A New School Year (1)

{Rose's POV}

I took a deep breath before slinging my backpack over my shoulder. This was it. This was the first day of senior year of high school. I vowed to not let anybody, nor anything, get in the way of me finally having a great school year. And that included Jax, the guy that had been bullying me since early elementary school.

I wasn't actually sure why Jax chose me to be the focus of his bullying, but I was the main person he would consistently bully. Granted, everyone in school was afraid of him, mostly because he was in line to be Alpha soon.

My lineage was nothing notable, I never did anything to stand out, and as far as I was aware, I had done nothing to him personally to earn his ire. Yet, day after day, from third grade until now, he went out of his way to torture me, humiliate me, and cause me distress.

As werewolves, we were supposed to respect our alphas, past, current, and future. My pack was the Crimson Valley Pack, so named for the clay in our dirt and the fact that we strategically settled in a valley for defensive purposes.

Several decades ago, when our pack was first founded, we had started off as a bunch of rogues, orphans, and a few wolves that were almost rogues for they were not happy with their original pack. Things in the pack had started off very difficult and very disorganized and dysfunctional until Alpha Zeron came around.

In truth, Alpha Zeron was actually originally a rogue. He had been born in the Silver Mist Pack, which was in an entirely different state, but as soon as he turned 13 he had abandoned that pack and had been entirely on his own until he had found the band of misfits that would become the base of the Crimson Valley Pack. He had just turned 17 at this point, and the rest of the wolves were already adults. Some mated, some had lost their mates, some had never found their mates.

He had quickly taken over the group and began to lead, there was something about him, his charisma, and his leadership skills that just caused the others to follow him with absolutely no hesitation or argument. He was powerful, but he was also kind and just.

He rapidly turned this dysfunctional group into a formidable pack. In less than half a decade the pack had exploded in size and strength, and unity and loyalty were one of the most common descriptions of the pack. Along the next few decades they continued to grow, fortify, and strengthen. Everybody trained as soon as they turned 9, and they didn't stop training until their 40s.

Despite the fact that they were incredibly powerful and had incredible defenses, they were not aggressive. They only fought to defend themselves, and their closest allies.

Our current Alpha, Alpha Lennox, was strong, though not nearly as strong as Zeron was, just, and kind. He had three sons and one daughter. Jax, Pat, Sal, and Haven. Jax was 17, just like I was, Pat was almost 16, Haven was 12, and Sal was 5.

I couldn't even imagine Jax as an Alpha, he was cruel, far from just, and unpredictable. I had no idea where he got his cruelty and lack of morality from. His mom, who was our Luna, Luna Cecilia, was practically a saint. Our Luna and Alpha were practically made for each other with how wonderful they both were.

Wolves get the ability to find their mates on their 18^th birthdays. My birthday was in November, and I had never been so excited for a birthday before. Everyone makes such a huge deal about mating and finding your mate. The bond is magical and powerful. It was incredibly rare for somebody to reject their mate, but it can happen.

When a mate gets rejected, it can cause physical pain for years to come, and permanent emotional pain. Rejecting your mate is one of the harshest things you could do to a person. There's even stories of death by rejection.

I'd spent the summer training far more intensely than I had ever trained before. I was never really weak, Jax was just really strong compared to myself. At least, he was. I was hoping my training this summer would give me the edge I needed to end this bullying once and for all.

I took a final look in the mirror. My long onyx black hair was down today, gentle waves cascaded along my face, neck, shoulders, arms, and back. My vibrantly blue eyes mirrored my determination. I nodded in approval at my outfit, a black and silver blouse and black skinny jeans.

I was ready to seize the day and make it amazing. I hurried out the door and leapt into my tiny little sedan, driving off to my high school.

As I got to the school literally the first person I saw was my best friend Lily, right next to her motorcycle. I smiled and ran up to her. “I can't believe your parents actually let you bring Baby to school!” I commented excitedly. Baby was what Lily had named her bike. It might not have been the most creative, but it got the emotion pretty clearly across. Lily loved Baby like it was, well, her baby.

“They trust me, and why shouldn't they?” Lily commented confidently. That's what Lily does. She exudes confidence on a daily basis. Her confidence and her charisma were quite a powerful combination, and Lily just so happened to be very popular because of it. But Rose was her favorite person, and they had been best friends since they were toddlers. Their parents were also best friends.

