“I hope I’m not interrupting, I just wanted to come and introduce myself to Arla. I’m Victor. You made quite a debut this morning,” he said with a lopsided grin, extending his hand for Arla to shake. Arla felt her cheeks heat embarrassingly, taking in his compliment as she returned his handshake. “Uh, um, thank you, I think,” she replied, nervous under his intense gaze. “I hope we have a class together soon. I’ll see you around, Arla,” he said as he returned to his own table. Meredith’s laughter broke the three other girls out of their trance-like state. “You should see the look on your faces right now,” she teased. “A good-looking boy comes along and you all turn beet red.” “He’s divine though,” sighed Lydia hopelessly,

Alpha Lorenzo lay in bed early on Sunday morning, not entirely sure if he’d even slept. The past week since he’d had to send Arla away had been impossibly hard for him. Marcel was still ignoring him most of the time, and when he wasn’t, he had a terrible attitude, which in turn made Lorenzo short-tempered and grumpy with everyone around him.  He tried to hide it as much as he could, but it was exhausting. He distracted himself during the day by throwing himself into his work with the pack and businesses, but at night when he lay in bed, all he could do was worry about Arla. Was she ok? Was she being treated well? Was she happy? Did she hate him for doing this? As he lay there staring at the ceiling, he felt it. A tug on the mate-bond with Arla that was so faint he would have missed it had he been busy. He flew out of bed, throwing on some sweatpants and

The weeks turned into months, and before long Arla had turned fourteen and was positively thriving at the coven. She commanded an aura of respect and power that came from the confidence in the strength of her abilities.  They widely respected her for her talent as well as her caring nature, and as she took on more responsibility helping the teachers train the younger witches, she was looked up to as a mentor. She struggled to believe that she had only known she was a witch for less than a year. As the rumours of a new white witch had circulated, more and more witches had requested the Elders allow them to visit, to meet Arla in person. She had become somewhat of a celebrity within magical circles and the Elders tried to limit her exposure, concerned about the intentions of some in the community. Meredith had

Cadet training was all about the basics of building physical fitness, strength, and stamina in human form. The stronger the human body is, the stronger the wolf. Once a pup’s wolf has awoken, they can then begin combat and self-defence training with a solid foundation already formed. Arla’s lungs were burning by the end of the session and she was hunched over with her hands on her knees, trying desperately to suck in air and slow down her breathing. She was strong, thanks to her weekends working in the garden, but she’d underestimated just how unfit she actually was. “It’s a shame you can’t use your magic to run for you,” joked Drew, noticing how much she was struggling. Arla smirked to herself before vanishing, then reappearing behind Drew in the blink of an eye, and tapping him on the shoulder. He spun around w

Arla and Victor hastily jumped to their feet, peering into the darkness trying to gauge who, or what, these people were and how many of them were here. They were already breathing heavily from their previous activities and now their hearts were racing, too. “Who are you?” shouted Victor, pulling Arla closer to him. “Don’t be scared, we are friendly,” replied the female figure closest to them, her dark cloak billowing in the breeze. Victor couldn’t smell them, but with Arla’s werewolf nose, she certainly could. She realised she must have been completely lost in the moment with Victor to not smell this stench before now. She’d heard that rogues smelled like rotten garbage, but she didn’t get the feeling that these were wolves. The only way she could think of to describe the fragrance was damp, mouldy carpet.