Ivan woke up covered in a layer of sweat. The dream that had abruptly woken him up fizzled out of his mind with each second of alertness. He couldn't even remember it now, but he knew it was the same bad dream he had been having since he was a kid. Recently, they had gotten especially bad — but today was better than most. He hadn’t woken up at 3am like he usually did.

  He turned to his side and peered at the red numbers on the alarm clock. 6:35. Downstairs, he could hear someone moving loudly around the kitchen. He knew it was his father. He was the only one in the house who would ever willingly get up before nine o’clock on a Saturday morning.

  He got out of bed, took a shower and got dressed, grabbing a duffel bag he had packed the night before.

  When he walked downstairs, he found his father sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in his hand. A newspaper was open on the kitchen counter.

  “You were supposed to be up a while ago.” His dad raised his head from the newspaper and glanced at him, his expression inscrutable.

  “Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.”

  His father closed the newspaper and folded his arms. “Did you read the email I sent you about the meeting?”

  He nodded. He hadn’t. “I'll be in the car.”

  — — —

  Ivan landed the punch, watching blood spray out of his sparring partner's mouth. It was later that morning and the forest around them was alive — filled with the echo of grunts and shouts from the other people sparring around them.

  His opponent, Malik — a werewolf who had graduated a year ago — smiled up at him menacingly through the curtain of blood dripping from his nose. He spat on the ground next to him and bared his red-soaked teeth.

  He launched himself at Ivan. Ivan moved, but not before receiving a blow to his ribs. He winced, ignoring the throbbing pain at his side.

  His gaze shifted past his partner to where instructor Adler was sitting. Cal's father. The older man was watching the sparring matches around them, occasionally whispering to Rohan's mom, Advika. His dad, who was usually there to watch, had gone to meet with a pack elder.

  Suddenly, their conversation paused, and Adler's gaze shot to him. Then he remembered he was supposed to be fighting. But it was too late. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Micah's hand reared his face.

  He ducked. Malik's hand passed his face, just missing his cheek by a fraction. He glanced up. Adler watched them, shaking his head before turning so Ivan couldn’t read his lips.

  Ivan cursed. He had gotten distracted. That was the one thing his dad had always said. Don't get distracted. He was supposed to be as good as his father, better even.

  Suddenly, he felt the unwelcome cooling sensation forming behind his eyelids, and he knew his green eyes were about to shift into that purple glow. He quickly glanced down at the leaves, shading his eyes from view.

  “Hey man, are you good?” He heard Malik ask.

  “Yeah, fine,” Ivan responded. He clenched his fist, breathing deeply and turning away from Malik, who had walked up to him with concern. “Hey, you did well today, dude. Way better than me, even, and that's saying a lot.”

  Ivan sniffed, shaking off the hand Malik had placed on his shoulder.

  “Sure, thanks.” He felt himself regaining control of his eyes, the cooling sensation subsisting. “I need to go.”

  “I— Okay?”

  He walked through the trees, circling around the other werewolves, who were now cooling down and shaking hands with their partners. Some people were lying on the wet soil in their wolf forms, panting in exhaustion.

  An arm wrapped around Ivan’s shoulder, and he glanced to his side. Cal was grinning up at him, a water bottle and phone dangling in his hands.

  “I just sparred Zofia, and now I think she may hate me a little because I won,” Cal said, and they both glanced to where Zofia was cleaning blood off of one of her infamous daggers.

  Ivan smirked and clapped his shoulder firmly. “You won't win next time.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Oh, for sure. But that's— Hey, shouldn't that have healed by now?”

  Ivan turned to him and saw that Cal was staring curiously at his bleeding knuckles, mouth open in confusion. Ivan rubbed at his knuckles then quickly shoved them into his pockets. He gestured to the bottle that Cal had been swinging in his hand. "Can I have a sip?”

  Cal’s eyes darted down to the bottle quickly, then back at Ivan. He gave a half smile, hiding the guilty face Ivan had seen many times before, then looked behind Ivan to where Rohan was sitting alone on a bench.

  He pointed to where Rohan was sitting and grinned. “Ask Rohan. I'm sure he’ll be just ecstatic to share.”

  Ivan glanced down at the bottle in his hand from the corner of his eye. The bottle was metal, so he had no way of knowing what was inside.

