Ezra Harland's PoV:

The next morning, I go to my first class on my own.

Yes, the devil couple is still ignoring me.

Okay, I know I did something bad but, c'mon! They are overreacting way too much.

It's not like I made her cry or something.

'Not that you know of,' My Wolf, who has also been giving me the silent treatment, supplies ever-so-helpfully to add to my guilt.

'Fine. I deserve the way they're treating me.' I snap back, stopping myself from rolling my eyes.

'Cause anyone looking at me might think I'm dumb.

'Yeah, like they don't know that already.' My Wolf comments with snark, shaking his head in disappointment at me.

I sigh out loud.

'Fine, I'll apologize to her sometime.'

'You better.' He threatens, although I can feel that he's pleased with my reply.

Seems like even my own Wolf thought I wouldn't apologize. Just how badly did all my friends and my Wolf think of me?

Before I could get an answer to that question, the door marked 101 comes into view. As I enter the room of torture, all thoughts about my impending apology and previously bad behavior flies out of my head.

The size of the room and the rows and rows of chairs makes me gulp nervously. It's huge, with seemingly hundreds of LED lights making the room so bright, not a single person could get away with dozing off during class.

Oh Goddess, I should've never willingly agreed to be subjected to this pain.

I seem to be right on time, because the class is already almost full. A quick scan tells me that Seneca and Micajah are sitting on one of the back rows. I make a move to walk over to the empty seat beside them, but a glare from Micajah freezes me in my tracks.

Oops. Looks like I'm gonna be stuck in the front row.

Just great.

I shake my head in misery and scan the front rows, searching for any friendly face to sit next to and make fun of the professor. Sadly, everyone in about the first five rows are the exact opposite of what I'm expecting—already going through the books and making notes and doing other ridiculously and equally nerdy things like that.

Just then, my eyes land on a very short human sitting on the sixth row with an empty seat beside her. At first, I think she must be way too small for her age, but then quickly realize that she's an actual kid—blonde, a little chubby in that cute-kid way and extremely serious with those rectangular black frames.

Twelve or probably thirteen tops.

Interesting. Decision made, I walk over to her, smiling my most friendly smile. "Is this seat taken?"

"No." She replies, not looking up from the book in her hand. For a second, I think she's reading the class material like the other nerds too, but on a closer glance, I realize she has a manga book open inside her textbook.

Cool. I decide to pull her leg a little.

"You know, this is College. Not primary school. I think you're in the wrong place."

The girl looks up, pale blue eyes narrowing in annoyance. "Yes, I know. And you must've lost your way and ended up here. Tell your mom that Daycare is in the other block."

For a moment, I'm speechless. Then, I burst out laughing. This just seems to annoy her even more.

"Nice." I grin, "I'm Ezra. Ezra Harland."

"Paige Summers." She replies without looking up from her book once again.

"So, how did you attend college so young? You must be what, ten?" I ask after a minute, bored with the silence.

"Thirteen and it's cause I'm smart."

Before I can come up with a smartass reply, a lady walks in—presumably the professor—making everyone fall silent.

"We're gonna be great friends." I bend down and whisper, ignoring the eye-roll she gave in response as I settle back for a nice, long nap.

~

Turns out, like I'd guessed, napping was out of the option. Either, the professor must be a Wolf, I couldn't tell for sure with so many people in the room, or she must just have the sharpest pair of eyes a human could possibly have, because, every time I so much as blinked a second longer, Dr. Singhania was there with her signature glare.

She didn't call me out loudly because all the glaring had kept me from dozing off completely and pretty much as alert as I was going to be, in Basics of Business Law.

Phew, that was one heck of a boring class.

The mere thought of going to another class and sitting through another hour of this torture sickens me. I wonder for a moment if the next class is also gonna be something equally boring, I might as well skip and go have something to eat. I grab my phone out of my pocket and check the PDF file of the schedule I had in it. To my utter and complete dismay, the next class is Financial Accounting.

Goddess, that's like the one class that could be tolerable.

Now, I can't skip and go out.

