Dawn

9

The next day, I couldn't sit still. Dawn had gone home yesterday after an awkward dinner, and I had spent the night afterwards trying to think of ways to tell my mate what I was.

Mum had been trying to make conversation, but Dad, Ash and I were too deep in thought to focus on talking. Dawn had left worried about my sudden flip in mood, but I had assured her I was fine.

Now, I was anything but fine. If the Prophecy was real, the next half moon was in a month. I marked it on my calendar, scared that things might just get violent when the half moon rolled around. It was hard to think that my ten year old brother could be involved in this.

The prophecy stated that the Bear Shifters would take the females as their brides, but Sydney was only ten and Dawn was sixteen. Those weren't exactly ages suited to marriage. The whole process was weighing me down and boggling my mind. Why would Bear Shifters want werewolves' mates anyway? It wasn't like they were paired up with specific females by fate like we were; they could date whoever they pleased, so why would they want our mates? What was in it for them? It made no sense to my family- nor any werewolf family.

To be honest, the prophecy had only been handed down over the years just in case there was some truth to it. Other than that, Alpha families just laughed at it and joked about it's stupidity. Ugh, it was seriously giving me a headache.

I was expecting Dylan to come over, because he had texted saying he wanted to hang out. I welcomed the company, needing to take my mind off of everything.

When he arrived, I couldn't help the grin that appeared on my face. I'd been so busy trying to win over Dawn, I'd stopped hanging out with my best friend.

We bro hugged, and I slapped his back as I pulled him inside, chuckling as I watched his eleven year old brother Jason sprint upstairs to Ash's room.

"You look like shit," Dylan grinned.

"Coming from you," I growled playfully, leading him upstairs to my room. He immediately crashed on my bed and grabbed a controller, staring at the TV as we battled it out on COD.

After a while, Dylan tossed the controller on the floor and stretched out on the bed, "Dude, I seriously need to go for a run. I haven't shifted in, like, a week," he groaned.

"A week? My wolf would kill me if I didn't let him out at least every other day," I said, shocked.

"Yeah, well, I don't have the separate personality of an animal living inside my head and reminding me when to shift, okay? I just get stiff joints," he said. It was true: Bear Shifters didn't have a bear side living in their minds with them like we did with our wolves, they just willed their bodies to change and they did. Unlike with us having to let our wolves out and have them take control of our bodies, Bear Shifters had full control of when they wanted to shift and what they were doing when they were in bear form. Lucky them, they didn't have all the internal arguments. I just reminded myself that I was still lucky because I had another best friend living in my mind with me, so I would never get lonely. Yeah, it was kind of cool, but also kind of freaky when you think about it.

"You're lucky, man, you've got all these packs and shit. I've just got my house and a park- one which doesn't have a cut off section of forest where I can run freely, you know," he said.

I laughed, "Well don't blame me for your Shifter animal. I'm just grateful that I'm a wolf with my super-speed and privately owned woods."

"Super-speed? Oh, I think we both know who's faster out of the two of us," he challenged.

"You wanna bet?"

"Yeah, I do," he jumped up, racing downstairs and out in the woods, where he quickly stripped and shifted.