Betty's POV
My phone vibrated against the mattress for the third time before I finally reached for it.
Ada.
I stared at her name for a few seconds before opening the message.
Hello Betty. I'm sure you don't want to talk to me and you're still upset, but I'm really sorry if I've done anything wrong. I need you to come to the school cafeteria tomorrow. I have a real package for you, cupcake. Please tell Adams that I'll be going back to Country V soon. I hope you'll text me immediately when you see this. Love ya. — Ada.
I frowned.
"What package?"
Knowing Ada, it could be anything.
She was fashionable, dramatic, and permanently lost in some dream of her own—usually one involving Adams. If she wanted to surprise me, there was no telling what she'd consider a package.
I read the message again.
This time, my eyes stopped at two words.
Country V.
Something inside me tightened.
I stared at them longer than I should have.
That country carried too much of my history.
Too many memories. Too many things I'd spent years trying to forget.
Being a vampire was already enough to make someone an outsider.
Being a werewolf was another matter entirely.
Being both?
That was a sentence waiting to happen.
My mother, Melissa, was a pure-blooded vampire. My father, Dave, was a runaway alpha.
Vampires and werewolves had been enemies for generations. Their hatred ran so deep that the idea of one falling in love with the other was almost unthinkable. Sometimes, I still wondered how my parents had managed to fall in love without killing each other first.
And then there was me.
The result of two bloodlines that were never supposed to meet.
A hybrid.
A mistake.
A miracle.
Depending on who was looking at me.
To the people who loved me, I was their daughter.
To the scientists who knew I existed, I was something else entirely.
A valuable specimen, a rare combination of DNA that needed to be captured, studied, and understood. All of them didn't care whether I survived the process, that was why I'd spent most of my life hiding.
And why friendship frightened me almost as much as enemies did.
Ada and Adams were the only people I'd ever truly allowed myself to get close to. Even with them, there was always a small, paranoid part of me waiting for the day they would discover what I really was, the day they would look at me differently.
I'd learned early not to expect too much from people.
No love.
No attachments.
No disappointment.
It was safer that way.
I typed a short reply to Ada and sent it. Almost immediately, another notification appeared. She'd replied but I didn't open it, instead, I dropped my phone onto the bed and leaned back.
Mum and Dad were away on another business trip, which meant the house felt unusually empty.
Too quiet. I walked toward the window.
Outside, the night was still and the moon hung above the trees, unusually bright against the dark sky.
Beautiful.
Cold.
Untouchable.
I watched it through the glass, wondering why something so beautiful could make me feel so miserable. Maybe the Moon Goddess really did have a sense of humour. She had given me two incompatible bloodlines and somehow expected me to live peacefully with both.
"Thanks for nothing," I muttered.
Then my legs began to itch. I scratched them absentmindedly but the sensation intensified. It grew worse that I had to stop. Then, a strange heat spread beneath my skin, starting from my legs and slowly crawling upward. My stomach tightened and the heat reached my chest then my neck, then my head.
I straightened.
"What the...?"
My breathing became uneven as another wave of heat tore through me. This time, pain followed.
I stumbled toward the mirror and grabbed the edge of my dresser.
"Ah!"
I looked up and froze.
My reflection stared back at me but something was wrong. My eyes were no longer red,they were golden.
Not brown.
Gold.
My ears appeared slightly sharper, almost pointed, and my skin looked unusually pale beneath the bedroom light. I touched my face.
"What is happening to me?"
I'd known vampire transformation all my life. I knew what blood hunger felt like and I knew what heightened senses felt like but this wasn't either. This was something else, Something deeper. Something that felt as if my body itself was changing.
Then a thought entered my mind, not my thought. It was a command.
The woods !.
I froze.
"What?
Silence.
Then it came again, this time stronger.
The woods!!!.
My heart began pounding. I didn't understand the voice, but my body did and before I could question it, I was already moving. I grabbed a jacket and left the house.
The moment I entered the woods, everything changed. Every sound seemed louder and every scent seemed sharper. The leaves, the damp earth, pine, and wild animals and beneath all of it—Blood.
My stomach twisted as hunger hit me so suddenly that I nearly doubled over then I heard movement.
I turned. An antelope stood several metres away .It looked at me and I looked at it.
For one strange second, neither of us moved, then my instinct took over.
When it was over, I stood frozen among the trees, breathing heavily.
My hands trembled as I looked down to see the blood that had stained my fingers.
My stomach churned. I had drained its blood but the hunger hadn't stopped there. I'd eaten its flesh too.
I stumbled backward.
"No."
But my voice was barely audible.
"No, no, no."
I'd never done that before. Not once.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stared at the blood on my fingers as a horrible realization settled over me.
"Am I turning into a wolf?"
The words had barely left my mouth when another wave of pain ripped through me. I dropped to my knees as the forest blurred. Every muscle in my body seemed to tighten at once.
Scared, I clenched my fists and tried to breathe.