I sigh and pocket my phone, walking in what I assume is the direction of my next class. That's when a sudden feeling of awareness washes over me. It's a feeling almost akin to getting a shiver when you suddenly realize that the person you were thinking about is standing right behind you. But this feeling, it's completely internal. It's like I just know.

The next second, I look up and see Nyah Pineda turning across the corner and walking into view.

She looks all badass and mouthwatering in her black leather jacket, coupled with a plain form-fitting, curve-hugging white tee that she effortlessly pulled off with those jeans that seemed to have molded themselves around her like a second skin. My Wolf lets out a howl of delight and a second roar of need, and it's all I can do to shut him out before he comes forward and claims control of my body.

Not a good first way to meet after realizing that we"re Mates, I chide him, there's enough tension between us as it is.

She must've gotten that shiver-awareness feeling too, because she pulls her gaze away from her phone and looks up quickly, scanning the hallway before her gaze lands on me.

Psshh, these Alphas have sharp senses.

I wet my nervous lips a bit as I walk over to her, plastering on a smile to show that I don't mean any harm. Nyah continues walking too, and the two of us come to a stop in the middle with a couple of feet distance between us.

Both of us seem to be at a loss for words, stuck in an awkward position without anything to say. "So . . . had a grand time being the smarty-pants in your first class?" I ask finally, breaking the growing silence.

She scoffs, her lips pulling back in a sneer, "You wouldn't know a thing about whether I'm smart or not even if we had the same classes, considering you sleep through all of them."

I feel my smile tugging my lips up further, turning more amused. She doesn't know that I know she's got a 4.5 GPA, because she hasn't met 'Ezra: The Guy Who Stalks His frenemy'. That can work to my advantage.

"Oh, yeah. You're right. Although, I'm not a stalker who knows the fact that their frenemy dozes off in some of his boring classes without having been in the same class as him." I smirk victoriously, crossing my arms as I waggle my brows once.

"Uh—" She looks speechless, obviously having forgotten that she'd let the fact that she'd checked up on me, slip up, "The only reason that I know that is because my best friend is also a business major and was in your Law class." She says finally, looking away in an attempt to avoid looking at my eyes.

"Aha!" I exclaim, grinning like crazy now, "A best friend who's never met me before, recognizes me immediately? I always knew you stalked my social network accounts, but to the level that the best friend remembers me on sight? Wow. You've outdone yourself."

"Ugh!" Nyah shot me a look of pure disdain, her cheeks coloring up in anger or embarrassment I don't know—but nonetheless in the cutest way known to man, "I did not stalk you! She looked you up herself once I told her your name."

"Tch. I'm so disappointed right now." I shake my head with mock hurt, placing a palm flat on my chest, "At least my Mate discussed my existence." I say self-consolingly, shooting her a teasing smile.

"Yeah, whatever. We're late. I'll see you around." With that, Nyah quickly steps around me and walks away, leaving me to turn around and stare at her retreating back with a huge grin on my face.

Wait, why am I grinning again?

Man, I'm so screwed.

~ * ~

By the time third period rolls around, I've had enough.

I march over to Seneca and Micajah; who're seated about seven rows from the back, glaring down at the two of them.

They glare right back.

Pfft, I should've known the glaring strategy wouldn't work on these dumbasses.

"Please, you guys." I drop down into the seat beside them, deciding quickly to change tactics. I hold my hands in front of me, palms together, fingers-interlinked like in the form of prayer, "You've got to stop doing this. College sucks and I need you two."

Seneca looks at my hands with a moment of hesitation, but Micajah, that aśshole, is clearly unmoved no matter what. He flips through the pages of his book like I'm not even talking. There, that's the weaker link. I need to get Seneca to give in, then Micajah would no doubt, cave in too.

"You obviously have misunderstood this situation. Maybe when we were around thirteen—the first time I'd seen her, she was a timid little girl and was scared of me. But, from the next year, she gave back as good as she got. We're more like enemies, rather than bully and bullied."

