Masked SheWolf (MSW book 1)

Chapter 1 - Michael

For a moment, I just stand there staring at myself in the mirror, amazed that I actually look like a girl for once, a sexy one too, minus the slight facial hair. I even strike a pose and try on my best seductive smile. But then I remember that I have a mission, and I execute it as fast as I can.

When I'm done, I make sure there's nothing to suggest my presence in Connor's phone, which I return to the drawer. Then I unlock the door and casually stroll out into the hallway. Two seconds later, I remember that I am still wearing someone else's underwear, so I run back into Connor's room and take it off. I fix my bandages and put my shirts back on.

Right as I am putting the bra back into the drawer and getting ready to close the latter, he comes in.

"Busted!" he yell.

I jump and knock my elbow against the dresser. "Hey, Con! What's up bro?" I ask as casually as I can while facing him.

At six foot seven and as bulky as he is, you'd think he wouldn't be able to fit through the door. However, there he is, leaning against one side of the frame with his arms crossed, making his biceps bulge out of the same white shirt he always wears in the mornings, his blond hair still messy and his eyebrows raised in a questioning manner above his sea blue eyes. Anyone who doesn't know him would call him dangerous after taking one glance at his sharp and angular face combined with his giant physique. But we, as his family, know better.

"I know what you're doing," Connor says in a threatening tone.

Ignoring my anxiety over my plan going up in smokes, I manage to look surprised and innocent. "What am I doing?"

"Oh spare me the innocent act," he calls my bluff. "What were you even going to do with Andrea's bra, anyway?" -Andrea! That's her name!- "Hang it on my doorknob so Mom and Dad would find it? They pretty much know everything, you know, so they wouldn't have cared."

Interesting, I muse.So he didn't put it together. Well, he just made it easier for me to lie my way out of this.

"Actually, I was going to throw it on Nathan's bed and make you think she cheated on you," I easily say, sticking my chin up and crossing my arms defensively.

Clearly, he finds my supposed plan very unoriginal, and an epic failure, too. "That's it?" he asks. "This is how you avenge your beloved Burns? Wow, you're losing your touch, Mickey. That wouldn't have worked because I wouldn't have cared anyway; she and I aren't exclusive."

This actually surprises me. I may forget the girl's name, but Connor's always seemed to like her more than any of the others girls he's been with that I know of. The rest of us assumed she would be the one he eventually chose as a mate and told our secret to. But so far he hasn't done that, even though it's been almost seven months. That's the longest he's ever kept a girl around; the second longest was six weeks. That should mean something.

"What, really?" I ask, momentarily distracted. "But I thought you really like her. I thought she was the one; we all did."

He shrugs and brushes my comment off. "I like her, but I've still got time. There are plenty of other women with potential as mates."

What he's referring to is a basic unspoken law in our world. Putting me aside, female werewolves do not exist, but we don't have to let the entire race die. It's advisable that werewolves have children by the time they're 30, which means they should be in a serious relationship a few years before that; werewolves have enough respect for humans to be intolerant of fathers abandoning their werewolf sons with human mothers, especially when said mothers don't know about the existence of werewolves. For that reason, 25 is considered the average age at which a werewolf must have chosen a mate, and Connor is 24.