Defect.

I woke up at 6 am with a smile. I’m going to have breakfast with someone I actually like today! I’m just excited for no good reason. I practically skipped on my way to the bathroom to take a quick shower. I was humming as I brushed my teeth, made my bed, and combed my hair. Deciding to put more of an effort into picking my outfit for the day I put on light blue skinny jeans, a grey muscle shirt, a black pullover sweater that didn’t fit me ten times too big, and then lastly I slipped on some black flats. No one would tell I’m wearing a muscle shirt because I hardly ever take off my sweater. Even if it does get too hot.

I grabbed my bag and hopped down the stairs. The pack didn’t leave too much of a mess last night. I walked into the kitchen to see my mom making breakfast and my dad drinking coffee while reading the paper. What’re they doing up?

“Venus. Clean up the house before you leave to school” my mother said not looking at me.

Oh, that’s why they’re up.

I didn’t even get a “hello” or “good morning.”

“Ok.” I said and walked back into the living room. I guess I’ll just skip on my cup of OJ this morning.

I was throwing out the trash when Andromeda walked out, shoved past me making me drop the trash bag, all while calling me a bitch. She just wants to be Luna and is mad at me because I interrupted her seducing Alpha Colt. She may not look like it but Andromeda knows how to wrap a guy around her little finger.

I picked up the trash and threw it in the bin. Andromeda got into a car that belonged to one of her friends and they sped away. I checked the time it was 7:30, it took me an hour to clean up the mess. I sighed and texted Brady that I wasn’t going to be able to make it to breakfast. Then I got my bag and began speed walking to school even though I already knew I was going to be late. I tried calling Robin but she was already at school and I didn’t want to make both of us late.

I began to walk faster. I wish I could’ve had my parents take me to school but they’ve stopped driving either one of us in elementary. I moved into the city for the rest of elementary, from grades 2 through 5, and we had to take the bus to and from school every day. That taught us responsibility, because if we forgot to get on in time we were stuck at school until 7 pm when my parents got out of work or we walked home. I had to walk home twice because of my small bladder. The distance from school to home was around 5 miles.

You can say that I learned to walk fast. To do everything fast. It was almost nine when I got to school. First period was ending, I ran to my locked to get my books for second period ready. Then I decided to avoid the hall monitor by waiting out the rest of the period in the bathroom.
I kept looking over my shoulder for the hall monitor. He was a short, chubby kind of guy that puts you into detention the second he saw you. Sometimes they alternated and it would be this tall lanky guy that you could sweet talk into letting you off with a warning.

I hope the tall hall monitor is on duty right now.

I heard footsteps and looked over my shoulder but crashed into someone in front of me. I felt a spark as I bounced off a hard chest. Rubbing my nose I looked up to the person so I could apologize and I froze.

Tristan Daniels.

“Venus” his voice thundered. I got the chills.

I tried to say something but my voice was caught in my throat. The only noise that came out was a small gasping sound.

He smirked and rose an eyebrow “what?” he said lightly grabbing a lock of my hair with the top of his fingers, “Kitty got your tongue?”

I felt a flame rise up within me. Something that I want to decipher as hate.

I suddenly found my voice, “Excuse me.” I whispered and tried moving backwards to get my hair out of his hands, but right as it was sliding out he tightened his grip causing me to yank on my own hair.

“C’mon. Lighten up Venus” he said lightly pulling on my hair.

This bastard made my life here a living lonely hell. When I came back from the city and I tried to make friends, he went and threatened the entire student body that if anyone dared to try and make friends with me he’d kill them with his own hands- words of a ten year old.

Everyone obeyed him.

Except Robin, but she came in years later when he stopped caring to bully me and the unspoken rule of “stay out of my way and I’ll leave you alone” went up between us. I wanted to yell at him, to cuss him out with every name I knew but I didn’t say anything I couldn’t even look him in the eyes, I could only look at my hair in his fist.

I took a deep breath, “Tristan” I said, breaking the unspoken rule.

I don’t know why but this made him smile a bit. I hadn’t seen him smile, only smirk.

His smile was still there when he gently let go of my hair. He was opening his mouth to say something but before he could make a sound the bell rang and students immediately began to stampede out of classrooms.

