Two Become Three

Havermouth, Eight Years Before

Heath parked his dirt bike in the bike rack. There were several of similar makes and models parked there, owned by other pack alphas too underage to hold a driver’s license in order to legally drive a car. The police turned a blind eye to the dirt bikes, as long as they were licensed to pack members.

Heath hung his helmet over the handle, without fear of it being stolen. Anyone who stole from Heath Gale was certifiably insane, and even the foolhardiest of thieves knew it. He would let them get away it, only to hunt them down to where they felt most safe, and he would appear there, beat the crap out of them, set their safe haven on fire, before taking what was his home safe and sound.

That was how it worked. You didn’t screw with an alpha. It was an alpha’s job to ensure that it was well known that there would be repercussions. An alpha’s reputation was built, it was earned, it was not given to him by birthright.

It had only taken twice for the message to become urban legend because of the savageness in which Heath had responded. In Havermouth, you did not f-k with Heath Gale. He would f-k with you back, tenfold, and get away with it because he was a Gale. And therefore, if you earned Heath Gale’s ire, you could expect that it would come with a permanent scar.

It had started with Cameron, Heath thought as he strolled towards the covered area where rows upon rows of lockers stretched out under the galvanized roof. More precisely, with Cameron’s hair. Whilst Cameron was a darker red than many, his hair was red enough to be the source of teasing. “Ginger ninja,” and “Carrot top,” along with many other ridiculous insults had trailed Heath’s friend from primary through to middle school, the age in which testosterone and alpha genes had kicked in for both of them.

Whilst Cameron was more inclined to weather the insults, used to them after a lifetime, Heath quickly leapt to his defense, resulting in a trail of fistfights after which the local bullies had well and truly learned that they needed to find other victims.

Heath put his gym bag into his locker, and carried his schoolbooks with him to the classroom, searching the flow of blue-clad students moving to their first class for Cameron’s bright hair and spotting him approaching from the music hall.

“Hey,” Cameron’s smile was all white teeth, and his blue eyes shone, happy to see Heath.

“Hey,” Heath’s heart danced a few beats. “Had music?”

“Yeah, prepping for an exam.”

They sat towards the middle of the classroom, in the preferred seats, knowing that the teachers kept a watch on the back row, usually occupied by the human students who smoked pot at the back of the oval before school and who mostly slept through class, and that the front row was for geeks and nerds who didn’t mind the teacher being able to see their schoolbooks throughout the class.

Heath was exchanging spit balls with Rohan across the classroom, deliberately striking Lillian Ridgeway and Diana Boyston in the crossfire, when a new student walked in, his dark hair falling into his eyes, his chin pressed to his chest, and his expression resentful and petulant. There was something to way he wore his uniform that screamed rebellion, perhaps in the way one tail of his shirt hung out beneath his jumper, in the way his collar was folded, the roll of the blazer and shirt sleeve mid-arm revealing a band of black wrapped around the bones of his wrist.

Lust struck Heath in the guts like plunging into a pool of icy water. “F-k,” he moaned under his breath, causing Cameron to slide him a sideways look. “Who the f-k is that?”

“I don’t know. New kid.”

“Well, dah,” Rohan sniggered. “Looks like a punk,” he evaluated the new boy with a sneer. 

Heath could barely concentrate throughout first class. The new boy was seated in the front row of tables, next to a human. Every shy gesture, every slight toss of his head to flick the hair from his eyes, every fidget of his long, pale fingers, held Heath enthralled. The light caught in the hair on his forearm, and Heath wanted to smooth it against his skin, he wanted to taste his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, to wrap his fingers in the overgrown black hair.

“Hey,” Cameron nudged him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Heath recalled himself and looked down at the blank page in front of him. “F-k.”

He saw Lillian Ridgeway and Diana Boyston talking to the boy in the hallway after class, their books clutched to their chests, and a little swing to their hips as they smiled flirtatiously up at the dark-haired boy, who grinned, bracing a hand on the wall over Lillian.

Heath stopped by them. “Hey,” he said, deepening his voice.

“Heath,” Lillian’s smile was bright, and her cheeks pinked. “This is Rhett Salem. His family just moved here from Rideten. His father is a lawyer, and his mother runs a beauty care range…” Rich, she was telling him, and, in being rich and a werewolf, worthy of being in their clique.

“Hi,” Rhett’s eyes met Heath’s, golden brown within a midnight dark ring, like whiskey within a glass, and then fell again. He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s really just mum and me,” he corrected Lillian. “Dad’s staying in Rideten most of the time, only coming down at the end of month.” That was code for the full moon, Heath knew.

“Rhett has English next,” Lillian chirped in helpfully. “Don’t you and Cameron also have English?”