“Come on”, I started, “let's get inside.” I locked my car really quick and we walked in to the school together, just as we had done for every single year prior. It was very rare for us to be separated in public.

As we got to our lockers, naturally next to each other courtesy of Lily talking to the principal about it before, Pat walked up to the locker on the other side of mine opposite of Lily. I tensed up, not that Pat had ever done anything wrong towards me, but he never did try to stop Jax from messing with me. And Jax wasn't usually too far from Pat, being that they were so close in age.

Pat actually wasn't that bad, he wasn't overly nice or anything but he wasn't mean like Jax. He was actually fairly quiet, perhaps because he was constantly stuck in Jax's shadow. It was unfortunate that Jax was next in line to be Alpha, and not Pat.

I nervously checked around, despite my resolve to stand up to Jax and end his reign of terror over me, I couldn't help but to be nervous regardless. Lily noticed my tension and laid a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, Rose, it's going to be okay. You've got this. Remember the plan.” Lily said soothingly. She was right though, we had actually come up with a plan together in the beginning of the summer. The intense training was part of it.

Pat looked over at us and had a strange expression on his face. It seemed as if maybe he wanted to smile at us, but perhaps he was too afraid. Maybe because of the way Jax treated us.

Speak of the devil, moments after Pat looked over at us, Jax turned a corner and spotted the three of us. I involuntarily shuddered at the sight of him. He had grown an entire foot over the summer, and it seemed as though he had gotten even buffer, as well.

Shit. Was my training going to be enough? I wondered to myself, staring at his arms for a moment in disbelief. Jax's expression shifted from a casual smirk to annoyance.

“Well well well, look who it is. Rosie Posie.” He swiftly closed the distance between us and with lightning speed shoved me against the locker. The impact hurt, my shoulder blades immediately began to ache.

Instinctively my knee came straight up, directly into his groin. He let go and backed away, hunched in pain. “Fucking bitch!” He yelped out, but he didn't retaliate back, which was unlike him. He glared for half a moment before taking off.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked Lily.

Pat interjected. “Mom's been trying her hardest to help him. It's slow progress, as you can see, but she really is trying. I'm honestly surprised he didn't go through with it.” This time, Pat did smile. “I'm also glad.”

Me and Lily's heads both snapped towards Pat. Pat had never spoken to us before. His voice was gentle and attractive. Both he and Jax had short sandy hair and emerald green eyes, and were both built rather strong and lean, but that was basically where their similarities ended. Both physically and in personality.

“So your parents are aware he is nothing like them?” I asked Pat, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, they were honestly hoping it was a phase. But it's gone on long enough, and now they are going to extra lengths to try to resolve this. They think it could have something to do with-” He cut off suddenly, alarm in his eyes. “I'm sorry, I must go.” He ran off then, leaving his locker open and everything.

“That was the strangest thing I've ever witnessed.” I commented, closing his locker for him. Lily made a sound of agreeance, closing her own locker.

“Hey, we better get to our classes.”

I checked my schedule again and and set off for my first class. There was only so much we could do to stick together, but we couldn't get all our classes together unfortunately. This first one we didn't have together.

I hurried into the class and grabbed a seat around the middle. The first day of school was always easy, mostly just going over rules, expectations, grading policies, and the other usual things. This class was no different. When this class was over I head over to my second class.

I was one of the first kids in and managed to get the seat of my choice. I settled down and decided to mindlink with Lily since I had a couple minutes. We weren't allowed to mindlink during classes, and let me assure you, the teachers always knew when you were mindlinking.

'Hey I'm in my next class, are you at yours yet?' I sent.

'Actually I'm just about to walk in.' She quickly replied.

'How was your first class?'

'Could have been worse, especially considering Jaxass was in my class.' Jaxass was the nickname we had assigned Jax years ago. I winced imagining Lily in class with him.

'Oof! I'm sorry. Better you than me.' I teased.

It was then I felt a familiar presence behind me, only something seemed off. I spun around in alarm to see Jax glaring at me. “Leave me alone, Jax. I'm not playing victim to you this year.”

His expression looked conflicted, but he didn't say anything. Finally he smirked before sitting in the seat directly behind me. This school year was going to be interesting.

'Well fuck me, Jaxass is in my class now, and for some miserable reason he decided to sit behind me! What gives!' I sent to Lily. Just then before she could respond the bells rang and we weren't allowed to mindlink anymore.

