Chapter One

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Since that day in the woods, the stranger has not left the confinement of my mind. The videos in my mind showed him doing different things each day.

But he never smiles.

He runs, trains, works, sleeps.

But he never smiles.

Why doesn't he smile?

---

"Charlie, come on! You need to get up. This is the second time I've asked you!" my mother shouted, and I couldn't help but let out a sharp groan at her harsh tone. I have never been a morning person, and I didn’t plan on starting now.

"I AM up!" I shout back, being startled awake from my dream of the perfect stranger once again. I had dreams about him almost every night since I had turned 18. His face always brought me comfort, but I could never remember where I had first met him.

I tried to bury myself deeper in my cocoon of blankets, snuggling into their warmth desperately wanting to see the perfect stranger. Silence filled the house, and I could feel myself slowly begin to drift back to sleep as his face flashed through my mind once again. Suddenly, my door is slammed open and in the doorway is my terrifying mother with her arms crossed.

"Get up, now," she says, laughing as she walked back to the kitchen.

I mutter under my breath as I sluggishly get up and walk towards the chair in the corner of my room. I pick up my crumpled uniform and place it on the bed, as I make my way to the shower. The warm water spreads across my body, slowly helping me wake up since I am definitely not excited to be awake. Once finished, I get dressed, brush my hair and apply light makeup. I pack my bag with my schoolbooks, and another for my dance stuff.

Once downstairs I spot my mother in the kitchen, drinking her morning cup of coffee with her car keys in hand. Father must have already left for the packhouse, which isn’t unusual. Since he is the Alpha, we could live in the packhouse, but he wanted me to have a normal life so he decided to buy a house close by.

"I'm ready," I say, as she glanced up, rising to her feet. I walked quickly behind her and we made our way to the car to go to school.

---

The car pulled up outside my own personal hell. College. I only decided to go to this college because my mother wanted me to have a good education for when I met my mate, even though she did not when she met my father. The private school was a mixture of mostly werewolves and vampires but had a few other supernatural beings as well. The college was set between two neighboring packs and the Alpha of Alpha’s kingdom, but that never really caused an issue. Everyone seemed to get along just fine, even if we were all different species of the supernatural.

My parents were both werewolves, who decided to have a child. Me. I was the only child they had, but they didn’t seem too worried about an heir. I was 18 but had never shifted so they thought that I was just a late bloomer like my mom. She only shifted when she met my father and then found out she was a healer, which was rare among our kind. She soon became the pack doctor, while my father was an extremely powerful Alpha. They tried to make our lives as normal as possible, but being the daughter of two very powerful beings was tiresome when you had nothing to show for it.

"You're actually going to dance tonight?" my mother says, eyeing my gym bag as she pulled me from my thoughts.

"Yes, I've missed a couple of practices now so I guess I should," I say as I opened the passenger door retrieving my dance stuff.

"I'm glad to see you're still fitting it in, even with all the extra training that’s been set up for everyone," she says, handing me my school bag.

Once I start walking away, I could hear the window being rolled down as she smiled and waves at me. I return the gesture before walking to the large double doors of Silver Lake College. As usual, groups of friends are scattered throughout the large hallways, making the halls incredibly noisy and crowded. I make my way to my locker, avoiding the stares. Everyone knew that I was wolf less, but since I had true-blood parents I could attend college here.

I am accepted throughout the pack, for now. I dance with some of the females, but they think I have accepted my fate. That even though I am wolf less, I have accepted to find a mate, let him control my being, and let him control my life.

Is that what my fate is?

Submitting to a mate and letting him take over?

Mate.

Will I even have one since I do not have a wolf?

Once he sees that I am wolf-less, will he even want me?

I see the look in their eyes. The way they see my tattered notebook as I write in my poetry journal and my ballet flats flung over my shoulder. The way the graphite stains my left hand from smudging and the bruises that cling to my body from dance. I never asked to be wolf-less, but they treat me as if I did. I decided that burying myself in hobbies would be better then succumbing to their stares and humiliation.

I am so lost in my thoughts, that I bumped into something extremely hard causing me to drop my notebook, scattering the loose pages all over the floor.

I mumble under my breathe as I lean down and pick my stuff up, realizing that he immediately leaned down to help too.

He had loose blonde shaggy hair, with ocean blue eyes and had an extremely bored expression on his face as he handed me the loose papers that were in my books. He was tall, and I could tell he was a higher-ranking werewolf. He wore an insignia on this cardigan that signified the castle, which made sense as to why I had never seen him before.

"Sorry about that," he says, almost shyly, "I'm Oliver,” he mumbled as he passed me the pages of my poetry that had shed from my journal. For someone who was from the Sapphire Kingdom, he was extremely passive. 

"Charlie."

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