find my mom seated on a barstool in the kitchen drinking a very large cup of coffee. That's the thing about werewolves. We don't get the buzz as easily as humans do.

She glanced up at me, surprise crossing her features.

"Blaize, honey, you're up early. Something troubling you?" she asked. I shook my head. "You sure?"

"Yes, mother," I mumbled. She raised an eyebrow.

"Tired?" she teased. I looked pointedly at her until she turned her attention back to her coffee. "So, why are you up this early?"

I shrugged, not willing to say why. "No reason."

She snorted. "Bullshit."

I rolled my eyes and walked past her, heading for the fridge.

"What do you want for breakfast?" my mom asked. I thought for a moment, and decided I really couldn't think about food.

"Anything you're making," I replied. I grabbed a green tea out of the fridge and pulled up a chair on the other side of my mother.

"Pancakes sound good?"

"Hell yes!" I shouted. She gave me a look, and I knew what she was thinking.

"Blaize, you're an Alpha. Watch your damn mouth."

I rolled my eyes. She only meant well. She thought Alphas should have better vocabulary than swear words, but she obviously didn't apply that to herself or to Dad.

After a few moments of silence, she stood up and dumped her mug in the sink and started on breakfast.

"So," she began. "You going to tell me why you're up or not?"

"Problem?" I challenged. She chuckled.

"Fine, keep your dreams about Marisa to yourself then."

And, for the first time in years, I flushed with absolute embarrassment. My mom turned and looked at my expression, amusement written all over her face.

"I need to get the camera..."

"Shut up!" I growled. She laughed, turning back to the food she was preparing.

"It's perfectly normal, honey. Every wolf has wild dreams of their mates before they complete the mating ritual."

My mind wandered back to my dream. Marisa and I...

I felt my cheeks growing warm again, and internally fought to keep my blush under control.

"W-whatever," I muttered. "I guess I'll be having these dreams for a long while then."

At that, my mother stopped what she was doing and turned to face me.

"What are you talking about, Blaize?" she demanded. I instantly regretted what I had said. My mother would go crazy if I voiced my concerns about Marisa possibly rejecting me.

"I-I...well, the other day in the parking lot after school, I was trying to leave before Marisa left..." I began. "I didn't quite make it. I went after her and caught up right when she got to her car. The conversation started out normal, but then..."

My mother signalled for me to continue. I took a deep breath as I recalled how everything took a turn for the worst.

"Well, it was after everyone was gone. I tried...to kiss her. But she stopped me and ran away..."

Mom had tears in her eyes. She quickly engulfed me in a hug. I awkwardly returned it.

"I'm so sorry, Blaize. I'm sure she's not..." she trailed off. A few moments of silence passed before she began again. "She probably just needs time to adjust. I mean, she's your teacher and all."

I sighed. Again, with the "student/teacher" thing. "I know. But I've adjusted just fine. Why can't she?"

My mother shrugged, a sympathetic look on her face, and turned back to breakfast, leaving me to my thoughts.

I thought about yesterday's events. I thought about my beautiful mate. I thought about Heather. But mostly, I wondered if Marisa had the same dreams last night.

Honestly, that made my wolf swell with pride. His mate, having dreams about him. He liked that thought.

I sighed, staring blankly at the wall. I noticed my mother glance at me, but I didn't acknowledge her.

"You know she'll probably be at school today."

I simply nodded. My spirit was low this morning, but I could feel it rising at the thought of being with Marisa again.

Maybe I would be able to have a civil conversation with her. We certainly needed to talk. She probably had figured out I was Alpha by now. I could understand that she would be concerned about being the Alpha female.

My mom finished making breakfast and we ate in silence. After I finished eating I pulled out my phone. It was 7:31.

"You going to leave soon?" my mother asked, her sharp green eyes meeting mine. I nodded, grabbing my school stuff and my keys and heading out the door. "Well goodbye, then!"

"Bye," I mumbled, throwing my stuff in the passenger seat of my dark blue Mustang. The drive to school was filled with thoughts of seeing Marisa. It was driving me crazy.

Finally, I arrived at the school. I parked in my usual spot and headed over to where my friends stood by the door. Tyler spotted me first and waved enthusiastically. I rolled my eyes as I approached them.

"Hey, man!" Tyler said. I raised an eyebrow.

