“I have an idea of where we can meet up.”

  When Leo said this, Ivan turned sideways to face him. They had agreed to meet up in the storage cupboard during Ivan's free period and Leo's maths period before lunch. A meet-up which had somehow managed to carry on into lunch. They had first agreed to meet after school, but after not having met up since that day in the woods, Leo hadn't been able to stand his headache for long enough to last the entire day. Now, they were sitting cross-legged on the floor as their knees maintained a singular point of contact, their paint buckets having randomly vanished over the weekend.

  “There's the old science block upstairs.” He suggested.

  Ivan shook his head. “They're doing renovations. Workers are there for the whole day, and Mr Adedeji locks it up at night.”

  Leo smiled, letting out a small chuckle to himself, and Ivan could feel his knee jerking against his own. “Maybe we could use the library. That thing is so fucking ancient you might as well be the only one that uses it.”

  He glanced up and smirked at Ivan. “Is there even a librarian anymore? Maybe you can take over. You already act like one anyway.”

  Ivan perked up. “That's not a terrible idea.”

  Leo frowned at him. “You becoming a librarian…?”

  Ivan clenched his jaw, willing himself to hold back the insult that had automatically sprung to mind after years of having had to deal with Leo.

  They promised they would try being civil, and he would oblige, no matter how hard Leo made it. “Meeting up in the library. It has all sorts of hiding places, Mrs Heckle is out half the time, and there are these huge windows leading to the back of the school that are perfect to sneak through.”

  Leo shook his head in exaggerated disbelief. “Seriously? The library of all places?”

  “You suggested it.”

  “As a joke!” The other boy threw his hands up in exasperation, looking at Ivan as if a third head had emerged from between his shoulders in the span of five seconds.

  “Well, we're kind of out of options.” School was still one of the few neutral places where they could still have privacy. Neutral land was too exposed to… do whatever they did. And they could go to town, but that was too much of an inconvenience considering it was an hour away and neither of them had their own cars. Leo crossed his arms over his chest and huffed in compliance, settling back against the shelves behind them.

  They settled back into a comfortable silence, both of them silently on their phones. After about 15 minutes, Ivan could tell that Leo was getting restless. He had abandoned his phone and was exploring the chemicals on the shelves surrounding them. When he finally lost interest in the shelf, Ivan saw him turn to him from the corner of his eye.

  “Hey—did you ever think about your mate before…” He gestured between them. “...This.”

  Ivan gave him a questioning glance. “Why?” He was definitely not about to admit that he had obsessed over the idea. Giving Leo the satisfaction of knowing how valuable this was to him would feel too much like he was winning whatever twisted game they had been playing since before they could talk, truce or not.

  Leo shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing.” He shook his head dismissively. “Never mind—how much longer do you think we have to stay here?”

  Ivan stared at him suspiciously. He wondered what he had been about to say. That he had thought about it too? That he had never really cared? He was going to be alpha, so he didn't exactly have the luxury of not caring.

  When Ivan glanced down at his watch and saw that it had already been half an hour, he was surprised when he felt that he didn't possess his usual compulsion to leave. He should have felt adamant that they not spend any more time than necessary, but when things were calm, it wasn't all terrible.

  “Uh, we can wait for a few minutes, and then we would—theoretically—only need to meet up in 2 days.”

  Leo nodded. “Okay.”

  Ivan felt a buzz in his lap and grabbed his phone.

  Cal: Hey where are you? Lunch is almost over

  Now

  He frowned at his phone and felt Leo shift beside him. “What is it?”

  He turned to Leo, who was watching him curiously, and gestured to the door. “We should probably…..”

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Leo stood up with a loud yawn, stretching his arms and causing his shirt to rise, exposing a small area of his toned torso. “I think I've had enough of you for a couple of days….. No offence.” Ivan flipped him off, and Leo stuck a mocking tongue out at him.

  Leo stretched down a hand to help him up like he did in the bathroom. Ivan stared up at the hand. He figured this was supposed to mean that he trusted him now. Some sort of olive branch. Did he? Not exactly. But he didn’t want Leo to run away at the expense of his headaches again, and if the other boy needed to feel like they trusted each other, then he would do it.

  He clasped his hand and allowed Leo to help him up. “This doesn't mean anything.”

  A small half-smile spread over Leo's features “Okay.”

