Beep, Beep, Beep

I reach for the alarm clock on the nightstand to my right, when I finally feel it I slam my hand down on the snooze button hard. I lift my head up from my bed to look at it, my eyes are still groggy, but I can see the time, 6 a.m. I push myself off my stomach, sitting up I rub my eyes trying to wake myself up. I look out the window, its barely light out, I get up and go to my bathroom to shower and wash my face. When I’m done in the bathroom I walk over to my dresser and put on my grey sweats and a white muscle shirt, training clothes, for my morning work out before school. Before I put on my jogging shoes I walk over to night stand and grab the locket my birth mother left me. I open it up and look at the picture inside, the picture is of me as a baby with my birth parents. I thank my birth parents for loving me and bringing me into this world and press the picture to my lips. Mattias and Laura, my foster parents, made sure I knew about my human parents from an early age. My birth father David was a doctor and my birth mother Karen was some sort of financial consultant. Mom keeps telling me that Karen was warrior, having given her life to save mine, she fought so I could live. They tell me how much my birth parents loved me every day, they even kept my original birth name Caden to honor them. Sadly, both were the only child in their families and had no living relatives, so now I’m all that’s left of them. I shake off the momentary sadness, and think about my adopted family. I love my current family my big, weird, werewolf family and they love me, and I know that my birth parents would be happy for me. I place the locket around my neck, put on my jogging shoes, and head out the door.

As I walk down the hall I decide to check in on Lucas and Noel, their rooms are next to mine, we have the entire third floor of the four-story mansion to ourselves. The mansion is referred to as the main house because this is where all the higher ups in the pack live with their families. I check in on my brother Lucas first, I crack his door open and peek inside, he’s completely knocked out. I notice he still seems to be wearing his clothes from yesterday, the pack meeting must have run long last night. I close the door and go to check on Noel in the next room. Noel is Charles’s son and Lucas’s best friend, the three of us grew up together so Noel is practically brother. I barely have the door open and I can already hear Noel’s loud snoring, he’s also still wearing his clothes from yesterday, I close the door and chuckle. I make my way down to the first floor where the kitchen is pour myself some cereal and quickly eat it.

I open the glass sliding door that leads to the backyard, the chill morning air hits me as I step outside. The yard is just a small patch of lawn leading into the open woods Ibreath in the air it’s filled with the smell of trees and water from the nearby lake. I start doing my stretches, as I stretch I look towards the house it’s kind of strange to see a huge four-story mansion deep in the middle of the woods. With only a long dirt path to connect it to the main road, it’s very the definition of isolated. But I guess you can’t really have packs of werewolves coming and going out in the open and not have humans get suspicious. I finish my stretches and walk over to the lake a few yards away.

I look across the big circular lake, seeing the smaller houses where the other pack members live. My dad’s pack is a medium sized pack consisting of around twenty members, but what our pack lacks in size we make up for in quality. Our pack is part of the council, the council is made up of the eight strongest and most influential packs in the region, the unofficial leaders of the community. Packs on the council have anywhere from thirty to forty members, growing or shrinking depending on the situation, which makes us the smallest pack on the counsel. Though unofficial; other packs have come to crave the influence gained by being part of the council. Because of this; attacks on packs part of the council aren’t uncommon, even from each other, and since our pack is the smallest we make good targets. Even the size of our territory is small compared to the others, but regardless of how small we are, our pack is highly influential among the others. This is mostly because our pack is loaded. Unlike what you see in movies being immortal doesn’t automatically make you rich, not growing old doesn’t get you paid. Most werewolves have to go to school and get jobs just like normal humans. As a young pup my dad was smart when it came to money. He started school at a young age and even went to college and got a business degree. To this day he swears he was the first werewolf to go to college, which I highly doubt. But because of his education, keen business mind , and good instincts he has a good eye when it comes to investing in companies. Many of his investments panned out extremely well and once the internet came around there was no stopping him. Now he owns and runs multiple businesses, and single handily supports the entire pack. Because of this, other alphas come to him for financial advice and support. But that’s not to say money is our only merit, our pack is strong, it’s a proven fact that some of the strongest and most skilled wolves in the region are in our pack.

I let out a yawn and stretch out my back, I’m about to start my morning jog, when I hear footsteps behind me. I look back to see Lucas and Noel in their training clothes jogging towards me.

Lucas calls out to me. “Hey wait up!”

“Couldn’t you just wait 10 minutes for us.” Noel’s tone makes his statement sound like an accusation, but the smile on his face lets me know he’s just messing around.