"Why are you so hyper?" I questioned. He wasn't usually like this.

"Why aren't you?" he shot back. He grinned at me. "You've just met your mate, the Alpha female."

"Yeah..." I said, letting out a long breath. I smiled with Tyler, but I felt my heart break a little as I recalled yesterday's events.

No, Blaize, not now. Things will work out, she was just surprised, I scolded myself. I shook my head when I felt a slap on the back.

"Huh?" I asked. Tyler was looking at me intently. "What?"

"I asked where your mate was."

I froze. "Um, well, she's kinda not with me at the moment."

"Obviously," Tyler snorted. "I thought maybe she'd at least get a ride with you to school or something."

I shook my head. "Wait...why would she be getting a ride with me? I don't even know where she lives."

Tyler gave me a strange look. "Well, I thought since you'd found her yesterday that...you know..." he lowered his voice to a whisper. "That you'd completed the mating ritual."

I felt my eyes grow wide. "What? No! It's way too soon for that, isn't it?"

"No, typically when you find your mate you complete the ritual with them straight away," Tyler said.

"What are we talking about?" Nathan suddenly asked. I rolled my eyes and Tyler answered.

"We're talking about how Blaize and his mate hav-,"

"Wait, Blaize has a mate?"

"Yeah, he didn't tell you?"

Nathan turned and looked hard at me. "No, he didn't."

I shrugged. "I only told Tyler yesterday because he asked me about it. So I told him about...Marisa."

I saw everyone's eyebrows rising past their hairline, and I suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

"Who?" Ally, Nathan's mate, asked.

"Marisa...Chase..." I muttered quietly. Everyone was shocked into silence.

Are you ashamed of our mate? My wolf demanded, suddenly enraged.

Calm down! And no, of course I'm not ashamed of her! I shot back.

"Like...Marisa Chase as in the new geometry teacher?" Ally asked.

"Yes," I answered back proudly. "She's your future Luna."

I saw the rest of them exchange looks.

"So we'll have to get really good grades in math, then," Nathan said after a few moments of silence. Then, everyone started laughing.

"Yeah, I guess," I chuckled. When everyone had stopped laughing, Tyler suddenly turned his attention back to our earlier conversation.

"So, you haven't mated with Marisa?"

"No, I think it's way too early."

"It isn't," Nathan said. "Ally and I completed the mating ritual the night we found out."

That made me kind of uncomfortable. "You didn't think she was too young? She was only in eighth grade then."

"I was not too young!" Ally defended. "We're mates, the bond only gets stronger the more you resist. We wouldn't have been able to wait."

I sighed. "Regardless, I still think it's too early to do it the night of."

"That's ridiculous," Ally said. "There's no such thing as 'too early'."

I just sighed. They didn't have the same problems Marisa and I had.

"Hey, man, are you okay? Something's bothering you, I can tell," Nathan said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I shook my head. "She...she didn't..."

I felt a sharp pain in my chest - the pain of her sort-of rejection. The memories came flooding back at full force.

"What happened yesterday? This has something to do with your mate, doesn't it?" Tyler asked.

I took a deep breath and told them about the parking lot yesterday; how I'd tried to make a move, but Marisa ran from me.

Pretty soon, the area had turned into a sympathy party.

"Dude, that...that sucks," Tyler murmured, and patted my shoulder.

Ally was wiping tears from her eyes, and Nathan just looked at me. Then, he said, "So that's why you kept saying it was too early...she stopped you."

We all stayed in silence for a few more moments. Then, the bell rang.

I sighed and headed inside, followed by my friends. My mind was reeling, heartbreak fresh in my mind.

Marisa was the only one who could fix me. Hopefully, she would do it today.

----------

My first two classes went by agonizingly slowly. My wolf was growing impatient, and so was I. I just wanted it to be fifth period already so I could see Marisa.

Third period was about when things started getting interesting. We were listening to the teacher go on about some boring English lesson, when Heather came bursting through the door. Her face was red, her makeup smudged, and her hair a windblown mess. Amused, I watched as she stomped angrily toward me.

"YOU!" she growled, pointing accusingly at me. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

That did not settle well with my wolf.

Angry, I stood to my full height, towering over her. I saw a glimmer of fear in her eyes before she straightened her posture, refusing to back down.