  Leo grabbed his backpack from the floor and went to the door, pausing just as he twisted the handle. “See. We can be civil. Where's your sense of faith?”

  “Up your ass.”

  “That's not very nice, Ivan,” Leo called behind him, lazily strolling out of the room.

  Ivan grabbed his own backpack and walked in the opposite direction before Leo could see the smile that had slowly begun to creep onto his face.

  When he eventually reached the cafeteria and navigated to their usual table, Cal looked up at him curiously. “Where were you?”

  Ivan gestured vaguely behind him, his face revealing nothing. “The library. Needed books to do research for an AP English assignment.”

  Cal bit his lip in thought then, accepting his excuse, nodded and went back to eating his food. Rohan shifted over, and Ivan sat down beside him.

  “The food here is getting worse,” Rohan whined, pushing the chicken nuggets on his tray around. “These taste like a freezer.”

  “What's your AP assignment about?” Cal suddenly questioned.

  “Turkish literature,” Ivan answered. He was hoping Cal would grow disinterested like usual and stop asking questions, but the smaller boy raised an incredulous eyebrow, his mouth opening to release what was likely to be another interrogative question but paused when Rohan's head snapped to him.

  Cal turned to Rohan with a blank stare. “What?”

  “Since when do you ever care?” Rohan asked with an amused smile.

  Cal rolled his eyes. “I do care. You're making me sound like a bad friend.”

  “Well, if the shoe fits.” Ivan started with a playful smile, which Cal met with a scowl.

  “Yeah well you can shove that shoe right up your—” Cal started but was interrupted when Rohan sternly called out, “Guys!”—causing them to both turn to him.

  “Thank you.” He turned to Cal. "Now back to what you were saying before Ivan got here?”

  “I was asking if you guys want to hang out after school.”

  “Are your siblings going to be there?” Ivan asked. He had been to Cal's many times in the past, and each time was pure pandemonium. Having eight children in one house was already absolute chaos, and all of them being under the age of 18—the youngest being only 3—meant that quiet was not commonplace in their house.

  “All 6 little nightmares.”

  A look of horror suddenly swept over Rohan's face. “So we're helping you babysit?”

  “Don't be so negative,” Cal chided. “There'll be doughnuts. You love doughnuts.”

  “Not as much as I love my sanity.”

  — — —

  After leaving Cal's chaotic household, it was already dark outside, and Ivan knew that his mother was expecting him soon.

  He travelled the familiar path to Elder Augustine and knocked on the door before stepping inside.

  “Hey,” Ivan greeted. “Aren't you usually home around this time?”

  “I wish. I'm swamped with work.” She said, holding up a large pile of manila folders.

  “But I'm assuming that's not what we're here to talk about.” She placed the files to the side and rested her arms on her desk. “How's it going with your mate problem?”

  “Uh, we're… making it work.”

  “Good… That's good.” She said with a knowing smile, like she knew something he didn't.

  “I wanted to ask you about something." Ivan grabbed his phone and showed the older lady a picture he had taken of the mysterious substance Rohan's dad had given him when he had returned to the table.

  “Rohan said his dad gave him some powder that could kill witches and wizards. Do you know about it?”

  “I've heard of it.”

  “How does it work?” He knew that it was not any sort of damper, and it wasn't made by any witches or wizards. So how could something so small cause so much damage? And with no magic.

  “It was made by some Fae scientist months ago.” She stated. “It's attracted to a unique gene sequence in a witch's or wizard's mitochondrial DNA, sort of like how different species are identified with DNA barcoding.”

  “But I thought Fae were on good terms with them?”

  “People will do anything for money.” She said with a disappointed sigh.

  “So how does it actually kill them?”

  “Well, when the dust correctly identifies the sequence, it attaches to every cell in the target’s body like a magnet and induces a sort of cellular apoptosis.”

  So basically he would explode from the inside out if it got close enough to him. Sounds fun.

  “Is there any way to stop it?”

  “Not that I know of. But I can look into it if you want.”

  He was about to say yes when the thought struck him that, realistically, no normal werewolf would care enough about what happened to a wizard or which to ask. So why should he? He would ask Milena and only go to Elder Augustine if he was truly desperate, whenever soon that was looking to be.

  “No, it's fine.” He finally replied. “I was just curious.”