This room is also set up more like a lab. My table mate is a human girl. She has a pretty smile and kind eyes. We don’t talk much, but she seems nice. The teacher gives us a supply list and talks about a few projects we’ll have throughout the semester. He dismisses us and my classes are done for the day. I head home, glad my first day went so well.

CHAPTER 6

On Tuesday, I’m up early again so I decide to make some oatmeal bars and white chocolate chip cookies to take with me. I’ll give some to Sniffer and use the rest as a peace offering for my ignorance to the Alpha. My GPS tells me it’s about a twenty-minute ride, so I leave my house at one-thirty.

Even though this is a college town, it’s relatively small, so it’s not long before all I see are green rolling hills and too many trees to count. The leaves are just about every shade of red, yellow, orange, and green you can imagine. It’s beautiful.

When my GPS tells me my destination is in one mile, I slow. I get my first look at a large black gate bracketed by a lower black fence. I’ve been following this same fence for the past five miles. The property must be huge. I see someone standing just inside the gate, and as I get closer, I notice it’s Sniffer. I must be getting nervous because the closer I get, my belly tumbles.

“Relax Sophie.” The gate opens and Sniffer walks to the passenger side. Hopping in, he says, “I love your Jeep. How long have you had it?”

“Yeah, it’s great. I got it the day I turned eighteen, but it was nowhere near the shape it’s in now.” I tell him about all of the work I’ve had done and what else I’d like to do before I’m through. “I’ve been thinking about getting something else to drive through the winter. I hear it’s brutal up here.”

He agrees. “That’s probably a good idea, even with the top, it’d still be cold. Maybe an SUV or something?”

He tells me to just follow the road about a mile. “I’ll take you through the pack houses before we head to my brothers.”

“Oh, he doesn’t live with the pack?” I ask, curious about their life.

“Yes and no. He has a separate entrance about two miles past the gate we came in, and he has a little over a mile between his house and the pack houses. He needs his space. People forget he’s just a regular person, someone always wants something. This way he has time with the pack and time away.”

“What kind of things do people want from him?”

When I look over at him he’s shoving a whole cookie into his mouth, he smiles. “What? It’s good.” Brushing the crumbs from his hands, he closes the lid and says, “His time mostly, once a month he holds hearings for any disputes or petitions, even blessings for marriages. Sometimes, people just want to suck up to him. They think they’ll get better positions, better jobs, anything really. When you get to know my brother, you’ll see that he values hard work and loyalty. Suck ups just pisses him off.” He laughs. “I don’t have to share my sweets, do I?”