AN UNORDINARY TUESDAY

That night, I had a dream. Thank goddess it wasn't one in a dungeon. I was running in a forest, but I could not see the moon.

I kept running but there was no moon to be found, and the further I ran, the more lost I became.

And as I looked for the moon, I saw the stars twinkling and they started to sing. Which yes, now that I remembered it, was probably creepy, but that didn't occur to me in my dream. In my dream it was rather pleasant like the chiming of many bells.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

How I wonder what you are."

I stopped to marvel, and then as typical of me, I had to wonder why they were singing such a song - why were the stars wondering what they were? Surely they knew!

Then the stars sang again, but the words were different, at first in ancient Lycan, but those words sort of got translated through the dream:

"Little puppy, do not cry

Keep on fighting with a smile

Though the world is full of pain

With love and kindness it will laugh again

Little puppy, do not fear

Your mate will always be very near"

Says you, but my mate was not here. Neither was the moon. I'm lost. And the stars were singing again:

"Little puppy, do not cry

Keep on smiling till you die

Though the world is suffering

Be brave and true, like a clear bell ring

Little puppy, don't shed a tear

Your mate will crush the things you fear"

Was it just me, or were the stars starting to sound a little on the aggro side to you? But that's not all, three times was confirmation right? So just to make sure I took them seriously, the stars continued:

"Little puppy, do not cry

War is only for a while

Though the world is hurt and raw

The blood and tears will be no more

Little puppy, persevere

Your mate will shield what you hold dear"

And then I woke up, in my bed. I could hear Savy's deep and even breaths above me in the top bunk. The full moon glowed outside my window. So my dream had no moon, because it was here... I had lost track of whether tonight was supposed to be a full moon or not, no thanks to mate's constant dream travelling.

Okay, so it's my wolf that dragged him over "to play" whenever he was sleeping. My Wolfie was getting quite proficient at transporting Mate over.

{Not me.}

If not you, then who? You're saying mate got himself here?

Wolfie didn't answer.

I wondered what time it was. A minute later, my alarm went off, so I stopped having to wonder. Just like all the other prophetic dreams I've had, I woke just a few minutes before my alarm went off.

And then the day began, the way it usually did for me, with all the smells and noises and little reality bites that I've come to appreciate because they helped me double check that I was really awake. I think Delta Simon had said something about this when I first shifted, about some wolves being disoriented after their first shift.

I'm not disoriented. Either that or I was permanently disoriented.

And FYI, pinching yourself didn't work. If you were really dreaming and you pinched yourself in your dream, you could dream that it hurt and believed you were awake.

I got out of bed and dragged myself into the bathroom. The nice thing about the penthouse was that the hot water was always available, so I hadn't found myself freezing in the morning lately.

Let's see, today was yuzu and strawberry, which was fast becoming my favourite combination of soap and shampoo.

And then, because I was afraid I would forget, I quickly ran out of the bathroom to type the words the stars sang into my phone like a crazed Beta, tap tap tappity tap with only a towel wrapped around me before remembering what Savy said about Mate popping up any time in my bed.

I quickly grabbed my uniform and closed myself back into the warm and humid bathroom.

Mate should wake in another room and another bed.

{My mate}

Wolfie insisted.

So he had to be in my bed. Right.

Animals were straightforward like that.

Typing the words of my dream out might had taken longer than I thought. There was a knock on the door. Savy yelled, "Sam! Mum says you better come out for breakfast now!"

I quickly grabbed my things. Today I had archery club. To my surprise, I found an open zip-up waterproof bag on my dresser with my gym clothes and archery gear packed inside, more documents printed and filed stacked neatly under it. Did Killion prepare my school stuff for me?

I zipped up the archery bag, and shoved everything into my school bag. I might be able to read them on the train. They looked like pack meeting notes, but I hadn't seen which meeting. The files were heavy, but I was super strong.

{Beta is near}

{And Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate!}

Outside, mum was bustling in and out of the kitchen. She handed me an empty plate.

Eh? What's this?

"Ki isn't back yet. He is helping Bell in the Lorent dungeons." Mum told me.

She placed a familiar paper bag in front of my. Oh yeah, Before Ki, this was how my lunch bag looked.

I took a slice of bread from the centre of the table and slathered on Nutella.

Before Ki, this was how my breakfast looked.

{Beta... Mate! Mate! Mate!}

Wolfie was so excited, she couldn't even announce their arrival properly.

Mum put a cup of hot chocolate in front of me. The breakfast scene was suddenly like Before Ki, Dad on his phone scrolling through email, Savy eating cold cereal in her pajamas, Mum moving about preparing everything for the day.

"Thanks mum." I said.

Mum looked surprised.

"You're welcome, dear." She answered finally.

What, had I never thanked my mum for putting breakfast on the table or packing my lunch bag for me?

Yeah, I guess it's only when I saw her not having to do it when I realised the effort she had been making in the years Before Ki.

There was a knock on the door and Killion let Rebel and himself into the house.

{Mate! Mate! Mate!}

They were dressed up in suits. Very Lorent.

I very nearly got up and threw myself on Mate. Nearly, but not quite. Instead I bit into my Nutella sandwich and chewed.

"Oh pop. Quick we need to change." Killion suddenly realised. He turned his head to sniff at Bell's jacket to confirm it, "These clothes still have your scent."

"So?" Rebel raised a brow.

