Darcy had been dreading her afternoon plans all morning.

She had made the plans, but only to avoid being confronted by her best friends in an environment she had less control over. Like at school.

When she had gotten home from her trip to the reserve with Luca, she had agreed to meet for coffee the next day. It sounded like a typical teenage Saturday. A nice, relaxing coffee date with friends.

This wasn’t going to be a chilled coffee date, it was going to be an interrogation.

From the moment she arrived she could feel the tension in the air. Her friends had arrived first and grabbed them the table furthest from any nosey humans.

Darcy bought her drink and joined them, approaching with a weak smile. She reminded herself that it could be worse, she could have avoided them and faced this same stressful situation in a crowded corridor. At least here there was less chance of Melody making a scene. Darcy had often questioned if Melody was actually a nickname, and her best friend’s full name was in fact Melodrama.

She took the last seat at the small, round table. They greeted her awkwardly.

“I think we should let Darcy speak first, just in case she wants to come clean instead of lying to our faces,” Melody announced snippily.

Darcy looked to Reece who nodded solemnly.

Darcy sighed. “Guys-”

“Is he your mate or not?” Melody barked.

“Melody, you just said you were going to let her talk,” Reece reminded her.

“Just answer that first! Yes or no?”

Darcy peered around the almost empty coffee shop, checking for eavesdroppers. Even if any of the few customers were werewolves, they weren’t familiar.

Darcy took a shaky breath.“Yes,” she whispered.

Melody gasped into her hands and wriggled in her seat. Reece’s mouth popped open.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Darcy hissed desperately.

“Why?” Melody asked with a pout.

“Because it’s… not going to work out.”

Melody pulled a face. “That’s not possible, Darce,” she said, gently condescending as though advising a child that the sky was in fact blue, not red. “He’s your mate.”

“He doesn’t know that,” Darcy rebutted hurriedly. “He isn’t old enough.”

“And what about when his birthday arrives?”

“My plan… was to hide in my pack from the day before his birthday.”

“Wow. Thanks.” Melody sloshed her straw around inside her iced coffee sulkily. “Just ditch us forever?”

“I don’t know if that’s still my plan, though.” Darcy surprised herself even saying the words out loud.

Melody’s eyes lit up and she leant in close. A sucker for drama and secrecy always. “Oh?” she cooed excitedly.

“I’ve just been thinking a lot lately. Weighing things up.” Darcy shrugged. She didn’t have her own tangled thoughts pulled apart yet, she couldn’t tell them how she felt. She didn’t know herself any more. “When did he tell you?” she demanded.

“When he was arranging the scavenger hunt,” answered Melody. “That’s why I didn’t risk getting my butt in trouble to warn you. Figured since he was your mate, it was his weird way of getting your attention.”

Darcy took a long sip of her drink before huffing, “he tries a lot of weird ways to get my attention.”

“Don’t you think that’s cute?” Melody giggled.

“Not really,” Darcy grumbled. It wasn’t completely true. He could be quite endearing when he was really trying to win her over. He showed potential.

“I don’t blame you for being cautious of him,” Reece said gravely.

Melody gave their friend a scalding look. “He’s her mate, Reece,” she gasped.

“He’s a bully,” Reece continued. “He’s cruel and manipulative and self-absorbed.”

“Reece isn’t wrong,” Darcy mumbled.

“It’s true love. Soul-mates.” Melody slapped her hands to the table top in frustration. A true hopeless romantic at heart. “You don’t get to pro-and-con whether you want him!”

“But I have the chance to run away, it’s there for me,” Darcy reasoned. “He can’t enter my pack grounds, not without permission from my alpha. And even then, he can’t come to my home or enter it.” She didn’t know whether she was actually bargaining with Melody or herself. Or perhaps she was simply repeating her original plan over and over in the hopes it would provide some clarity, now that things were changing so quickly.

Reece continued to appear deeply concerned. “If anyone had the connections to get to you, though, it would be an alpha,” he reminded the pair. “And betas go hand-in-hand with their alphas.”

“Reece, I thought you would be pro run away?”

“I’m pro run away to another country, better chances of not being found that way.”

“Reece!” Melody choked.

“I’m not sure that’s in my budget,” Darcy sighed.

Melody looked about ready to tug her hair out. “You know what’s free ninety-nine?” she said slowly, as though the problem was simply that the two were not hearing her clearly enough. “Riding off into the sunset on your hunky soul-mate.”

“You can have him if you think he’s that hunky,” Darcy laughed.

Melody snorted. “His eyes seem pretty firmly glued to you, Darce.” Her voice softened halfway through the sentence and it squeezed something inside of Darcy.

“Can we talk about something else now?” she asked. She must have looked as uncomfortable as she felt, because Melody graciously led the conversation into a story of a recent science fail she had suffered. It seemed Darcy had made it through her trial unscathed, and possibly with secret still intact. She trusted her friends, but Melody was a liability even when trying her best. She put the thought from her mind, soaking into the light-hearted jokes and storytelling. If she really was to go through with her original plan, she wouldn’t get many outings like this again.

When Darcy arrived home, an envelope was waiting for her on the dining table.

“Dad?” she called through the house. “What is this?”

Her father popped his head into the kitchen and she waved the envelope with her name written on the front.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said with a frown. “I thought you would. It was hand-delivered by alpha Marshall.”

Marshall was next in line to be their pack’s alpha. Darcy would be his assistant once she graduated. They had never spoken directly to each other, but he was always polite to everyone in the pack. Darcy had a good feeling about him. That feeling didn’t give her any clue as to why he would be delivering a letter to her personally. She peeled the triangle open and a piece of card slipped out.

At the top, in giant, brightly-coloured letters, was the word PARTY.