SNEAKING AROUND SECRETS

9 FEBRUARY, TUESDAY, MIDNIGHT

I made my bed to look like I was sleeping in it and then turned off the lights in my room. Then I quietly snuck out of my room and down the stairs. One of those body suits or sprays that the Black Forests had to mask my scent would be awesome to have about now.

Normally, my parents wouldn't kick up a fuss just because I went for a run. I mean, Savy yes, although I still didn't get why the fuss.

But tonight was a school night and I was leaving past midnight, presumably to trespass Lorent property. This would all be on Wolfie should I be caught.

Then I realized how silly I was about sneaking out. I mean, I was the alpha. Plus, this was my tower. My parents stayed in the main house. It's not like Ki would stop me. Hahaha.

I happily hopped down the last steps to the second floor landing when I heard my parents. Panicked, I dropped down and hid behind a large palm by the kitchenette.

I was just thirsty and came down for a drink. Yeah, that's right. I paused anyway to listen.

My parents were actually talking to Ki in the glass conservatory. Whew. Okay, I'll just straighten up, act natural, grab a water, and go back upstairs.

{Want Mate}

Are you crazy, Wolfie? Mum maybe, but Dad was there and his Alpha senses were not something I could sneak past undetected with him just next door.

We were lucky he hadn't noticed us at all! But I supposed he wasn't expecting us. And we were one floor away. It just happened that I could just hear their voices from here. They were talking quietly, I didn't bother to strain to make out the words. I mean, its none of my business.

{Want Mate}

My Wolfie was quite persistent. My lucky sense of direction was rearing to go hunt Mate down.

I could sense him through the mating bond all night. He was in an irritable mood. Hahaha.

{Want Mate}

For some reason, Wolfie thought being with Mate would help. No. Don't you see Wolfie? He's already brewing in his bad mood as it is. If I went over, it'll probably just blow up in my face.

Plus there was no way we could just slip out until Dad goes to his room.

Still Wolfie was more of the instinctive type than the logical type, so I found myself creeping down the stairs. I grabbed a bottle of water on the way, just to make it look like I was simply getting a drink and stretching my legs by the poolside.

Halfway down the stairs I started to make out the words of the conversation.

"Well, good. It sounds like it really was just a run." Mum said, "Goodness, it feels like the moment my puppies shifted, mothering had suddenly become so complicated."

"What about Sam?" Dad asked.

"We've taken care of her." Ki informed my dad.

This made me pause. WTH did he mean by "We've taken care of her"?

Ki elaborated as he gave his report to Dad, "The GPS tracker has been installed in her phone. Her room's switches are also being monitored which gives rough indication of the appropriate times to enter her room without infringing her privacy."

Wait, you're tracking my phone location and monitoring the my lights in my room. In what way wasn't that an infringement to my privacy? But that wasn't all!

"And as discussed, we've kept tabs on her wolf. She has been mild throughout the day. It appears that Luna's assessment was correct."

Luna, as in Bell?

"When goddess is kept in consistent routine and interesting activity, her wolf is generally speaking, safe and content." Ki explained.

"I told you so." Mum sounded pleased. So Luna, as in Mum.

"And I told you, you'd know best." Dad reminded Mum. And then in a more conclusive voice he said, "Good work. I think this is for the best. Thank Ben and Harvey for me as well. You've all worked hard."

"Be very careful Sam does not find out about this or who knows what she might do." Mum warned.

Once again Mum, you knew best. Who knows what I'd do? Even I had no idea... But I was definitely going to do something.

Mum sighed, "If only dealing with Savy was so straightforward."

Then she told Dad and Ki, "Sam might be unpredictable, but she is easy to read and largely instinctive. For most part, she simply reacts to her immediate circumstances and environment. Savy, that girl is far shrewder. I never know what she's up to."

"Savy would be fine." Dad tried to reassure her, "She had always stayed out of trouble..."

"Just because she was never caught doesn't mean she was never involved." Mum said.

Woah. Respect.

Mum really knew us well. But that didn't give her the right to monitor us like that! It was just offensive the way she made it sound like we would get into trouble if left unsupervised!

{Want Mate}

Wolfie reminded me.

Ah, right. Hahahahaha. Alright. I'll make a quick run to the Lorent's, sneak in and out again, and then think of a way to get back at Mum and Dad for consorting with my betas to monitor me.

What treachery! Okay, so they were plotting to keep me safe and happy. Actually, now that I am writing this, I'm not sure why I felt so betrayed. But the point was that it was an infringement of my privacy! I must get even.

But first, to mate. Just as luck would have it, my parents thanked Ki and said goodnight. I sat on the step and waited.

Ki replied goodnight very formally, a la Alfred from Batman except Ki wasn't that old.

I waited as Ki turned off the lights in the conservatory. I thought he might have to turn off all the lights in the main house for the night, and had meant to make my escape then, but my Dad started switching off the other lights and Ki thanked them and returned to the tower, where he was quite surprised to see me.

"Goddess!" Ki was so surprised, he forgot to smile.

"Just urm... getting a drink." I showed him the bottle of water which I had forgotten to drink.