"You wanna accidentally trigger the mating bond with a little puppy?" Killion asked innocently.

Rebel glanced and me and then growled something low and Lycan to Killion that I couldn't quite hear.

But Killion heard it just fine, he answered in his usual fashion, "That's no way for a Luna to talk."

The both of them disappeared into Killion's room.

No one said a word, although Dad did look up from his phone at me. I finished my sandwich.

"You're just going to pretend you didn't hear that, aren't you?" Savy cackled.

"Hear what?" I stood up quickly before she could repeat it to me, "I need to go to school now."

And then I picked up my things and left.

I got to school uneventfully. You know those stories where on the way to school something magical happens? These things didn't happen to me. Travelling to and from school was usually completely unmemorable experiences. Even the cranky weather had turned into a more consistently cold winter.

But I finished going through the pack meeting notes, and for no reason whatsoever was feeling pretty excited by the time I got to school. I wasn't looking forward to it at all, but now I felt like today was going to be a good day. Maybe it was because I suddenly remembered Coach Roberts had said I was ready to shoot actual arrows from my bow at practice today.

{Betas are near.}

Or because Wolfie recognized betas in the area, but as usual, she didn't clue me in as to who.

I caught sight of Matt talking to Jules outside the assembly hall on the way to class and figured it was probably them. This would be the most logical conclusion anyway.

Or it could also be the growing undercurrent of exitement among the students affecting me. It was strange how the whole school seemed abuzz, as if they were excited with me. But of course I soon learned that the general student population was not really excited so much with me, than something entirely different.

By homeroom, I had the breaking news discussed right in front of me as Jasmine and the cool girls copied my homework.

Today was the day of the special assembly.

It seemed that the performers were high school students from a fancy school and were all rich, gorgeous, and cool.

It's true because they were setting up in the assembly hall now and were seen by a number of student council members who were assigned to assist them.

There were performing music and they would sell tickets to their upcoming concert after school at the student foyer.

It's the coolest thing now, for highschools to have bands, and every year there is a continental high school battle of bands.

Did I mention that the guys in the bands were really hot? Because Krystal mentioned it at least three times.

"Are they as hot as Liam?" Jasmine whispered.

"They're as hot as ten, no, a hundred Liams!" Promised Krystal (who hadn't seen them yet but had heard this from a credible source.)

All they needed to do was go to the foyer after school and buy a ticket to meet one of the hot guys.

Who knows? Maybe buying a ticket might result in meeting Mr Perfect Hottie and getting a date this Valentine's Day.

For some reason, the concert tickets have become some kind of raffle ticket for love.

"Dating a guy who plays an instrument is cool." Krystal proclaimed.

"I want a boyfriend who can play the guitar and sing to me." Zara decided.

"Will you be buying a ticket, Sam?" Jasmine asked me.

"No, I have archery club after school. I'll probably miss it."

"Oh, that's too bad for you." Pearl said, "Luckily my librarian duty is tomorrow."

"Do you want us to help you buy a ticket?" Zara asked, "We can go watch the concert together."

"Sure, ok." That sounded like fun, "How much is it?"

No one knew.

Okay...

"Why don't we watch their show at the special assembly first, and decide after that if they are really worth us going?" I suggested.

"Yeah, Zammi is right, we should make sure the guys are really hot before we decide to buy the tickets." Zara said.

Actually I meant the music, not that I had very high standards, but I hoped it wouldn't be too terrible to sit through.

I would like to go to a concert with my classmates. It felt like such a grown up teenage thing to do, I can't believe I had never done it before. I want to go!

I hope they didn't sound too terrible or priced too much for my friends or worse, turn out to be ugly (because you and I know this was the surest way to change the cool girls' minds about going.)

So it was decided, and the rest of the school day was spent sitting through my teacher's lessons or my friends' speculations.

Maria had sat through it all silently with a creepy smile on her face so I knew she was in a good mood today.

"I like music." She informed me, "I hope they play Mozart."

That would be unlikely.

Maria pouted at me because she heard my doubt.

This might be an interesting experience for Maria too.

The special assembly was set in the last lesson block of the day which meant we got to skip science, which was just as well because I had left my science textbook at home today.

Plus there was supposed to be a small quiz and most of the kids were happy to be missing that. Although I wouldn't have minded taking the quiz since I studied it to sleep last night (thus the textbook left on the floor next to my bed).

Anyway, it was a small price to pay for a special assembly. It was the first one this year and I definitely felt more excited than justifiable. But maybe it's just my friends' excitment rubbing off onto me.

Marcus was definitely looking forward to it.

"It should be good, since they all participated in Battle of the Bands before. It's a tough audition just to get listed for the competition."

I really hope Marcus would be able to find his band soon.

Are you thinking, "Hurry up and just get to the concert already!"?

Because that was probably what everyone else was feeling too and by the history lesson block, the anticipation had turned into an air of general impatience.

Our history teacher came in smelling sickly and like a hundred different medicines. He told us he wasn't feeling well and to read our textbooks quietly.

Of course we weren't quiet, the conversational sounds hummed, but except for the occasional visit to the washroom, most of the class remained seated. And since my desk partner was a mostly silent Maria, I got my homework done.

No, I hadn't felt like it, but I would get home late today and I just wanted to clear it so that from the concert onwards, it would just be fun: special assembly, archery club, home and chill.

And before I knew it, it was time head down to the hall for the special assembly.