I grin. “ It’s not my fault you two are slackers.” They both feigned being offended. “Well hurry up and stretch, I want to get going.”

Lucas and Noel both roll their eyes and speak in unison. “Yes, mooom.”

I chuckle, knowing they don’t need to stretch, I just enjoy busting their balls. Werewolves in human form are perfectly fit without the need to work out. Lucas stands at 5’11” and is built like a linebacker, Noel at 5’10” is a bit sleeker, kind of like a swimmer. Their much stronger and faster than normal humans like me. Add to that their amazing looks with Lucas’s white skin, thick reddish-brown hair, and clear blue eyes; and Noel’s dark skin, chiseled features, and hazel eyes. It’s no wonder all the girls at school, human and were, throw themselves at them. At 5’8” my fast metabolism keeps me from gaining any real muscle, but I do keep myself relatively toned and in good shape. Combined with my short brown hair and light brown eyes I wouldn’t call myself ugly, but girls aren’t exactly lining up to meet me. Heck I’ve never even had a girlfriend, I once asked my human friend Marisol how she would describe me, and she said, “Your kind of plain, not ugly just plain.” Also, I’m pretty sure being constantly surrounded by handsome werewolves doesn’t help at all, I shake the depressing thoughts out of my head and see Lucas and Noel are ready to go. We start to jog around the lake with Lucas and Noel matching my pace, I know for them this is the same as walking in slow motion. But no matter how many times I’ve told them to go at their own pace they just ignore me.

“So, what do you want to do for your birthday?” Lucas’s question makes me look over at him in confusion. “You do remember it’s your birthday today?”

Then it hits me. “Oh man, today is my birthday.”

Lucas and Noel begin to laugh at me, it had completely slipped my mind. Wow, it’s the end of December already, I’m eighteen years old! This is the age where I would officially join the pack and start helping in pack activities, or at least I should. No one really expects anything of me because I’m human, and I haven’t really told anyone about my plans for joining the pack because I’m not sure on how they’ll react. Lucas and Noel are both a year older than me and have already been officially accepted, but they’ve been helping with the pack ever since they were fifteen. As son of the alpha and next in line to take over, Lucas has been groomed since birth to take over the pack from our father. Charles as the beta, second in command under the alpha, has also made sure that Noel was trained from a young age as well so he can be Lucas’s beta. They both know what they’re going to do and what the pack expects from them, not me.

There have been humans that have been accepted into packs before but it’s extremely rare and looked down upon by some werewolves. The main difference being is that they were all females, they were either someone’s mate or the mother of a werewolf. A mate is a werewolf’s other half, in other words their soulmate and on the rare occasions a wolf’s mate was human they have always been female. There’s never been a human male who’s joined a pack before, let alone being adopted into one. I am neither a werewolf, someone’s mate, or female and unlike popular tv shows and movies. A werewolf ‘s bite does not turn you into a werewolf. You must be born a werewolf period. So, do I even have the right to join the pack, there have already been other packs who have openly expressed their unhappiness with my family adopting me?

“Earth to Caden.” Noel is waves his hand in front of my face. “You still with us?”

Startled I look around, that’s when I noticed that we had stopped jogging and I was standing there like a statue. “Y-yeah, sorry I totally spaced, I just can’t believe I’m eighteen already.” My voice coming out a bit more nervous than I intended. Lucas looks down at me and seems to know what I’m thinking. He stands in front of me and places both of his hands on my shoulders.

“Hey, you are the son of an alpha and my brother, you have just as much right to be in this pack as any other wolf.” The expression on his face serious. “Okay?” His eyes stare straight into mine.

His words comfort me, some tension I didn’t even realize I had in my chest goes away. I nod and look at Lucas. “Yeah, okay.” Lucas smiles and drops his hands from my shoulders.

Noel pats my back and looks at me. “Damn right, and don’t worry about the other packs, they’ve known about you for a long time now. They had to know this was coming and if any of them have a problem with you they have a problem with us.” He puts his arm around Lucas and me when he says that.

“Pfft alright, alright.” I pretend to be exasperated, but, I’m grateful to Noel and brother.

“And I got the perfect job for you.” A devilish grin is spread across Noel’s face. “You can be rogue bait.” Both me and Noel laugh.

But Lucas smack Noel upside the head and points at him. “Hey, that’s not funny don’t even joke about that.” But we can see him trying hard not to laugh.

Noel rubs the back of his head. “Fine geez, I got something else he can do.” I see a stupid grin spread across his face. “He can be my valet and scratch the back of my ears for me.”

