"So class, if I could have your attention, we have new students that are going to be joining us this term," the teacher's voice came, finally penetrating Mia's shield of absentmindedness. She merely sighed and barely spared the new arrivals a glance as she continued to stare out the window. Some of the ways she worked on her nerves was by watching nature. In the distance outside the school, a squirrel chased another, or maybe the two were all running toward the same thing. Upon further inspection, it turned out, they were headed to the same nesting they had set up in the tree where they placed their findings of the day's meal and settled in.
Mia's eyes were about to scan through the forest for another sign of life when someone tapped her shoulder. 'Oh, damn, I'd forgotten the introductory speech,' a troubling thought traveled through his mind while Claire shook her.
"Mia, if you would?" the teacher spoke.
Mia stood up to speak, looking on to the new arrivals before she began the speech she had now made each year that she was in this school. It was the job of the head of the hunters in the school to initiate the new werewolves so that they knew what to do and what not to do in order to stay in peace while they attended the school. "As you all know by now, the name's Mia Chase. I represent the hunters at this prestigious school. I hold the position of head hunter. Anyway, to get straight to the point, the same rules that apply in the real world apply here. The only difference here is that as a hunter that studies within the same school, I am much nearer to you in case of an emergency. Violence between a wolf and a human is strictly forgiven. Any form of violence against a wolf from a human is to be reported straight to me. Retaliation of any form will automatically plead the human innocent. Hunters are to be respected as they have the power to use violence where they see fit. And finally, anything concerning these rules or the conduct of a hunter is to be reported directly to me."
With that said, Mia took her seat, her mind flashing the last statement that she had missed, "Oh, and welcome to Dark Moon High School."
"Scary speech," one of the alphas spoke, "So are you supposed to be the toughest hunter here? You don't look so tough…"
"And yet many werewolves seem to be finding themselves in the infirmary," Mia replied, her eyes back on the forest. Her interest in the new arrivals was already fading or was it simply an act that she was using to show them that they didn't mean much in this school. Nonetheless, she kept her senses sharp like she had been taught growing up. There was nothing that hurt more than to act cocky and not be able to back it up when the need arose.
"If there isn't something more that is to be said, you can take your seats," the teacher said to them.
There was a bit of silence and shuffling while the wolves took their seats. Mia, being in the last seat at the back corner with a great view of the forest and the class as well, only had one seat that was closest to her on one side, and another that was the one directly in front of her. The one beside her was occupied by Claire and this meant that no one could get…
"Hey, Claire, can I sit there?" The whole class went silent when they heard the Royal ask one of the most feared girls to scooch. Mia slowly turned to see what it was that was going on and found that Claire was being asked to vacate her seat. 'Oh dear, Royals sure are confident,' Mia thought.
"Why not?" Claire replied, smiling and getting up, before whispering something into Marcus's ear to which he laughed. Marcus took the seat beside Mia while Claire went for the seat in front of her. The alphas took the other seats that lined the back of the room away from Mia.
The teacher shook his head in an effort to get his mind back into the lesson before he continued exactly where he stopped as if his class had not gained three new extremely intimidating students. The constant feeling of having someone staring at you couldn't let Mia lose focus again. Rubbing her temple, she got out one of the books she carried and started scribbling down something from what she knew the teacher was teaching just to pass the time.
"Does the big and tough hunter actually pay attention?"
"No, she simply knows everything that is going to be taught already. And I am not big."
"Oh, that must be fun. Is there some way the petite tough hunter can help me with this after class then?"
"That's quite straightforward. Sorry, I have no time for that. Like you just said, this hunter, meaning I probably have something else to do in my so-called free time," Mia was expecting him to be a talker, but this was going too fast for someone that was seeing him for the first time.
"What's the deal with your eyes, Chase?" he asked her, bringing back her memories of the day before; the headache, the wolf, the pills, the fact that on her birthday, she would have no way of stopping this one bit and the fact that it was a full moon on that day.
"Weird question, Marcus, does the full moon affect werewolves?"
"Weird question indeed even after hearing that the werewolves believe in the moon goddess," he replied matter-of-factly.
"Never mind, just a rhetorical question. I've just never seen a werewolf actually showing signs of being affected by it," Mia said, turning her attention back to the forest looking for yet another distraction.