I felt something tiny bounce off the back of my head. You have got to be kidding me! I thought in frustration, trying to ignore him. He did it a few more times throughout class, and by the time class was over I was more than frustrated. Even Cass, my wolf, was starting to get mad.

As everyone stood up I spun to face Jax again. “What did I say about leaving me alone, Jax?!” I roared out, my eyes flashing emerald for half a second. Something is wrong, Rose. Something isn't right. Cass said to me quickly.

Jax was staring at me. Not glaring, but staring. Intensely. He took a step towards me, hesitated for a moment, then walked away.

My heart was racing, but it wasn't from fear. I honestly didn't understand why my heart was racing. But it certainly was. I took a deep breath before heading to my next class.

Lily was in my next class. I thought about telling her what happened just now, but for some reason I didn't feel comfortable talking about it, not even to my best friend.

“How bad was it?” Lily asked me, referring to my last class with Jax.

I was quiet for a moment, still trying to understand what happened. “He was irritating, kept throwing things at my head.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “What childish behavior. So awesome for our future Alpha.” She said sarcastically. I agreed with her. But something still felt off.

Me and Lily also had our fourth class together. We got there pretty quickly and sat next to each other. Perhaps a minute before bell Jax walked in. Great! He's in this class too! He looked directly at me and I swear I saw him grimace. Yet, he chose the seat directly behind me, again. Why was that seat even empty?

We just tried to focus on class but I could feel his eyes on me. It was uncomfortable and confusing. I wondered why it seemed like he was so obsessed with me. Finally class was over and it was time for lunch.

We tried rushing to the cafeteria but I could feel Jax following us. As we went through the doors to the cafeteria I spun on him. “Back off Jax. I mean it.”

“I'm just going to lunch Rosie.” He teased. I hated that he called me that. “No need to be so crazy.”

I growled and turned away again, walking away to the food lines. I quickly glanced around and saw him leaning against a wall, still staring at me. I grit my teeth, got my food, and sat down at the table Lily and a few other friends were already at.

“Look at Jax.” I mumbled to my friends. “He won't stop staring at me. What a creep.” The others looked over at him, Lily raised an eyebrow.

“Seems like he's trying to take things to an all new level.” Lily responded.

After we all ate we chat for a while until the bell rang and we went to our classes. Lily was in my seventh class. There were nine classes.

I finally got to my last class of the day, thankfully it was actually my free period. Some people called it Study Hall but what the class really was, was just a time to do whatever within reason. I sat down letting out a big sigh, and let my forehead rest on my arms, which laid on a desk I sat at. I just needed a few minutes to gather myself.

I felt something lay on my head and I practically leapt out of my chair with a soft yelp. It was a textbook. It didn't whack me or anything, just got set surprisingly gently on my head. I looked around frantically to see who put it there and my heart sank lower than my toes.

It was none other than Jax. This couldn't be happening. He was laughing silently at my reaction, his arms now crossed as he leaned against the desk behind mine. “Good morning Rosie Posie. Have a nice nap?”

“Lay off her Jax.” A soft voice, I've heard that voice before. Pat was walking towards us. Any grade could be together in a Study Hall, but it was typically just freshmen and sophomores, then juniors and seniors. “You're being ridiculous, again.”

Jax rolled his eyes, picking his book up from the floor. “Nobody asked you to butt in, Pat.”

Pat looked at me, and sighed. “Sorry about my brother. Is it okay if I sit here?” He gestured at the desk next to mine.

“Uh... It's fine..” I responded in confusion. I wasn't sure what exactly was happening. We all sat down as the teacher finally came in. Not that this was a real formal class or anything. Me and Pat ended up actually talking for half the period, and I didn't mind actually getting to know him. He was definitely way more like his parents.

Jax seemed extremely aggravated that me and Pat were talking, but he surprisingly didn't interfere. When the last bell rang he stormed out of the class, and I raised my eyebrows.

Pat offered to walk back to our lockers together, since his was next to mine. It made sense to me, so I happily accepted. When we got to our lockers Lily was waiting for me. She raised an eyebrow seeing us walking together.

“We have free period together. It made sense to walk back to our lockers together. Plus, he's pretty cool.” I smiled at him and he smiled back, practically glowing at the compliment.

Lily smirked and we got to talking about our days and what our plans for the evening were before we walked out of the school together.