“Gotta go” I said and briskly lost myself in the crowd. If I hadn’t moved away from him quickly, then people would have stared and the rumors would’ve spread faster than a wildfire. Then I would be put through the worse level of hell, and this time I really think I wouldn’t survive.

But I wonder what he was going to say, an insult no doubt.

Afraid that he might be following me, I ran to my second period. My heart was still pounding when I got to my seat. It felt like I ran a mile and not just down the hall.

As the teacher called for our attention I tried to calm my heart. So not just current Alpha’s but also next-in-line Alpha’s can make me incredibly nervous. I wonder if regular humans feel this way when they’re around true Alpha’s as well.

Maybe they do.

Or don’t.

**

“Alright, that’s it for today. Remember that tomorrow we have a quiz and next week we start our first Economics project. And it’ll be with partners! So prepare yourself.” Mr. Macross droned on to the room full of inattentive students. No, they were too busy mentally counting down the seconds until the bell rang.

My heart was thumping. Not from the countdown but from the intensity of a stare that Tristan was giving me.

Why is he staring?!

I moved my head so that more of my hair was covering my face, kind of like a curtain. The only thing between us is my dark wavy hair and two rows of bored students.

What does he want with me?

Oh lord, does his stare mean that he’s going to finally kill me?

Maybe he wants to knock me out cold just with his stare alone.

I could feel my heart start to beat faster with the mere thought, and just when I thought that it was going to explode the bell rang. I used the swarm of students to slip past him. It’s hard for a werewolf to track someone’s scent when they’re surrounded by other peoples scent. It’s like finding a grain of rice in a bucket of sand.

It’s possible, but also very time consuming. Not to mention that it requires quite a bit of concentration because the grain of rice can easily slip through your fingers.

I ran—if you can call running being pushed around a crowded hallway—to my locker. I quickly opened it and crammed books in. I felt the students behind me tense up and the murmurs went around. That only meant that Tristan and his close circle of friends, who were all from his pack, had entered the hallway.

They had that effect on everyone, especially Tristan.

My breath hitched as I slammed my locker closed. From the state of the murmurs I could tell that he was walking closer. I didn’t want to wait around to see where he was heading so I speed walked it to my last class:

Art.

The one room where none of those jocks would dare be seen nearby. Tristan’s group consisted of the most well known jocks, and was the biggest group of meat heads at school. I greeted Mr. Campbell, got my cube, and began to chisel right away.

Robin stomped in minutes after I had sat down at our table.

The tables were built for two, but since this class is small everyone gets their own table. Robin, however, likes to share with me.

She got her crystal ball and went to her seat. She slammed it down on our table and pulled out a sketch pad.

“God, I hate English!” she said flipping her blond hair to one side so she could start on her work, “That bitch, Ms.Charms always finds a way to make me sound stupid!”

“Maybe it’s because you never do the reading,” I said quietly.

She began making brash strokes on the sketch pad. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a sphere is circular and not blocky. I stayed quiet and let her vent by continuing her rant, “Pfft. Who wants to read a book on how the world is flat? Total bullshit,” she looked up from attacking her sketch pad.

She stopped talking and looked from my face to my cube, to my hands and then back at my face.
“What happened?” she asked.

I stopped chiseling; I was working at a “snail’s pace” as Mr. Campbell would say. I gave Robin a weak smile, “What makes you ask that?”

She stood up from her hunch over her drawing, to put her hand on her hip, “Kid you’re hands are shaking and it looks like you hacked away at you cube when none of the tools create that effect.”

I looked down at my hands. She was right they’re shaking more than a scared leaf. She spoke again, the humor gone from her voice, “Now either you drank a couple hundred energy drinks or something happened.”

I love how she doesn’t have to ask if I’m alright, she can already tell if I am or not.

It amazes me how well she knows me.

“Tristan,” I mumbled.

She threw her hands up into the air, “What did the bastard do?” she hissed. I motioned for her to lower her voice before attention was attracted to us.

I hinted to Robin to use our nickname for Tristan. He had spies around the school, not to mention the occasional High School snitch. She took the hint, “What did Charles Van Dickhead do this time?”

I let out a sigh, and told her everything that happened. When I was done Robin grunted loudly.

“Robin!” Mr. Campbell yelled from across the room, “No teen angst in my classroom!”

She sighed but said, “Yes sir”. Then she turned to me and discreetly mouthed, “My name from his mouth so sexy”

I couldn’t help but laugh loudly.