There's a moment of silence while I can visibly see Seneca fighting with her resolve to just forgive me and get this over with. It's because all my life, I do stupid things and she's always forgiven me without much begging on my side. I guess her usual instincts are fighting with her to do the same.

"Ugh!" Seneca flicks my forehead, groaning irritatedly. "You know that it's impossible not to forgive you. Just fuck off."

"Ow!" I rub the sore spot—the woman can hit people like nobody's business. I'm thankful she settled for a flick instead of a 'friendly' punch, 'cause that would take a while to heal. Trust me, I've been there, done that. "Does that mean that I'm forgiven?"

"Not yet." Micajah finally speaks up, slamming the textbook he was pretending to read shut, "Seneca forgives you way too easily. Like that time when you kissed her to get me to hit you."

"Uh . . ." I scramble for something to say, uncomfortable that he even brought that embarrassing incident up, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm taking about a settlement of sorts. If you tell me what you were about to tell that day, I'll forgive you." Micajah grins as he raises his eyebrows playfully, leaning an arm on the handset of his chair as he turns his body to face me.

Seneca's eyes go wide, but I still am confused what he's asking me about. "No!" She protests, but I ignore her, focusing on my brother instead.

Yes, Micajah is my brother. Well, half-brother, but that's a long story for some other time.

Micajah rolls his eyes, "You said, 'Our Alpha here has an obsession with fa—'. I wanna know what that is."

Oh. That. "That's actually nothing big." I laugh, "Considering you've built the suspense for over a year, it's gonna sound lame, but at that time, Seneca wasn't one for sharing private details, and it sounded like something major."

"Alright, fine. Just tell me."

"She used to love guys with facial hair. Up until we were seventeen and she used to talk to me anyway. I don't know if her tastes have changed in the year she spent freezing us all out."

Micajah grins, nodding slowly, "Ohhhhh. That's why . . ." He glances at me, thankfully stopping whatever he was about to say.

Seneca blushes, pushing him away as she grabs her book, looking at it studiously.

I shake my head, whatever it is, I don't wanna know.

"By the way," I start, trying not to seem too eager as I grab a pen from the neatly arranged line of them on his desk, playing with it nervously between my fingers, "What did you mean by what she does to bullies yesterday?"

"Oh that, That's actually nothing big." He laughs, mimicking my earlier line, "Considering you've built the suspense for over a year, it's gonna sound lame," He turns back to his notes, smirking.

"Micajah, come on!"

"Alright, fine. She beat up this human guy real bad, yesterday. Apparently he tried to rape a half-human girl of her pack, so she humiliated him in front of everyone."

A surge of pride shoots through me at that—a strange emotion that's most unexpected—making me glad that my Mate is a girl who's more than capable of kicking ass when necessary.

"Oh, wow. Someone like that definitely deserves what she did."

"Yeah, I know." He shoots me a look filled with judgement, and I realise he's comparing me with a complete and utter piece of shit like that.

That succeeds in offending me thoroughly, "Seriously, brother. That's low," I turn my gaze down to the pen I was playing with, hurt that he — the guy who knows me almost as well, if not better than Seneca — would think that.

"Alright, alright," Micajah pulls the pen out of my fingers, forcing me to look up, "I was just messing with you, Ez. Seriously."

"That wasn't funny,"

"Neither was you bullying someone for no reason, was it?"

"I guess I deserved that . . ."

Micajah just smiles at that, and there's a comfortable silence between us for a while.

"So Cage, we're cool, right?" I ask—that's Seneca's nickname for him—pulling out a notebook for appearances sake from my bag; as everyone starts settling down since someone said that the professor was almost there.

"Call me 'Cage' one more time, and I'll tell you how cool we are with my fists." He mutters just as a man in his mid-forties dressed in an impeccable suit strides in.

I guffaw.

And just like that, things are back to normal.

~ * ~

Thanks for reading! xx

Internet is back on. So yeah, I guess everything is slowly back to normal.

PS. Paige Summers is real life @tugalicious  :)

Next Update: June 1, 2018.

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