Kyren sat in the passenger’s seat of Hawkthorne’s old Honda. In the back seat, the Drakesmith twins, Alexus and Raphael were teasing him for wanting to get to school early.

Kyren turned around. “Alex, we have to leave early. Or do you want everyone to realize that we’re driving an hour to school every day.”

Alexus winced at his use of her nickname. Over the summer, she had taken to calling him Ren and since everyone already called Raphael Rafe, they had forcibly started shortening her name, claiming that if she got to shorten their names, they could shorten her name too. Kyren thought she would get used to it eventually, probably.

Half a century ago, werewolves started popping up all over the world attacking innocent humans. Before that, humans were largely unaware of the supernatural creatures that lived among them. The United Nations created the hunters Guild as an international response to the werewolf epidemic. The organization focused on creating an elite force in order to avoid any situations in which the hunters were bitten and became the very thing they were supposed to hunt. A few years later, it seemed as if the guild would be able to completely resolve the crisis by themselves.

Rafe poked his head out from the back. Out of the three of them, he was the tallest standing a few inches above Kyren and nearly a foot above his sister. All three of them were extremely fit thanks to the Guild training Hawkthorne and Drakesmith had been giving them for the past three years. “We know. We know. We were just messing with you. Are you sure we have to do this though, Uncle Hawkthorne?”

Hawkthorne was not actually related to the Drakesmiths, but since their parents worked so closely, they had grown up calling him their uncle. Kyren had found that it felt right to do the same with Drakesmith. Kyren tried not to remember that Drakesmith had killed his mom when he did that.

“Yeah, its for the best.” Though the three apprentice hunters could be considered fit, Hawkthorne put them all to shame there. That in combination with his numerous scars gave him a strong sense of authority. “You don’t need the pressure of everyone knowing who you are.”

Members of the hunter’s guild were idolized, but they were also put under a lot of pressure from the populace. Since there were so few guild members, they were all expected to be extremely reliable. Unfortunately, that also meant that when something went wrong, they were blamed. In the previous year, a group of werewolves—Kyren refused to call something so abominable a pack—had attacked a suburb of Columbus which was only a half-hour drive from Redhill. Hawkthorne and Drakesmith had saved countless lives that day, but many others had died. That day, the three apprentices had been chased out of their school by a mob of enraged students. Many of the students in the school had had relatives who had died. Rafe had his arm broken that day and Kyren and Alexus were both covered by bruises and cuts. All of them had needed medical treatment afterwards.

Continuing his explanation, Hawkthorne looked at Kyren. “Not every son of a hunter joins the guild after all.”

Kyren had had a talk with Hawkthorne over the summer. He had to break the news to him that he didn’t want to join the guild. It had hurt more because it simply wasn’t true. Kyren actually wanted to join the guild more than anything, but he couldn’t.

Thirty years ago, the guild had almost eliminated the werewolf threat when things changed. Shades had made their appearance. Shades were dark supernatural creatures of enormous power. In the past they had remained concealed from human eyes, but they decided to take a chance and began leading the werewolves. Their involvement quickly escalated the threat. Human society even began treating some of the more terrifying shades as effective supervillains. It was then that more and more supernatural species stepped forward to help humanity. The guild began working closely with the supernaturals that were helping humanity against the threat. Even now that things had settled down somewhat, the guild continued to work closely with humanity’s supernatural allies.

Kyren knew that if he joined the guild, he would have to interact with these individuals. If that happened, considering that most supernaturals had enhanced senses, they would quickly realize he wasn’t human. Unfortunately, the ach-der-maat were too close to werewolves to be greeted with any degree of pleasantness. Of course, Kyren couldn’t tell Hawkthorne or his friends that, so they all thought he was just afraid of the pressure of being in the guild. As morbid as it was, the tragedy in Columbus had helped him to convince them.

When they were getting close, Alex looked down at her phone. “We have math first, huh?”

Rafe gave a deep sigh. “Who chose to go with math first anyway?”

Kyren turned around in his seat and gave Rafe a smile. “We all agreed that we should take as many classes together as we can.”

Alex nodded. “That’s just how the schedule worked out. Besides we have an hour drive every morning. It’s not like you’ll be asleep then.”

Rafe nodded pointedly at the coffee cup she was holding. “Not everyone drinks that stuff you know.”

Alex shook her head in disappointment. “I don’t understand how you can’t like coffee.”

The rest of the trip to the school was spent with a lively argument about the merits of coffee. Kyren took Rafe’s side until eventually Hawkthorne came to Alex’s aid with an impassioned argument for the greatness of coffee.