  “You think you're funny, don't you?” Ivan asked sarcastically.

  “Because I am.”

  Rohan was a germaphobe and had been since they both met him at twelve years old. He would rather die than let anyone drink from the same bottle as him, and had said so repeatedly. But for some reason, he had never minded sharing food. Ivan wasn't sure he really thought about the fact that your hands also have germs, but he wasn't going to be the one to break the bad news.

  Ivan glanced at Cal wearily. He was wincing in pain, rubbing at his temple. “Party too hard last night?”

  Cal shrugged. “No such thing.”

  Ivan shook his head and walked up to where Rohan was sitting alone on a bench, tapping away on his phone. He sat in the empty seat beside him, shifting his gym bag to make space. “Hey.”

  Rohan grabbed the gym bag and placed it into his lap. “Hey.”

  Ivan glanced back at the spot where he and Cal had been standing. Cal was nowhere to be seen. “Has Cal been acting weird to you? At all?”

  Cal had always had unhealthy ways of dealing with his issues. He spent most of his weekends partying instead of studying, which was evident from the hangovers he would complain about the next morning.

  Rohan shrugged. He grabbed a packet of chips that he had hidden in the side pocket of his bag, opened it, and tilted the packet to Ivan, offering him some. “Cal acting weird? It's probably nothing.”

  Ivan shook his head at the offer. Rohan was probably right. He had always been the rational one of the group. Ivan was probably being overly worried over nothing.

  “What are you two gossiping about, me?” Ivan turned and saw Cal walking up to them. When he finally reached them, he sat down on the armrest of the bench next to Rohan, placing his arm around the back of the bench for balance.

  “Yeah we were gossiping about how annoying you are,” Ivan said, giving Cal a deadpanned look. Cal narrowed his eyes at Ivan and gave him a playful look of disapproval.

  “You guys are so obsessed with me,” Cal said jokingly, and Rohan gave him a gentle shove, pushing him off the bench. Cal let out a surprised shriek as he struggled to regain his balance, then stood up, crossing his arms angrily at Rohan.

  Ivan smiled, letting out a chuckle.

  “And just for that.” Cal grabbed the packet of chips in Rohan’s hand and walked away, grabbing a handful of them and stuffing them into his mouth. Rohan laughed and shook his head, watching Cal walk away.

  “How was training?” Ivan's dad asked in Russian. After the training session, his dad had come to take him home, and they had been sitting in the car in silence while Ivan listened to the car tyres crushing leaves as they drove.

  Ivan stared at him, then back out the window, watching the brown trunks of the trees as they drove by. By now, the sun had fully risen, and the glow was illuminating the entire forest.

  “Fine.” He answered in English.

  “Did you work on your knife skills? I remember that they needed work.” His father asked, not turning around.

  “Yeah, they're… better. Improving.”

  “Okay.”

  They sat in silence for the rest of the car ride.

  When they finally reached their house, Ivan grabbed his duffel bag from the car trunk and went up to his room. When he shut the door and turned around, he found Milena sitting on his desk, fiddling with a pen she had probably found in his drawers.

  “Hey, how was practice?”

  Ivan shrugged, then dropped the duffel bag at the foot of his bed, removing his hoodie from his head. “Fine.”

  “Your magic still acting up?” She asked. He shrugged, knowing she could see him. She turned the chair around to look at him.

  “You need to start using your magic, Detockha.”

  “Stop calling me that.” She had been calling him that since he had turned thirteen, and seemed determined to call him that until he turned forty. He hated it. thirteen and

  She got up and tapped his nose lightly, running a hand haphazardly through his hair. “Aww is Detochka mad?”

  “No, but he would greatly appreciate it if you could get out.” Ivan pushed her hands away. He kicked off his shoes, lay down on his bed, and stared up at his blank ceiling.

  Milena groaned in frustration. “You're so stubborn.” She remarked, then stomped out of the room.

  Ivan shifted on the bed and grabbed his phone from his sweatpants pockets. He put his phone into his charger on his bedside table, then rolled over and closed his eyes.

  A buzz from his phone caused him to open them again, and he grabbed his phone. It was a notification from his calendar app. He groaned and fell back into the bed

  Mei's party — 4 days