JAY

Dinner had gone by swiftly and relatively painlessly. By the time the meatloaf was pulled out of the oven, Jay and Rachael were laughing at Sydney's denial over being a workaholic, while trying to explain her admirations to be a well known journalistic writer for a big paper in the future.

When their infamous brother had entered the kitchen, there was a discernible tension in the sisters, but Jay pretended not to notice. He turned his attention to the stark black of his dyed hair which had caught Jay off guard since the sisters both had brilliantly golden blond hair. Still Jay greeted him and Aaron mumbled a hello, before Sydney linked an arm through his and Rachael carried on about Sydney's first time reading the school paper in middle school and how she wanted to know all the schools secrets.

This knowledge made Jay and his wolf internally smirk.

Between Rachael over sharing stories about Sydney, peppering some questions about himself, Aaron keeping quiet and watching his two siblings, and Sydney simply rolling her eyes, dinner was over quickly.

Jay had offered to help clean, but Rachael shoed Sydney and Jay away, instead beckoning Aaron to help her. Sydney was quick to pull him from the room and leave her brother and sister be.

Once up the stairs and headed towards what Jay assumed would be Sydney's room, Jay noticed the vast slew of pictures on seemingly every wall they passed. Pictures of the three siblings, their father, a couple of older folks which Jay could guess were their grandparents. But the noticeable void of their mother quickly became apparent.

"This way," Sydney voiced, pulling his obviously drifting attention.

He followed after her.

In her room he was surprised to see everything struck him as Sydney. Her full sized bed littered with pillows, a book shelf overflowing with books and small trinkets, a desk with camera equipment and open notebooks taking up most of the surface area, and there were a few pieces of framed art hung on the walls.

Sydney rushed to her desk chair and collected some clothes draped over it, shoving them into the closet before gesturing to the chair for him to sit.

"Ahh, so this is the life of photographer and journalist Sydney Watkins?" Jay stretched his arms over her desk and took inventory of what was spewed across it.

Her warm laugh signaled to Jay that she had moved and with the squeak of her bed, he turned to see her sitting cross legged on her white comforter.

"Yep, the early workings of brainstorming for the new few months of the newspaper. Some contact sheets for the photographers and writers of the yearbook."

Jay nodded and looked back to her desk. A pair of sticky notes stuck out to him, they weren't in her handwriting. He plucked up the two neon green notes.

'Take a breather Syd, you probably need one.'

'Hey, text me back. You probably are too busy with work and haven't done it in a while.'

Jay felt in his gut he already knew who these were from.

"Whatcha looking at?" Sydney probed when Jay hadn't said much.

'Tell her your concerns about the omega.'

Against his wolf's judgement he put the sticky notes back down and twisted the chair back around. "Nothing in particular. Say why don't you grab a notebook to interview me with, and we go get some ice cream?"

"Ice cream? You do know it's fall right? That means it's cold."

Jay shook his head, "Nope, never too cold for ice cream, plus it's not just any ice cream, it's Martin's."

A giant smile swept across her sweet face. "Oh, Martin's is a weakness for me."

☽✣☾

The ice cream shop had a small gathering of other students and a family of three when they pulled up to the shop. Pulling the door open for Sydney to enter the quaint place, a small overhead bell rang and she smiled, thanking him before he followed in behind her.

The mint painted interior was small and really only a place to order. It was crammed with the other students, and Jay felt himself being forced to press close against Sydney. He could feel her warmth through her jacket, and his fingers ached to wrap them around hers.

A purr radiated through his wolf and was trying to crawl out of Jay's chest.

'Stop it!'

'It's not my fault she is so pleasant.'

"Goodness, everyone here on a chilly Tuesday night and I thought we'd be the odd ones out," Sydney laughed, waiting behind the group of students to order.

"I like to call it enthusiastic."

Another bump from a teen trying to leave the store with their ice cream had Sydney bumping back into Jay. Instinctively he pressed his hand against the small of her back to keep her up straight.

She whispered a thanks, before pressing forward to the counter.

"Hello, Sweetheart, what would you like today?" The employee manning the counter was in his early twenties, and clearly thought he was swoon worthy to the highschool girls.

Jay's hand itched to go back to her back, to stake a visible claim. His wolf was encouraging that want, but Jay fought against it.

"Uh hello, if I could get a medium heath caramel chip that would be great."

"Sure thing, Sweets. Anything else?" The guy's eyes met Jay's and Jay stepped up closer to the counter, hoping to intimidate the guy.

"I would like to get a Large Mintochip," He said glaring at the man.

He clicked it in. "Anything else?" He met Jay's glare.

"Yes. It's my first time here and my friend is occupying our table." I said pointing to Jay who watched me like a hawk.

Sydney shook her head no and pulled out a bill to hand to him. "Nope, that'll do it." She turned and pointed to Jay.

The clerk flashed her a grin and counted her change. With a quick tug of the receipt, he quickly wrote on it and handed that and the money back to Sydney.

"Thanks," she said with a smile and stepped to the side for them to wait for their ice cream.