Opps. I hadn't even broke the seal of the bottle cap.

I imagined the normal response would go something like this:

"Not again! How much did you hear this time? Do you make it a habit to evesdrop whenever you should be sleeping?"

But Ki only smiled, "Please allow me, goddess."

Oh. Hahaha. So fun. I forgot that this was Ki. With anyone else, I would probably had gotten a earful, depending on who it was, I might even had to face interogations - what was I doing here? How much have I heard? Where was I going? Why wasn't I in bed? etc.

But this was Ki. So he turned the bottle cap to open it and handed the opened bottle to me with a smile, "May I help you with anything else, goddess?"

That's when Wolfie told him in no uncertain terms, "Want Mate."

A normal response to that would be something like, "What do you mean?/Do you know what time is it?/ Go back to your room!" Or something.

A Ki reaction went like this:

"Understood." Ki made a short bow and gestured for me to follow him around the curved glass wall of the pool.

Then he drew open the curtains to reveal a large changing room. Unlike the turquoise glass tiles of the pool area, the walls of this room was like the floors, made of a white stone.

There was even a shower installed. The wall on the dry side of the changing room had shelves. One of them proffered towels. Another had baskets with our names labelled on it, each with the same dark sweatsuits etc folded neatly inside.

There were also empty baskets which Ki took out and put on the counter for me to put my things into. He clipped on a label with the name "SAM" on it.

Then he took an empty basket and a "KI" label for himself and said he would wait for me outside.

I changed out, dropping all my clothes in the basket on the counter.

My mum had always been organized because she could find ANYTHING, but this whole matching basket and label thing was... The closest term I could think to describe it would be "culture shock" although I wasn't sure if it were possible to be culture shocked in your own home.

Okay, so I've never been culture shocked before, unless you counted elementary school. But I think I was too young to be shocked then. I had thought that was the way in all schools. Even now in Winderhill, I was at most "cultural surprised" by the humans than shocked. I mean, humans were just different from wolves like that. I've long gotten used to it.

Anyway, I shifted and padded out of the large changing room, appreciating how the doorway and spacing between the plants and stuff were very comfortable for my large wolf.

Ki's white wolf stood waiting for me in front of a gaping hole in the floor!

A trap door just outside the changing room of the pool room. Ki's white wolf wagged and turned to hop into the square trap door. So I followed. Once we were both inside, Ki stepped on a lever shutting the door above us.

Hi everyone, my name is Samantha Kingsley, and I live in a home with not one but two secret tunnels leading out from it.

Oh yeah, I'm also a werewolf.

And urm... My family name is Lorent now.

Oh, and I should mention that I have a blue wolf with the power of dream-travelling?

My mate (I had a mate!) was a former fight dog and is currently leading an underground army.

I kept thinking of more shocking secrets. The most shocking thing was how all of it only happened this year.

Wow, I hadn't noticed how things had changed for me since I started highschool. When Dad said highschool was the period of metamorphosis for young people, I had no idea.

I followed Ki's wolf, running through the dark earthy tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, Ki's wolf used his massive head to push, and the wall turned, revealing a dark room.

Ki pushed the wall back in place. On this side of the wall, it was a shelf, but it wasn't holding books, more like canned foods and camping gear? There were more shelves. My Wolfie was curious.

{Where's that?}

Wolfie wanted to know.

Ki's wolf looked towards one shelf, "Packhouse." And then looked at the third shelf, "Beta's house."

Then Ki hopped up a few wide concrete slabs arranged like rough steps, and pushed open the wooden doors above him.

I followed him out. I knew immediately where we were - the old gardening shed.

Somewhere behind the packhouse was an old gardening shed. The shed itself was empty, but as pups it was considered as the ultimate secret clubhouse.

We found it during a navigation exercise a few year back. For a while we made it an exclusive by-invite clubhouse. We'd sneak over to play after Breakfast with the Alpha or after Lycan Study Group.

At first it was only Dean, me, Ben, and Savy. Because we were from the same navigation group and found it together. It was supposed to be our secret.

Granted it was a dirty empty shed but I was quite sure we could make this place an amazing clubhouse.

We borrowed a bench from the back of the packhouse (it was summer so the outdoor furniture were left out). And found a log to make the other bench (Ben said that if we took more than one bench, his Dad would definitely find us out.)

And then Savy told Lizzy. And Ben told Jonah... Who pretended to accidentally stumble into our clubhouse while we were there to join us. And then Dean secretly brought Drew and Darlyn over whenever his mum was at the packhouse giving dance or music lessons to the other ladies.

This wasn't all that bad. What was bad was when Jessica found out about it. She was hurt because Dean and I had left her out, and even Drew and Darlyn knew about it! By then Darlyn had brought Delilah, and Delilah had brought Angela and Carlie, and Angela had brought... I forgot who she brought. But by then it wasn't all that secret or exclusive anymore. But no one invited Jessica.

I felt so guilty, I quit the club. And pretty soon, it was abandoned for other games.

Who knew that our secret clubhouse would turn out to be the cover of a real secret hideout/escape checkpoint?