When they pulled into the school, Kyren’s smile stopped immediately. A smell was assailing him. Normally, Kyren did his best to ignore his sense of smell, but this smell was like a warning sign. There were two things that Kyren found alarming about it. The first was that he didn’t know exactly what it was, and the second was that it was supernatural. To be specific, it was someone supernatural.

Kyren had to get out of here. If whoever this scent belonged to went to the same school as him, they would figure out that he wasn’t human eventually. Kyren turned to Hawkthorne with panic in his eyes but was stopped cold by the look he saw in his eyes. It was clear Kyren wasn’t getting out of this one.

It still took Alex and Rafe’s reassurances for Kyren to willingly get out of the car. Even not knowing there was a supernatural in the school, all three of them were feeling a little uneasy. They had been chased out of their last school after all.

Kyren decided to make it his top priority to avoid the supernatural at all costs. Ach-der-maat had far keener senses than most supernaturals, so, they probably hadn’t sensed him yet. Best case scenario, he would be able to keep half a school between them at all times. The odds were good that they weren’t even in the same year as him after all.

Kyren’s feeling was crushed before first period even started. Kyren, Rafe, and Alex all got to the class early, opting not to search for their lockers yet. Kyren kept up his idle chatter with the twins, but he was entirely focused on tracking the scent. He felt something in his stomach drop as the scent came closer and closer. Finally, a girl appeared in the class’s doorway. She seemed relatively average in every sense except for her scent. Kyren didn’t have to wait long to see if she would notice him. As soon as she stepped through the door, her smile turned into a look of horror which she quickly hid away.

Kyren supposed there was little hope that she simply hated math that much. He didn’t take his eyes off her as she carefully made her way to a seat as far away from him as possible. To his terror, she didn’t take her eyes off him either. Kyren could feel it ending. At best, Kyren could run. He might be able to outrun the girl if he engaged his adrenaline to do it, but then she would just call the guild and have them hunt him down. Assuming that she was even a Guild ally. It was completely possible that she was a shade or the like too.

Kyren felt a familiar twinge run from behind his eyes down to his hands and feet and forced himself to calm down. The last thing he needed was for his eyes to start glowing yellow or his fingers to start turning into claws. If that happened…well he was sitting next to two apprentice Guild hunters after all. Kyren tried not to think about what their reaction would be. He tried not to think about what expression Rafe, and Alex would have when his best friends saw him change in front of their eyes. Would it be the same expression that Hawkthorne had worn when he saw his parents?

Kyren felt the twinge come again, much stronger this time and he hurriedly left the room. Rafe called out after him in confusion, but they didn’t follow. They didn’t follow, but the girl did.

Kyren felt the change reach its full extent just as he left the school behind him, pulling his hood up to hide his glowing eyes. Kyren had no trouble imagining what he would look like in that moment. His eyes would be softly glowing yellow. His teeth would have sharpened and extended into fangs, and his fingers would be partially transformed into claws. In short, Kyren looked almost identical to an actual werewolf. And the girl hadn’t stopped following him.

They made it just beyond the parking lot before Kyren called forth as much adrenaline as he could without tearing his muscles apart and started sprinting towards the woods. The girl followed close behind, far too close behind considering that Kyren was moving almost as fast as a car. By the time they reached the tree line, the girl had completely caught up and only the adrenaline pumping through his body combined with his enhanced senses let him duck under a punch that would have easily taken his head off.

The girl was knocked off balance and she turned towards him and shouted out in rage. “What are you doing here you filthy werewolf!”

Kyren growled back lowly. “I’m no werewolf.”

The girl seemed to scoff at that. “You look like a werewolf and you smell like a werewolf. Do you think I’m stupid?”

Kyren took a punch from the girl and felt the bones in his arm strain. He had taken the punch perfectly using the form Hawkthorne had shown him, but still felt the bones in his bone strain from the force. Whatever this girl was, she was strong. Kyren wasn’t getting out of this without going all out. Pulling a huge amount of air straight into his lungs, Kyren called on more adrenaline than he had ever risked before. He felt his muscles tear themselves to shreds as he took two steps around her before she could even move. He felt more muscles tear as he launched a palm strike that hit the girl with enough force to launch her into a tree a few feet away.

Kyren only made it one step deeper into the woods before his body betrayed him and he fell to the ground, unable to move his muscles. Kyren knew he would heal, but that would take hours, and the girl was already getting up. She was clearly in pain, one of her arms looked like it might be broken from the way she was nursing it, but she was making her way towards him.

Kyren reached deeply inside himself. He had one more trick up his sleeve, but it probably wouldn’t work. Before he could even ready his defense though, the girl looked at him in confusion. “Why do you fight like a werewolf hunter, mutt?”