"You should've let me pay for it. How much was it?" Jay snagged the receipt from her hands.

"Hey!"

Scrawled at the bottom was the guy's number.

'Let's take him outside and have a talk.' His wolf murderously.

Unable to restrain himself, he turned to the clerk who was in the middle of taking another order. "Hey dick! Get the hint if a girl is here with a dude!"

The guy's eyes went big and the customers gasped at the language. Before he could let the clerk provoke his wolf and pull towards Sydney anymore, Jay stormed outside. The overhead bell jangled violently. He faintly heard Sydney apologizing, but her voice cut off from the closing door and he proceeded to head towards his car.

Arms braced against the frame of the vehicle, Jay tried reigning in his breathing and the animal instincts battling in him.

'You need to stop this.'

'You are being self-centered, not considering my feelings or the wishes of Nature.'

'Nature does not get to dictate who we are or who we want to be with.'

'Why are you acting like Nature has damned you with this coupling?'

'Because my feelings for this girl aren't mine. I've known her for three days, and I should not be compelled to be near her, and I definitely should not be throwing a fit in some ice cream store over it.'

The opening of the passenger side door pulled Jay's attention through the window of the driver's side where he stood mentally arguing with his wolf.

Sydney raised his ice cream towards him as a gesture to join her. Jay sighed but complied and climbed into the vehicle. Taking the ice cream from her, he saw her take a scoop of her own and eat it.

"You okay over there? You looked like you were having some crazy mental argument with yourself."

Jay snorted and took a scoop of his own ice cream. "Something like that."

They both sat in silence watching people wade in and out of the ice cream parlor. It was nearing eight, and the crowd was starting to thin.

Breaking the silence, Sydney spoke. "Jay, I said the same thing last night and I stand by that, we need to keep with the honest talk so we can figure things out."

"What do you want to know?"

"Is it bad that I can't hear my wolf?"

Jay froze and looked at her. "What?"

Her eyes wouldn't meet his, "I assume you were arguing with your wolf a moment ago, and I don't hear mine at all. Is that bad?"

Jay put his dessert in his cup holder and rested back further in his seat. "I was hoping it was just all the stress and trama you underwent yesterday, and it would make itself known today. You haven't heard anything at all?"

She mimicked Jay's actions setting down her ice cream, but then crossed her arms as if to hug herself. "No, no voices."

Jay didn't know what to tell her.

Sensing the tension, Sydney lightheartedly joked, "And here I thought not hearing voices was a good thing."

'Take her hand. Maybe her touching us will coax out her wolf.'

He decided the wolf might be onto something, so Jay reached across the car and gingerly grabbed her wrist, freeing her arm from curling around her, and delicately intertwined their fingers.

He let his thumb ghost over the side of her index finger then trailed his thumb back down the length of the same digit before passing onto her palm and stopping at the pulse of her wrist. Sure enough he could feel the soft pump of her blood flooding her body.

She gasped and Jay raised his eyes to meet hers.

"You heard something?" Jay asked somewhat excitelly.

Blush covered her cheeks and Sydney shook her head. "No sorry."

"Ahh," Jay let go of her hand.

"Does that mean somethings wrong?"

Jay sighed and settled back into his seat, his arms crossing on their own accord to keep him from reaching out to her again. "I need to speak more to my parents about it. They will probably suggest we go to a doctor." Seeing the confusion on her face he continued. "We have our own pack doctor, but for something like this, we will likely need to go to an Enclave doctor."

"What are those?" Sydney picked up her ice cream again, seemingly ready to listen.

"The Enclave is what we dub a group of enlightened humans. They have a connection to Nature, and they are like the overseers of the werewolf communities."

"So they're like witches or fairies?"

A laugh found Jay, "Not really. They are simply able to speak to Nature, and arrange things in our community that Nature wishes."

A sceptical look washed over her face. "That sounds crazy and borderline dangerous. So you're saying it's a group of prophets?"

Jay could sense her confusion mounting. "You could call them that, I guess."

"And you just follow these people blindly?"

"I wouldn't say blindly, but they have coincided with werewolves for almost all of our existence."

"But not the whole time? Why is that?"

"With the first generation of werewolves, they were a little less obedient of Nature's mission for them, and decided to grant a few select families to also serve in It's cause, and created the connection with what are now the families of the Enclave."

Slowly pulling the spoon from her mouth, Jay looked away from the action, "I don't buy it, sorry. Nature wants one group of humans to be paired with a wolf in order to fix earth and humanity, while also allowing them to never fall in love, while another group Nature just sends messages to willy nilly, doesn't sound fair, and honestly sounds suspicious."

Jay was at a loss what to say, "I'm not sure what else to say, the Enclave has been around for generations, side by side with werewolves preventing them from being discovered and helping us thrive in the world."

"That too, this mission to project the world and make humanity better, what does that even mean?"

"Are you sure you're ready for a deep dive?" Jay asked hesitantly.

Sydney green eyes met his eyes head on, "Yes."