Forbidden (BoyxBoy)

Chapter III: First Day

Jason.

I peeled my eyes open to a groggy view of my bedroom. Blue sunlight streamed through the open window, illuminating my face with tepid dawn light. My nose was met with the familiar smell of fresh soil and pine trees: the smell of home. Burying my face in my pillow, I groaned out loud, realising how early it was. I hate early mornings. It took me a few long seconds of hazy fatigue to realise why I'd woken up. Today was my first day of school. 

I bolted upright in bed, a goofy grin spreading across my face. Throwing the covers off my body eagerly, I hopped up and padded across the room and out into the hall. On my short walk to the shower, I breathed in the subtle smell of my mother's perfume downstairs, alongside wafts of eggs cooking in the kitchen. One of the many blessings and curses of being a werewolf was the hypersensitive sense of smell, which was great when you wanted to know what you were having for breakfast, and not-so great when you were starving and the house down the road was cooking. 

I took a boiling hot shower, relishing in the feeling of the water pelting against my back. The transformation from human to wolf had a tendency to leave your muscles aching the next day, and my father insisted I go for a "wolf run" yesterday to get all the anxiety out of my system. Feeling out of control of your adrenaline-based emotions, whether it be because you're angry or stressed, anxious or aroused, was bad news for creatures like us. Go a long time without releasing these emotions, and you lose control of the shift. I had done as he had said, because the last thing I wanted to do today was let the wolf out. 

Emerging from the bathroom in a towel, I discovered my younger brother slumping down the passage towards the stairs. He simply inclined his head in greeting, his caramel-coloured hair mussed and his dark blue eyes filled with sleep. He was my mother's child in looks, but he still had the strong jawline of the men in our family. 

Once safely in my room, I changed into a pair of jeans and a grey sweatshirt, shrugging on the tan, fleece-collared jacket that had once belonged to my dad. Slipping on a pair of worn sneakers, I eagerly treaded downstairs to the kitchen. 

Our house was one of the biggest ones on the packland, but was still humble as not to draw any attention. The large patch of forest where we lived had belonged to my father's bloodline since the end of the Second World War, when our wolf pack returned from fighting in France and wanted to settle down somewhere quiet and raise the next generation. To any human outsider, our packland would simply look like an inlet of houses amongst the tall pine trees. 

The territory spanned across two hillsides connected by a shallow valley. At the centre of the packland, nestled into the hollow, sat the Alpha's house. The large, timber-panelled two-story was were my father grew up with his older brother Stephen, and now belonged to Elijah. I had spent a large amount of my childhood there too, because my father had been Stephen's beta and second in command. Behind the Alpha's house, the forest opened up into a small, wildflower-filled clearing and giant old barn we used for pack meetings. 

Our house crested the northernmost hill on the outskirts of the territory, and our closest neighbours lived about a ten minute walk southwards. The placement had been strategic: my father liked to stand on his porch and know that if something was happening on the packlands, he could see it from there. 

My mother was setting down a steaming plate of scrambled eggs on the round kitchen table when I entered the room. Zach reached straight for them, his toast already piled up on his plate. He greedily spooned eggs into a generous mound on his toast mountain. Mom swatted him with a kitchen towel playfully, pushing the eggs away from him before he could finish them all himself.

"Morning mom." I greeted her, sliding into the rickety chair opposite Zach. She glided across the room and planted a chaste kiss on my forehead before scooping some eggs onto my plate. She was babying me the way she did when she was nervous for me.