Wanted by the Wolves
22. New Kid in Town

K A R A ’S P O V :

I hated walking through the halls now. Yes, Char and I avoided each other in a silent agreement that we weren’t friends anymore, but that wasn’t the problem. We rarely saw each other, and the few classes we did have together we stayed as far away as possible.

The true problem was the rest of my peers. The second I would walk to my next class, a quiet chatter of whispers of gossip would invade my hearing, making me feel uncomfortable.

“Look, it’s that one girl.”

“What’s her name again?”

“She got into a fight with Charlotte over joining the anti-wolf club.”

“I heard Charlotte’s dad was the head of that.”

“I wonder what she did to be called a back stabber.”

“I don’t want to hang out with her. For Charlotte to get that mad at someone she must have done something bad.”

“Stay away from her.”

“She’s bad news.”

If I wasn’t a werewolf, which these people think, I wouldn’t be able to hear what they were saying. Just the hum of quiet unreadable voices would reach my ears. But due to my enhanced senses, and my alpha lineage, I could hear them loud and clear. I heard the same thing every time and was done with them. In my class, though, it didn’t get any better.

Honestly, I think this argument we had had been blown way out of proportion. Although it was already Monday morning and everything had gone down a week ago, I still had no clue what I had allegedly “betrayed” her on. Charlotte also shouldn’t have taken my move to look less suspicious as a move against her. I was in no way trying to side with her father on anything, despite what she thought.

Just as I was bustled through the front doors and made my way towards my locker, I got tapped on the shoulder. Turning around, I found someone I hadn’t seen before standing in front of me. It was a girl who looked about my age, if not older, with long thick dark brown hair tied in a tight braid. A strip of hair starting above her ear all the way to the tip of the braid glowed silver in the light, and her stormy eyes were mysterious.

“Hi, I’m new here, I was wondering if you could show me around.”

“Have you heard the rumors about me, apparently I’m untrustworthy.” I don’t know why I was being so rude, but I honestly didn’t believe she wanted help from me. Most likely, she wanted to make fun of me or replace evidence for my betrayal of Charlotte.

“I don’t listen to rumors, though. That, and I also just got here five seconds ago. Anyway, I’m Kelly.”

For some reason, the attitude she had and the way she held herself that said she didn’t care made a small smile tug at my lips. “I’m Kara.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Kelly and I ended up having most of our classes together, which allowed us to learn more about each other. Also, I wasn’t sitting by myself anymore since I wasn’t welcome at the human table.

“So Kara, who are you staying with? You didn’t exactly mention anything about your parents.”

“Oh, um, yeah, I just live with my aunt. They kind of had a fallout and.. yeah.”

“I know what that’s like. My parents got into a fight and divorce when I was really little, so I’ve been living with my dad ever since. She just got up.. and left. I don’t know her that well.”

For some reason, Rachel insisted she was telling me the truth. Maybe not the whole picture, but just enough for my trust in her to double.

“That stinks. My dad kind of went off the rails and my mom thought it was best for me to move out here.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but I wasn’t hiding a lot either. I bit my lip to hold back my blinding my smile as realization slowly washed over me.

Maybe being here wouldn’t be so bad after all.

When Kelly and I went our separate ways for the end of the day, I saw Christina running towards me.

“Just what we need,” Rachel thought sarcastically, pacing in my mind.

I honestly couldn’t help but agree with her. At first thought, joining the anti-wolf campaign looked like an easy idea. All you had to do was pretend to be against wolves in your backyard, right?

Nope. During meetings, you would talk about ten different escape routes you had for escaping your house, and how and when you would kill a wolf. Charlotte’s features showed on her dad’s face, but other than that, he was quite the opposite. I had actually stopped attending most of the meetings because I feared he would sniff me out quickly despite his human genealogy.

“Kara! I haven’t seen you at some of the meetings lately! Is everything alright? Are you considering quiting?”

I turned around, realizing my last class could wait, I didn’t need anymore awful rumors spread about me. “No, I just guess I was really busy.”

“Oh, that’s such a relief! I thought you were going to help the wolf protection program!” I looked at her confused. In all my weeks being here, that name had never come up.

“Wolf protection program?”

“Yeah, they go by the WPP for short. Anyway, there are the head members now.” I looked to where Christina was pointing and saw Jason, Caleb and Ryder appear, walking down the hall. If they saw me out here, they would automatically get suspicious.

Jason must’ve noticed our presence, because he turned to look at me. “Christina, please get out of my face and return to class.” She must’ve felt the power radiating off of him since she was gone in a split second.

“Kara.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Jason.”

“I wanted to let you know you aren’t completely off the hook yet. We are going to replace out how you betrayed Charlotte, and what Martha has been hiding.”

“My aunt hasn’t been hiding anything!”

Jason smirked, liking the way he could easily rile me up. “Trust me, I’m not stupid.”

I groaned. Everyone kept on thinking things were going on when they weren’t! The one thing I knew Martha was hiding that scared me was my identity, and what would happen if the pack found out.

“Oh, and I did nothing to Charlotte. For your information, I don’t betray friends.”

“Looks like you’re some friend,” Caleb spat at me, causing me to practically growl in anger. By now, I was shaking, my face turning bright red.

“I didn’t do anything - not that you’d even believe me for a second!”

Jason, Caleb and Ryder had to hold themselves back from practically tackling me to the ground. High up ranking pack members are easily angered, hence why the four of us were so worked up.

“C’mon guys, let’s get back to class. We’ll let this pathetic excuse of a human go back to her terrible day.” I shot daggers at Jason as he stalked back to class with his friends trailing behind him.

Being his mate and hearing that did hurt me, but the fire burning in me cancelled out most of the pain.

Before I could stop myself, I spoke in a deadly whisper, causing the three wolves to glance at me. “I may be human, but I am most definitely NOT pathetic.”

And with that, I headed to my last class of the day late, not caring that the teacher gave me a warning. My alpha side was getting the best of me as I began to plot out a plan to escape this mess.