"You were supposed to take me to school! Why the hell didn't you show up?" she challenged.

I sighed. Was she really that stupid?

"In case you didn't get the memo, I broke up with you yesterday. Your way to school is not a problem of mine." I growled. She backed up a step, fury written in her features.

"What. The. Hell?!" she screeched. "You can't break up with me! I'm your Luna!"

I growled again, louder this time. I was so glad that my third period class was all wolves.

"You are not my Luna, and you are not my mate."

Finally, the teacher, Mrs. Will, decided to stand in, "Blaize, Heather, you're disrupting the class. Sit down."

I huffed angrily and sat in my seat. I watched Heather as she sulked to her seat, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Blaize. The teacher had called me by my first name. That irked me. Of course, I didn't officially get the Alpha title until I was eighteen.

Third and fourth period flew by like a blur, and now all I could think about was food. I reached the lunch room and caught up to Nathan and Tyler in the line.

"Hey," Tyler greeted me. "I heard Blondie was on a rage this morning."

I smirked. "News sure gets around fast in this school."

"What happened, exactly?" Nathan asked.

"Well, she came into third period yelling about how I didn't bring her to school. I told her I wasn't responsible for her and we broke up yesterday. Then she pulled the Luna card, so I said she wasn't my Luna or my mate." I explained.

Both Tyler and Nathan looked very amused. Soon, Ally came up to join us in the line.

Lunch was full of idle chatter and food. Finally, the bell rang.

I practically ran to grab my stuff and go to fifth period. I heard my friends laughing at my behaviour, but I ignored them and continued on. When I got into the room, though, I stopped dead.

Sitting at the desk was an elderly woman, a substitute teacher I recognized from earlier years, Mrs. Ellis.

She smiled at me and said hello, but I ignored her. Nathan and Tyler had to push me to my desk, and I fell into my seat without a word.

She was gone. Where did she go?

I couldn't think straight. Wolves didn't get sick, so where could she possibly be? It was her second day here...she was avoiding me.

The rest of the day passed in an emotionless blur. When I got home, simply fell onto one of our plush couches and lay there until my parents got home.

I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to my mother shaking me.

"Huh?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

She gave me a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "What's wrong, Blaize?"

I sighed. She could always tell exactly how I was feeling. "Nothing."

She narrowed her eyes at me and pulled me into a sitting position. I growled at the movement, but she didn't relent.

"Blaize," she said. "Tell me what's wrong, or I can't help you."

"Maybe I don't want your help!" I snarled. She looked taken aback, but I didn't care. I stood, stretching my limbs and angrily storming out the back door to our deck.

I sat down on one of the lounge chairs, sighing angrily. After a few moments, my mom came out after me. She sat in the chair beside me, not saying a word.

Finally, she said, "I know how you feel, Blaize. I've been there before."

I rolled my eyes. She had no idea how it felt to practically be rejected.

"I know this is about Marisa. You can't hide it from me.  You might as well tell me now, or I'll get your father to talk to you." She said.

"Fine," I snapped. "She was gone. She wasn't there today, she hates me, and she's avoiding me. Happy?"

"Of course not," she said softly. "Why would I be happy about that? But I've been in your shoes." She paused before continuing. "When I was young, and I first met your father, he wanted nothing to do with me. He was happy he had a mate, yeah, but he felt I was too young to lead the pack with him. He was twenty-two at the time, and I was only fifteen.

"He was right, of course. A fifteen year old leading one of the largest packs in the country? Not a chance. But he gave me one," I turned to look at my mom, and she was smiling slightly. "He'd said he couldn't accept me as a mate, but he would spend all of his time with me. He kept that promise, and we fell in love.

"You see, Blaize, you just need to go to her. Stop trying to rush into things, and befriend her. That's how all stable relationships begin. Friendship." She stopped, and looked over to me. She said nothing more that night, and we just looked at the stars.

I thought long and hard about what Mom had said. She was right, of course, she always was. I had to go to Marisa, and slowly introduce our relationship to her.

If that was what it took to have Marisa by my side, I would do it.

A/N: Well, that was long overdue. Sorry. I went through and edited every chapter, except the very end of this one. You might want to go back and read it again, because I've changed a couple major things. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Hopefully my next update won't take as long.

Picture on the side is Christi Quinn.

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~Niclla