Kyren looked her in the eyes, eyes that seemed to be dancing with fire, and put every ounce of indignation he could into repeating his words. “I’m no werewolf. I’m an ach-der-maat.”

The girl cried out suddenly as she tried to take another step and fell to the ground a few feet away. She tried to get up again, but she just gave another shout of pain and collapsed again. A look of fear and panic came into her fiery eyes as she looked at him sitting only a few feet away from her.

Kyren felt a surge of guilt flow through him at what he had done. This girl had risked her life to chase what she thought was a werewolf out of a school. Kyren knew he couldn’t hurt her no matter how scared he was. He let go of the pull inside of him and relaxed onto the ground. Unless the girl in front of him was able to heal faster than he was, they would be here for hours. How many times had Kyren dreamed of getting a chance to safely reason with another supernatural?

Making a choice, Kyren closed his eyes and started breathing steadily to calm himself down. When he opened his eyes again, they were their ordinary brown rather than the yellow of the wolf inside him. “Hi, I’m Kyren Hawkthorne, like I said before I’m an ach-der-maat, a wolf-blooded one.”

The girl looked at him in shock. A werewolf shouldn’t have been able to calm themselves down like that. After a moment, the panic left her eyes even if the fear remained. She seemed to struggle with herself before her eyes turned back to normal too. “My name is Shion Lance. I’m a white phoenix.” She looked towards Kyren with suspicion. “You say you aren’t a werewolf, but you seem like one to me. How do you explain that?”

Kyren took a breath. He had never heard of a white phoenix before. That meant she probably wasn’t allied with the guilds at least. “I would like to say I have no relation to the werewolves at all,” Kyren sighed deeply, he hated this part of his species’ history, “but unfortunately that would be a lie.”

Shion looked like she would have attacked him if he could. “So, you are a werewolf then!”

Kyren took another breath. The last thing he needed was to seem aggressive. That was one of the things that werewolves were known for after all, uncontrollable aggression. “I’m not a werewolf, but you could say that the first werewolves were derived from my species.” Kyren looked down in shame. It had all happened before he was even born, but being the last of his species, he bore the sins of all ach-der-maat. “Sixty years ago, there was a brilliant scientist among us. He was brilliant, but he regularly disagreed with the core pack.” Kyren stopped his explanation, realizing Shion would have no idea what the core pack was. “The core pack were the rulers of all ach-der-maat.” That wasn’t entirely accurate, but it would be too hard to explain the significance of the core pack to an outsider.

Shion looked on in confusion, obviously not having expected a story of any substance.

“The scientist believed that humanity should be allowed to share in the gifts of the ach-der-maat.” Kyren stumbled across the words. He could feel the sheer hate he always had when he thought about this. “He figured out part of what make us different from humans and he made a toxin that would alter humans to fit that image.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.” Shion muttered to herself. “I know that supernaturals are naturally identical to humans. Its why we’re called supernaturals. Our DNA is identical. I don’t see how a human could be given the abilities of any supernaturals.”

Kyren saw her doubt. “I honestly don’t know how it works either. It must be true though since that is how werewolves are created. When a werewolf bites a human, they gain supernatural abilities at a price.”

“Even if that’s all true, it still doesn’t give me much reason to put faith in you.”

Kyren nodded. “I can understand that.”

Shion shook her head. “Your last name doesn’t make any sense either. I’ve heard it before. Are you lying to me?”

“No, I am a Hawkthorne through adoption.”

Shion looked horrified. “You were adopted by a human? By a Guild hunter? Why wouldn’t you run away to your own kind?”

Kyren nodded slowly. He might as well tell her everything since he had already said so much. “My people felt a deep responsibility for the werewolves. We have been hunting them for as long as they have existed, but as you noticed we look just like werewolves ourselves.”

“You were hunted down weren’t you.” Shion looked like she was starting to understand.

“It took years, but yes. My parents were the last of my kind to escape.” Kyren felt tears run down from his eyes. The tingling sensation that ran through him made him sure that his eyes were yellow.

Shion waited patiently. Kyren could tell that she wanted to ask him the question but couldn’t bring herself to.

Kyren decided to answer her unasked question regardless. “Eight years ago, Hawkthorne came for us. My parents were killed, but their actions managed to convince the guild that I was human. Hawkthorne was our neighbor for years and he felt personally responsible, so he offered to adopt me.”

Shion stood up. She was unsteady and grimaced with pain, but she had clearly healed significantly. As she walked towards him, Kyren felt nothing but fear. He still couldn’t move. If she decided to kill him, this would be the end. She walked right up to him, then slowly put a hand on his shoulder and sank down next to him.

“You know, you do smell slightly different from a werewolf.” Shion scrunched her nose. “Maybe.”