Ok, that one got to me a little, so he wants to be like that huh. “Ok that’s fine, Gina was just telling me how good I was getting at it last night.” Noel’s jaw drops when he hears the name of his current girlfriend and Lucas starts laughing his ass off.

Noel moves to bop me on the head but Lucas catches his hand, and bops him on the head instead. Noel retaliates by sweeping Lucas’s leg causing him to fall on the ground, I stand back because I can already tell where this is going. With one of his hands Lucas grabs Noel’s leg and pulls it out from under him, now they’re both on the ground wrestling. Noel manages to push Lucas off him, they both get up, growling at each other in a standoff. They both shift at the same time exploding out of their clothes, Lucas’s wolf has silver fur with subtle streaks of red and stands just a bit taller than Noels dark brown wolf. They go at each other, swiping their paws and snapping their jaws, both trying to get at the other’s back. Lucas is the stronger of the two, using his brute strength he hits Noel with his shoulder hard. I can hear a bones snap as he hits the ground, he quickly shakes it off. Werewolves heal at an amazing rate; those broken bones will be fine in a moment. Lucas tries to pounce on Noel while he’s down, but Noel is fast probably the fastest wolf in the pack, he easily dodges leaving Lucas’s side exposed. Using is hind legs, Noel kicks Lucas’s side, sending him flying into a tree, he definitely has a few broken bones after that. Lucas shakes it off and now they’re circling each other, snarling back and forth. Lucas seems to be limping from the kick to his side, his wounds not fully healed yet, Noel notices and jumps at this chance, but Lucas was faking it, he grabs Noel’s throat with his teeth in midair and pins him to the ground on his back. Noel tries to kick him off but Lucas’s superior strength keeps him locked in place. Lucas growls and tightens his jaws around Noel’s throat. Noel stops and finally lets out a whimper confirming his surrender, Lucas releases Noel’s throat and lets out a howl of victory.

If a normal human saw this they would be petrified and think these wolfs were trying to kill each other, but this is just them rough housing.

“Woo, way to go Lucas, woo.” I cheer at Lucas’s victory, he trots over to me and I fist bump his head. Noel comes up next to Lucas grumbling. “Aww, come on man don’t be like that you know Lucas won fair and square.” Noel just lets out a big huff making me chuckle, I notice the sun is starting to peek out over the horizon. If we don’t hurry this up we’re going to be late. “Ok how about this, while I finish this lap around the lake, you guys can race to see who can lap me the most times.” This time Noel is the one that lets out a happy bark while Lucas lets out a huff, because we all know that Noel is the faster of the two. “Alright, ready... steady... and.... Go!” They both shoot off practically a blur.

After finishing my lap around the lake, Lucas and Noel shift back and put on some new clothes so that the three of us can start our sparring session. Unfortunately, fighting is something werewolves have to be ready for always. Whether it be rival packs or rogues, a wolf has to be ready to fight and kill when needed. I’ve already lost few friends and pack members to pack fighting and rogues. Rogues are werewolf’s who have turned completely feral and have no reason or consciousness. It can happen several ways, from staying in wolf form too long to the human mind in the wolf breaking. We have to be ready at all times and know how to defend ourselves, admittedly I’m not really all that good at fighting even by human standards. Lucas and Noel assure me that in a straight up fight with a human I should be able to hold my own, but that I should avoid fighting a werewolf. We go through some light sparring and then knife training; knife training is what they have me focus on most of the time. It’s rare but there have been some instances of werewolves fighting in human form with silver daggers, silver can negate a werewolf’s healing ability, it’s one of the few things the movies got right. Lucas is always telling me that if I ever do get into a fight with a werewolf, the element of surprise is my best chance of winning. Since most human don’t know about werewolves, most werewolves don’t see humans as a threat, this would give them a false since of security. One I can take advantage of if I ever had to; which I hope I never do. But if push comes to shove I have a few tricks up my sleeve that even Lucas and Noel don’t know about. Once they finish with my training they start to spar with each other, and I can immediately tell that it’s going to turn into a rematch for the fight from earlier.

I leave them to it and head back to the main house, after taking another shower and getting dressed for school, standard jeans and shirt, I head back down to the kitchen. I start the coffee maker and begin making breakfast for everyone. I keep it simple, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and bacon lots of bacon. Werewolves eat meat more than anything else so just to be on the safe side I start to cook some ham as well. While I’m cooking the omegas Shawn and Linda walk in, omegas are werewolves usually at the bottom of the werewolf hierarchy. Not to say that they’re slaves or servants, even though some packs treat them as such, omegas are just more submissive than regular werewolves and are usually in charge of cooking, cleaning, and maintaining the houses.

