This Is The Part Where You Run

Chapter 1

Hope walked out the front doors of the school in grey sweat pants and a matching tank top, she had just finished her talk with Raphael. The full moon was high in the sky and her limbs ached for a run, her lungs craved the night air, and she desperately wanted to feel the grass under her feet.

She also wanted to clear her head of the many things weighing heavy on her mind for example the sparks between her and Lizzie in the Stimulation box. She’d also scented something too in the cafeteria. It was stuck in her nose, clouding her senses and making a single word pound in Her head.

Mate.

she was almost 19 which means this feeling could only be tied to one thing, though it was rear, so was she. She took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth; yes, this helped whenever she changed. She then set off to the woods, the breeze blowing in her face and helping her clear her mind.

Her mind wandered as she ran, now as a wolf, thinking about the concrete things she knew about being a wolf to keep her mind off the instincts pressing into the back of her mind.

Wolves were born, not created like vampires. The genetic mutation could only appear if one killed and it typically ran in families as it did with her own. Wolves lived longer than humans, to about 120 years. Humans and wolves could create children together without issue. Anyone with the gene from their first transformation onwards would absolutely go through the change once a month, the only exception being those from a certain royal bloodline that could control their change.

She stopped for a moment lifting her head and letting the fresh air wash over her. A shiver ran up her spine as the wind ran through her fur, but it was lovely to feel something else other than that itch. “I’m too busy with shit right now to go through this,” she mumbled in her head.

She knew vampires mated for life, and that the process was different for each couple - sometimes lasting years before they finally declared they were mates.

Wolves, though, were another thing. Mates were rare and decided by scent - if both parties smelled a certain thing in the other, then that was it. They’d be bonded and nothing could separate them until one of them died. There are rumours of wolves finding mates in other supernatural creatures but that was mythical.

"At least wolves don’t go crazy when the other passes," she mumbled to himself.

The problem was both people had to accept it. Wolf or not, If one of them didn’t, then it wouldn’t work. The catch is only when the human half and the wolf half reach full maturity could they find the one who smelt of that very specific thing.

That’s why she was running. She didn’t want to bother with trying to find this person, they could be anyone and the chances of them
rejecting her were too great. It's Not worth her time, was what she told herself.

She turned around intending to head back to the school, take another deep breath, ready to revert to her original form. However, this time the wind carried something else on it. She sprinted off into the woods again, instincts taking over in an instant and overpowering any common sense she had left.

Mate.

She followed the scent deeper into the woods. It was stronger than ever and she growled low in her throat at it. Something in the back of her head nagged at her about what they could be doing in the woods so late at night but her wolf side didn’t care. All that mattered was finding the source.

A minute later, her pace slowed she wasn’t even sure what she was looking for,  surely if the person was this deep in the woods they’d be in wolf form and hunting, they probably got away from being locked up by Dr Saltzman and yet the tracks ended at the old mill.

She hid behind a tree as she looked out. The moon was bright enough for a human to see, though it was nearly day to her enhanced wolf eyes.