“Now laughter I can accept,” Mr. Campbell approved with a smile.

I can’t deny it, he is handsome—For a teacher of course. I felt my nerves dissipate as the rest of the class time was filled with laughter.

Robin has never failed to cheer me up.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Robin and I walked out of the front doors to the Senior parking lot, which were conveniently placed right at the doors. I was feeling better already, until that is I saw who was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs leaning casually on the handicapped sign, and surrounded by curious onlookers.

“Brady!”

Because then I felt ecstatic.

He was looking up at the sky until he heard my voice and looked at me with a smile, “Venus!”

I wanted to run and hug him, but I stopped because of the crowd of curious students.

Brady leaned off the sign and walked over to me. Everyone parted for him. Even as humans they can sense his importance, his dominance.

I noticed that he was wearing black skinny jeans that he sagged, and a blue stripped white sleeveless v-neck—I could tell he ripped of the sleeves himself. But he still managed to look stylish and positively straight, though he wasn’t. He wasted no time in pulling me into a hug. The look of shock on Robins face was obvious.

I hugged him back and remembered how skinny he was, “What’re you doing here?”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and held me back, “Bitch! You cancel our date and this is the first thing you say to me?” he asked with a sly smile.

Date? Oh he must mean the breakfast thing.

“Oh…sorry.” I said. Robin snapped out of her shock and quietly cleared her throat, but Brady’s a super hearing werewolf so he heard it loud and clear.

“Hey. I’m Brayden.” He said with a polite smile.

“I’m Robin, Venus’ best friend.” She said with her game face on.

Robin was ready to play uninterested to get the guy. Too bad this game won’t work on Brady.

“So…” Brady drawled and returned his attention to me, “let’s go!” he said and grabbed my hand tugging me down the last few steps.

“Nice meeting you Robin, but we gotta go!” he said tugging me behind him. I waved bye to Robin, and mouthed, “Tell you everything” when I saw her face. And then I was forcibly dragged down the sidewalk. She laughed and nodded.

I turned to face forward and nearly froze in my steeps. I would’ve frozen if Brady hadn’t been pulling me along.

A few feet away from us stood a not-so-happy Tristan.

Actually he looked pissed beyond belief. Someone, other than Robin, had just broken one of his infamous rules. And it was a new Were in town, that just happened to have Alpha blood in his veins.

Oh, boy.

“What is this?” he growled when we were close enough. I felt sick to my stomach, I was scared.

But Brayden didn’t stop he just walked around him, and with a smile too. The look on Tristan’s face when he did that could send people to the hospital.

“Wanna be bad ass isn’t going to ruin our date !” Brady said purposely loudly so Tristan could hear. I heard a growl behind us. I tried to take my hand out of his but his grip was too strong, “Brady”

“Don’t worry, we’re leaving,” he said and stopped at the same flashy car that had been parked in my driveway yesterday. He opened the passenger door and ushered me in, “I’m taking you home” he said then ran and got into his seat.

“Shit. Here he comes.” He said quickly putting on his seatbelt. I turned to look out the window and there was Tristan fuming his way over to us with his pack right behind him. I felt the color drain from my face.

“Drive,” I said and at the same time smacked Brady’s arm, causing him to drop the keys.

He quickly picked them up and fumbled with the ignition. Tristan covered a lot of distance in that short period of time. I locked my door.

“Drive!” I shouted and turned to look at Brady.

“Dammit woman! Calm yourself,” he said still fumbling with the keys. He had a lot of keys.

When I turned back, Tristan had somehow materialized right in front us.

Brady and I both screamed.

“Hey!” Tristan yelled extremely angry.

I leaned over to lock Brady’s door. Tristan growled and pounded on the hood of the flashy car.

“Get out of the car!” Tristan said using his Alpha voice. His pack was suddenly at the side of the cars.

“Oh shit!” Brady yelled. He then put the keys in and started the car. Everyone took a shocked step back. That’s right, he’ll run you over.

I hope not though.

Then Brady peeled out in reverse. His car is fast, one second they were there the next we were on the road.

“Oh lord” Brady said gripping the steering wheel.

For a lack of words I just nodded.

“He’s fucking scary,” he said and I nodded again.

“But incredibly sexy.”

“Yeah,” I said out of breath.

He was, without a doubt, all of those things.