Shawn and Linda are mates, they found each other a few years after I was born. They both have brown hair and good features and dress themselves like a butler and a maid. My father would constantly tell them to dress normally, but they would just respond saying, ‘this is them dressing normally.’ When they see me cooking an annoyed expression crosses their faces, they hate it when I cook or clean because they feel that I’m taking their job from them. Thankfully this time they don’t say anything and proceed to take the finished food to the dining room and begin to set the table.

Sorry guys but this is one of the few things I can do for my family, I need to feel useful, plus I like cooking for my family and pack.

The coffee maker dings letting me know it’s ready, I pour two mugs, putting cream in one for mom and brown sugar in the other for dad. I lift the mugs up and as if on cue both mom and dad walk into the kitchen, when they see me their faces light up and smile. When a werewolf reaches its prime, which is anywhere between twenty to forty years old they stop aging, the perks of immortality. Mom’s clear skin and lush red hair mixed with her simple sundress makes her look my age, which freaks normal people out when they find out she’s my mom. Dad’s tailored suit and neatly trimmed hair and beard with slight streaks of grey are the only indication that he might be older than he looks.

I hand them their coffees. “Your morning fixes.” I make sure to give them the right cups.

Mom puts her nose to the coffee and breathes in, letting out a satisfied sigh. “Thank you. You were always our favorite.” I chuckle, as she gives me a peck on the cheek.

Dad takes a sip of his coffee and groans in approval. “Thanks Caden and don’t tell Lucas.” He says while giving me a wink.

“Don’t tell me what?” Both Lucas and Noel walk into the kitchen from outside and start picking at the food.

Mom smacks both their hands away from the food. “Oh nothing, just that you’ve been replaced as the favorite.”

Lucas laughs. “Is coffee really all it takes?”

They continue to banter back and forth which makes me laugh. “Hey, I’m still cooking here, there’s food already in the dining room so go eat, and make sure you leave some for everyone else.” I shoo them out of the kitchen with my spatula.

About ten seconds later Claire walks in. “I smell coffee.” Without turning around, I point to the pot with my spatula. “Thanks kiddo.” Claire is the gamma of the pack, third in command, she’s twenty-eight years old and has punk rock look to her. Even with her shoulder length hair dyed blue she still manages to look like a total knockout. She pours herself a cup of offee and smacks my ass on her way out to the dining room making me yelp and drop a pancake.

The next to show up was Selene, Noel’s mom, carrying her twin daughters Katie and Lanie under her arms. I can see Katie and Lanie struggling against their mother’s hold trying to get down; but it’s useless. At eight years old Katie and Lanie are hell raisers, easily bored and constantly running around, they can be quite the handful. I turn around and give the three of them a good morning. Selene smiles and says good morning back, with her caramel skin and long naturally silky brown hair, she reminds me of a young Beyoncé. Katie and Lanie stop their struggling for a minute to give me a good morning as well. They have their mothers skin tone but their father’s black curly hair. I had just finished up so I decide to walk with them to the dining room, I leave the dishes for Shawn and Linda, knowing that for some reason they would enjoy doing them.

“Where’s Charles?” I only asked because Charles is usually never far from Selene or the girls, his overprotective nature wouldn’t allow it.

Selene looks down and gives each of the girls a stern look, who I notice have resumed their struggle, and growls out. “He is currently trying to wash out Claire’s blue hair dye hopefully before it sets. These two thought it would be funny to swap it out with their father’s shampoo.”

Katie starts. “We just wanted to see how it works.” Followed by Lanie. “Personally, I think daddy would look great with blue hair.” Both of them acting as if they did nothing wrong.

“That’s not the issue!” Raising her voice to the girls, I look over to her wondering what she means. She looks over to me and speaks in a low voice so the girls can’t hear. “The soap ran out half way through this morning, so he was using the shampoo to wash his....” She motions downward with her eyes. I burst out laughing right as we reach the dining room, everyone stops what they’re doing to look at me curiously. With tear in my eyes I try to hold in my laughter which makes my stomach hurt. I sit down in the seat between mom and Lucas, everyone keeps staring at me waiting for me to explain, but I just shake my head and begin to eat.

After a while Shawn brings out a birthday cake and everyone starts to sing happy birthday to my surprise and dismay. I groan, because no matter how many times I tell them not to bother with my birthday, they do anyway. I quickly blow out the candles and silently thank the goddess for my werewolf family.