"Can you look at me when you are talking to me?" Marcus tried, but as it was right now, the hunter was not going to spare him another second of his time which nagged him a bit. Thoughts of her peculiar behavior bothered him. He could hear her heartbeat and from the moment they had gotten in till now, it had been steady, neither rising nor falling, except when she asked the weird question. As soon as she began getting agitated, she dismissed it. The question probably meant something to her although Marcus was at a loss as he could not figure out how a useless question such as that one would matter to anyone, not to mention a hunter with as much experience as a Chase.
He turned his attention to the teacher and soon found that ignoring the absentminded hunter was even more irritating than he would have liked. He was getting more and more curious to know what was on the mind of the blue-eyed hunter, but she was keeping to herself right now. Even Claire, whom he had known to be a very close friend to her, wasn't making as much progress with her as he was.
Mia, on the other hand, after careful thought was finally at the conclusion that this was probably her last week in school. After the founding festival the coming weekend, everything was going to change for her. She began closing her books and packing them into her bag after taking a look at the time on the clock before saying one last thing.
"It would be best for you to just lose interest in the bad blue eyed hunter," Mia said before picking up her bag, slinging it over her right shoulder and starting the walk to the exit of the still-seated classroom.
"Hey, the class is…" the bell, as if in a queue, rang while Marcus tried to stop her, "not yet over."
Claire turned to him while the rest of the class filed out. Marcus stared into his book, having barely written a thing from the lesson. His mind could not stop soaring in confusion. "You must be used to being undeniable," Claire said.
"That's not it, Claire. Is she always like this?"
"No… not really. Something is bothering her, but one thing I know about her is that she will reveal that in her own time. For now, there is nothing any of us can do about it," she said.
"That is troubling to know. Do you have any pointers on what buttons I can push to get a reaction out of her?" he asked sheepishly.
"You're desperate, royal boy. Assuming I follow all you are saying, which I don't, Mia is impossible to get to. On the outside, she seems emotionless… at least, that is what she shows everyone she comes across who she has nothing to do with," she said.
"She didn't seem emotionless to me," it was Claire's time to be surprised.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"She is clearly hiding a lot although I cannot put my finger on what it is exactly. Curiosity won't let it slide," Marcus said, her eyes now stuck on the door that Mia just went through.
After a short period of silence, Claire shrugged it off, rolling her eyes, "Royals have weird taste."
The two alphas that were still waiting on Marcus burst into laughter on hearing that as Claire got her bag and bid Marcus farewell. "Why do you follow her around?" Marcus asked Claire before she was out the door.
"Is that what it looks like?" Claire asked before completely stepping out of sight.
'Am I missing something?' Marcus thought to himself after the reply from Claire but decided to put it aside for the meantime.
Mia's new self-assigned task was to find out what she was going to do about her situation with the full moon transformation. She avoided much discussion with anyone else and went to the library once more, skipping her lesson like she had done the day before. She wanted to find out more about the werewolves and the way the full moon could affect them. As a matter of fact, it now occurred to her, just how wrong she had been to ask the Royal a question such as that one as it was one that was only going to cause suspicion.
She went through the section she had visited the day before, her eyes landing on a cover that said, 'the Wolf and the Moon.' She picked the book out and took a seat in one of her usual places. Being a hunter of her caliber made rules quite loose on her that she no longer really cared for boundaries concerning the school and conduct. The book started with how the moon goddess was the source of the werewolves' power and it was through the moon that she would grant them even more of it. It was suicide to fight a werewolf under the light of the moon without the right equipment. This was something that hunters were taught, although Mia learnt that later on from Claire when she was trying to warn her of it. The Chase family never did care about that detail as a werewolf was still a werewolf whether the moon was out or not.
She skipped through the pages looking for what could be a bad side effect of the full moon on a werewolf. Much to her dismay, she found what she was looking for. 'Werewolf moon training…' A title that began the entire topic of how wolves trained their young control from the moment they could first shift. A werewolf was not allowed near any humans until it was clear that they could control themselves when the full moon was out and make it look non-existent even when agitated. Before that happened, getting such a wolf angry alone was enough to activate its primal instincts. The training that her guardians had taken her through was now starting to make sense. Mia was just about to close the book when she saw a caption at the end of the page.