The Alpha's Luna

"Psst. Nessa? Ness! You shouldn't be staring at him," Riley, my bench mate tells me in a rushed whisper, trying but failing to be discreet. Her thick brows are raised and knitted together, even though her eyes look straight ahead at Mrs. Robinson — our biology teacher — who is blabbering about frogs. Ew She places her hand over mine, trying to grab my attention. But I ignore her. Despite her continued whispered warnings, I don’t take my eyes away from him. I want to, but I just can’t. Not today. I don’t see it, but I know Riley's bulbous eyes are widening as her voice grows restless. She sounds surprised. Riley isn’t a friend — even though we sit together in every class we share and she hangs out with me and my boyfriend, Niall. I can’t label her as an enemy either. She’s just a human cousin that I have to tolerate since we were born in the same year on the same island, Bellpond, which is isolated from the mainland by a long, wide bridge. "Why are you staring at him?" she asks

My family are the betas of the pack, which means my life is better than the omegas and less stressful than the alphas. When I was young, my grandma would tell me tales of when she was young—of how the pack lived together in one place, a big pack house. The harmony and peace that existed, but she would also soon shift to talks of fights and bloodshed, and that was my cue to pretend I had fallen asleep. My grandma doesn't like how the modern world has changed the ways of how packs work, even though the Silver Crescents never fail to celebrate our pack event every month. We gather in the holy temple of the luna, sing, and eat together, as discreetly as possible. The sun is high up in the sky, blazing down at me. It's a good day, I try to convince myself, pretending to think that the incident in the classroom never happened. The waves rise high and crash onto the irregular rock bed and sandy shores. The sight makes me want to draw out my surfboard and spend hours in the sea. But that's ba

The breeze from the sea is warmer on my face. I step back, further away from the water, and Jordan follows my trail until I stop and turn around to face him, my face underlined with concern. "Is everything alright?" I ask. "Yeah. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for the way I behaved earlier," Jordan mumbles, earning a long look from me. I want an explanation, and good for me, he gives me one. "It's just that—I was shocked, okay? You're a crescent." His eyes are unsettling, darting left and right. One of his hands reaches up and scratches the scar on his left brow. "So? What does it have to do with whatever I said?" My voice is sharp in the dark of night. I fold my arms, leaning my body weight more on my left leg as my neck cranes to look at him. He looks down at me, pulling up a defensive face. "I didn't expect it. We're rivals, right?" "I don't know, you tell me," I challenge him, leaning forward. "Are we?" For some reason, I don't understand, my words make him laugh. It's a

Even with the strength of thirty young people, it takes us hours to make the Westside beach look clean. More of us spend our time talking and bonding than doing any actual work, but I cannot complain. After all, it's one of our aims: to get the two packs together. The sun is right above my head, sending trickles of sweat down the sides of my forehead. I fill the last of empty plastic bottles and such I can spot into a black trash bag. I wipe the beads of sweat on my forehead with the back of my hand and approach a group of girls standing close by. My legs have become stiff. I like the sand, but walking on it is another matter. "Thank you for being here, girls. It means a lot," I say with a genuine smile, wiping the sand from my hands on my jeans. "Oh, Nessa," a girl named Emily waves her hand. "I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend my Sunday morning." She wears a smile on her freckled face, but I'm not sure if it's as genuine as my own. They stride off, the exposed skin

I walk with strides larger than usual, impatient to get to my destination. My hands sway on either side of my body, the sun setting above casting its long shadows on the road behind. The air is cool on my face. Riley would have shuddered in my place. As a werewolf, I was born with more tolerance to harsh climates, and winter has only begun. Soon, I would be able to sense better. A week and a half, I think sullenly. When I first received Jordan's text, disappointment flooded my brain, mixed with confusion and mild grief. That night, after learning of the fight, I stopped by Niall's house. He complained of slight pain in his back where Jordan had kicked him, and for some reason, I never asked Niall how it had started. He was in a sour mood. I missed his wide smile, the way his eyes closed a little when he laughed, and even when I tried to make a joke, he had only passed me a smirk, clearly unimpressed. I had been afraid to even raise the matter of the next beach clean up. Everything wa