For years, people had wanted my blood because of what I was and now, even I didn't know what I was becoming.
A bitter laugh escaped me.
"I'm eighteen."
My voice cracked.
"I'm only eighteen."
The moonlight spilled through the branches above me. I looked up as tears gathered in my eyes.
"Is this what you wanted?"
My voice grew louder.
"Is this your idea of a joke?"
I was angry.
Terrified.
Alone.
And for the first time in my life, I genuinely hated the body I'd been born into.
"Fuck you, Moon Goddess."
But my words disappeared into the trees.
Silence followed and for a few seconds, there was nothing.
Then- voice came from behind me.
"What are you doing here?"
I turned sharply.
A massive brown wolf stood between the trees.
I froze. He was unlike any wolf I'd ever seen, Large and Powerful and somehow terrifying without doing anything at all. His presence alone seemed to make the forest smaller.
He stared at me.
"This is not a place for you if you want to live."
My fear quickly turned into anger.
"And who told you I want to live?"
But the wolf didn't move.
"Who gave you the right to decide that for me?"
He took one cautious step toward me.
Something inside me reacted and my claws flashed before I could stop them and the wolf immediately recoiled.
Silence fell between us. I stared at my hands, he hadn't attacked me but he'd been warning me. Guilt replaced my anger almost instantly.
"I'm so sorry."
The wolf remained still as his eyes stayed fixed on me.
There was something strange about them, something almost familiar but I couldn't explain it. I'd never seen him before, so why did looking into his eyes feel like remembering something I'd forgotten?
Another wave of weakness hit me before I could think about it. I stumbled and the wolf moved forward.
I panicked and then I turned and ran. I didn't even look back.
I barely slept that night because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the brown wolf.
His eyes, his voice and the way he'd stepped toward me without attacking.
Was he all right?
I pulled the blanket closer.
Who was he?
And why had he felt so strangely familiar?
I turned onto my side.
"Why did I do that?"
But the room gave me no answer and by dawn, I'd convinced myself that I would forget the entire thing.
At least, I tried to.
The next morning, I was at Alrine Senior College with Mira, pretending my life was completely normal.
Pretending I'd spent the previous night asleep.
Pretending I hadn't attacked an animal in the woods.
Pretending I hadn't met a mysterious wolf who somehow knew I didn't belong there.
We stood a little away from the cafeteria, talking about nothing important, when a guy hurried past us while speaking on his phone.
His shoulder caught mine and my papers slipped from my hands and scattered across the ground. I stumbled.
"Betty!"
Mira grabbed my arm before I could fall.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah."
I looked down.
Before I could bend to pick up my papers, the guy had already crouched to gather them.
"I'm so sorry. My bad."
"It's okay."
I bent down at the same time he did then our heads collided.
"Ouch!"
I immediately straightened, rubbing my forehead.
"Seriously?"
Then I looked up and forgot what I was going to say.
His eyes were blue, not ordinary blue.
They were the kind of blue that made you pause before realizing you were staring.
His hair was slightly messy, his clothes more formal than most of the students around him, and there was something about his presence that made him difficult to ignore.
But it wasn't only that. Something about him felt... familiar.
My instincts stirred but I couldn't understand why.
Get yourself together, Betty.
He handed me the last paper.
"Sorry."
"It's... fine."
He smiled.
"Can we meet at the cafeteria later?"
I blinked.
I should have asked why. I should have remembered everything I'd been taught about strangers.
Instead, I heard myself say,
"Yeah. Sure."
His smile widened slightly, as though my quick agreement amused him.
"Nice meeting you, Bebette."
I blinked again.
"You can call me Betty."
"Betty, then."
Something warm crept into my cheeks.
Why was my face suddenly betraying me?
I looked away and pretended to organize my papers.
He was handsome
Annoyingly so, and that strange feeling hadn't disappeared. If anything, it had become stronger.
Then he spoke again.
"I'm Igor."
His deep voice pulled me from my thoughts.
"Nice meeting you, Igor."
He smiled.
And my heart skipped and I stared at him for another second before realizing what I was doing.
"Um... can you excuse me? I need to go."
"Sure."
Then I hurried toward the female washroom before my face could get any hotter. Once inside, I leaned against the door and pressed a hand against my chest. My heartbeat was wild.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
"What is wrong with me?"
Then I remembered Ada.
All those conversations. All those times she'd described the strange feeling that came with liking someone.
The nervousness.
The excitement.
The ridiculous urge to smile for no reason.
Then, I slowly looked at my reflection.
"Am I just being stupid?"
I hesitated.
Then, despite myself, I smiled.
"...Or am I finally falling in love?"
I didn't know it yet, but meeting Igor wasn't going to be the beginning of an ordinary love story.
It was the beginning of something neither of us was prepared for.
Something tied to secrets I hadn't even begun to uncover.
And somewhere beyond the school walls...
A pair of golden eyes watched the building from the shadows.
They didn't blink.
They simply watched.
Waiting.