“Yeah,” Heath was reduced to single syllables, his eyes glued to Rhett’s dark eyelashes against the pale curve of his cheek.

“Yeah, we have English. We’ll walk you to class,” Cameron volunteered.

“Great, we’ll see you at recess then,” Lillian threaded her arm into Diana’s and they both walked away, their heads bowed together, casting looks over their shoulders and giggling.

“Want to ditch?” Cameron asked Rhett immediately.

Rhett looked up with a wide grin. “F-king hell yes. I’m dying for a smoke.”

“Come on,” Cameron didn’t smoke, but he didn’t say so, not wanting to look uncool in front of the unfamiliar alpha werewolf. “Do you play football?” He asked as they fell into step, walking out of the building into a side path that threaded between the transportable classrooms.

Twenty years before the school had decided to move away from the single large building and make use of the expanse of land that it possessed by scattering classrooms between the trees in a more organic set up designed to give students plenty of vitamin D. The fringe transportable classrooms had ended up in the possession of the English, Drama, Music and Arts department, whilst the sciences remained in the central, historic school building.

The set up had the advantage of, in good weather, providing students with plenty of corners and out of sight places to hide and smoke or make out, but in winter provided little shelter from the rain.

Cameron headed towards the back of the oval, where the groundskeepers kept a natural scrub officially for the purpose of providing horticulture students with an area to work, but it was mostly used by students (and several arts and drama teachers) to sneak a smoke.

As usual, there were several groups there, mostly werewolf, and Cameron and Heath’s name was called in greeting. They waved, but did not join any of the groups, leaning instead against a tree, using it as cover in case a teacher wandered back that way.

“Do you have smokes?” Cameron asked Rhett. “Or do you need to bum one?”

“I have my own,” Rhett’s smile was lopsided and slightly superior as he took the pack out of a pocket and tapped a cigarette loose. “Want one?” He offered Cameron and Heath.

Cameron took one and leaned forward when Rhett flicked the flame active on his lighter. Heath saw Rhett breathe in the scent of Cameron’s hair, and the flash of his wolf in his eyes. Cameron exhaled smoke and coughed a little as he straightened. Rhett wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, his eyes meeting Heath’s as he placed the cigarette between them and lit it.

A girl’s shriek followed by raucous laughter from a group of senior alphas broke the lock of their gaze, and they turned to watch as the senior boys passed the unhappy girl between them, groping and laughing at her.

“Mating moon,” Rhett murmured.

“Yeah, it drives them a bit nuts,” Cameron agreed taking another cautious drag of the cigarette. “Dad says that we are like his stud bulls when we’re eighteen – no fence will keep us out of the heifers.”

“My mum says that male werewolves are mindless f-king machines,” Rhett laughed with a shrug of a shoulder. “Which I guess is about the same thing.”

“Have you…” Cameron raised his eyebrows. “You know… with a human girl?”

Rhett’s smile was slow and sultry. “Haven’t you?”

Cameron’s cheeks flushed a bright red and his chin dropped to his chest as he used the toe of his shoe to smash the butt of his cigarette into the dirt.

“Cam’s fourteen,” Heath said defensively. “He’s younger. He’ll lose his cherry soon.”

“What about you?” Rhett asked.

“Heath’s done it,” Cameron said. “Over summer with a human girl.”

Heath shrugged and stuck his hands into his pockets. The experience hadn’t been what he’d imagined it would be like. In truth, it had been so awkward and embarrassing that he’d struggled to stay hard, and he could barely admit to himself that he had closed his eyes and imagined Cameron, instead of the girl.

She had cried afterwards.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” Rhett said with a leer. “There’s nothing like it.”

Heath grinned back – he would never admit differently. “Yeah, it was awesome.”

“So, what’s there to do around here?” Rhett wondered, his eyes returning to where the seniors were clustered around the girl. All that they could see of the girl was a pair of legs wrapped around the hips of one of the werewolves, her underwear hanging off one ankle, and his arse flexing as he f-ked her in the undergrowth. “F-king slut,” Rhett said, shaking his head wryly. “So, any good parties?”

“Yeah,” Cameron said immediately. “There’s one every weekend, whenever someone’s parents go away. We’ll let you know when the word gets out about it.”

“Cool,” Rhett slung his arm around Cameron’s shoulders. “Maybe you’ll get lucky this weekend, eh?” His glance included Heath. “We’ll find someone at least to suck him off, eh?”

“Yeah,” Heath agreed. His eyes went to where the seniors cheered each other on as they took turns. That was how alpha werewolves behaved, he told himself, they took what they wanted and needed from the human girls, they did not crawl into their best friend’s bed in the middle of the night, or lust after the new boy at school. “We’ll find a slut to do all three of us.”