Chapter 3

I suddenly felt a haribo ping off my cheek and smiled sheepishly as I realised Lyla had been talking to me.

“Anyway...” she said raising an annoyed eyebrow at my lack of attention, “I heard from Michelle that there’s going to be another ball coming up soon. Wouldn’t it be amazing to actually get to see what one looks like!”

“Oh yes, I can’t wait to serve all those stuck up idiots.” I jumped up and put on my best Jeeves pose.  “Would you like a brandy with that Sir? No? Well might I suggest a lovely scotch instead, it goes ever so well with the braised beef parcel with red currant jus.”

Lyla rolled about laughing.

“Anyway,” I added, “it’s unlikely that I’ll get to see anything.  I wash pots remember. I don’t think I’ll be allowed out of the kitchen in case I contaminate the guests with my lower class disease.”

Lyla just shook her head at me and gave a little smile.  She was used to my rants. For some reason I had never taken to the whole hierarchy system that existed in the werewolf packs.  Something about it just grated at my skin.

As a young teenager I would often talk about rebellion and changing our society, or just running away from it to live amongst the humans, but in reality I would never do any of that.  Rather disappointingly I was always a good kid at heart and would never do anything to upset or harm my mum and dad. They meant the world to me and I loved them dearly.

“Five years to go,” I said wistfully.

Lyla looked unperturbed.  “You’ll never go and you know that.”

“I so will!” I said with determination in my voice.

“What if you find your mate?” Lyla asked.

I snorted at her suggestion.  “Ooo, there goes a flying haribo eating rainbow pig.”

The chances of any of us lesser pack members of finding our mate were relatively small.  For me, being gay and all, I would say it was pretty non-existent.

I’d turned 18 six months ago, which meant that technically I could find my mate at any time.  The only problem was that in order to recognise your mate and trigger the bonding process, you had to have skin on skin contact.  As an estimate I would guess I had made contact with about 5 males in the past year. At that rate I would be 100 before the odds were even remotely possible.

In wolf society, it was tradition that when two of the opposite gender met for the first time, they would shake hands, thereby learning straight away whether they had found their mate.  A handshake for wolves was considered much more intimate than in human society.

Consequently, when two male wolves met, there was no handshake, but they would tilt their head in a small bow as a sign of respect.  The level of the bow would signify their status. So for me I would have perform a full bow at about a 45 degree angle, whereas Casper, being the Alpha’s son would just sort of twitch his head in acknowledgement.

So as you can see, no touching was involved, leaving me no chance of finding my mate.

Ok, so it’s not like I never touched a male.  Of course I joked with my friends and slapped them round the face, and play fighted with them, but it wasn’t like I could do that to strangers.

In wolf law, you had to look for your mate for 5 years.  If at the end of the 5 years you were unmated, you were allowed to leave the pack to go and choose yourself a mate, and to return once you had done so.

This worked very much like human relationships.  You needed to get to know them first, and work your way up to being in love.  Whereas if you found your soulmate, the bond was instant.

Once my five years were up, I intended to go and live in human society.  Homeosexuality in wolves was not against the law, but it was frowned upon, and so I decided that to live as a human would be the most free I could be.  I knew it would be tough, having to suppress my wolf, but it would be worth it, just to be able to go out and flirt, and dance, and kiss another guy.

My friends thought I was being overly dramatic, but they had no idea what it was like to have to constantly repress a part of yourself.  A large part of yourself as well. It was just another constant reminder that I just wasn’t good enough here.

Lyla and Matt, my two best friends, were the only people who knew I was gay.  Even my parents didn’t know.

“You know it could happen,” said Lyla, still going on about my non-existent mate.

“Yeah, but I kind of hope it doesn’t,” I replied.  “I don’t want to be stuck here in a relationship that I have to hide.  I want to be free.”

Lyla groaned.  “Oh please no! Do not start reciting that ruddy poem again.  I think if I hear it again I’ll just shrivel up from the inside and die!”

I laughed at her reaction to what was, the best moment in my school life.

We were in our creative writing class and our assignment has been to write a piece about what we wanted to do when we became adults.  We were allowed to write in any style we wanted, but had to read, perform, or display our work at the end.

I had written a poem.  And let’s just say I was no shrinking violet when it came to performing.  My classmates were in stitches and gave me a standing ovation for my overly dramatic performance.

I stood up at the foot of the bed and let out an exaggerated cough.

Lyla groaned and melodramatically threw herself onto the bed, stuffing as many pillows over her head as she could.

I put on my best thespian voice:

“The pounding of my heart echoes the beat beneath my feet

My future burning brightly, releasing fire and heat

That melts the chains that bind me, as from your land I flee

And burns a brand upon my heart that says, at last I’m free

I’ll travel far away..”

“Oooff”.

A torrent of pillows rained down on me sending me sprawling back on the carpeted floor.

“Ahhhh,” I wailed while thrashing my arms and legs around under the mound of pillows.

“Free yourself from that sucker!” Lyla said before collapsing in a fit of giggles.

Honestly, sometimes I wondered why I put up with her.