13-year-old Ivan was sitting in class. He looked up at the teacher as she began to write on the board, when he felt a rough kick to the back of his chair.

  He turned, frowning when he saw Leo sitting behind him. Half of the other boy's body was leaning over his wooden table, a big grin spreading across his face. Ivan glanced at him for a few seconds then was about to turn back around when Leo suddenly said, “I left my book at home.” He pointed at the thin book placed on Ivan's desk. “Can I borrow yours?”

  Ivan glanced at the book at his side, then studied the other boy in thought. He turned back to his seat with a groan and said nothing for a few seconds, then, making his decision, turned back to Leo, who was now basically lying down on the table.

  It was his favourite book, his sister had given him his own copy for his birthday last week. He couldn't risk it.

  “No. Ask one of your friends.” Ivan finally replied in a harsh whisper and turned back to his desk, focusing his attention back on the teacher.

  He felt another, more gentle, kick on the back of his chair. He dropped the pencil that he was now gripping in a tight fist and turned around once again, scowling at the other boy.

  “Ple-e-e-ease. I promise I’ll give it back.” Leo whispered, clasping his hands together in front of him.

  Ivan frowned, he didn’t understand why the other boy couldn’t just ask one of his friends to borrow their books —I mean they were sitting right beside him. But he just shrugged and decided to do it. What was the worst that could happen to it?

  “Fine. But bring it back.” Ivan snapped and handed his copy of “The Little Prince” to Leo, whose smile widened even further.

  Ivan turned back to the teacher, who had stopped writing and was now sitting at her desk typing away on her computer. After 20 minutes, Ivan felt Leo tap a hand gently on his shoulder and held the closed book back to him with a sheepish smile. “Thanks. And sorry.”

  Ivan took the book and his eyebrows scrunched, staring at the book in confusion. He opened the book and flipped through it, stopping when he saw a large mess of black marker scribble on the page just before Chapter 1.

  He quickly closed the book again and threw the book down on his desk and away from him. He clenched his teeth as he felt his face heat up. He knew his eyes would turn purple if he didn’t calm down, so he inhaled and exhaled, just like Milena had taught him. In and out.

  He felt three more kicks on the back of his chair, but ignored them until Leo finally stopped trying.

  Now, Ivan was in Leo's bedroom, standing cautiously by the door frame, watching as he picked up a few T-shirts and the occasional sock from his bedroom floor, sniffing each item to check how dirty they were on a scale from one: dead rat, to ten: a hundred dead rats.

  After Leo had revealed it to him, they had decided to only meet up the next day so Ivan could “process his thoughts” — whatever that meant. But Ivan had just gone home and slept, because what else was he supposed to do? He couldn't “process” this because his brain refused to accept the news it had been fed, and even now, he felt like he was on autopilot, hearing words but not hearing them. He didn't even know if he believed the other boy yet.

  Leo searched under his bed then glanced up at him, standing up with the final pile of clothes. “You can come in, you know. It's not radioactive or anything.”

  Ivan shrugged, then stepped into the room. As soon as he entered, his eyes caught a small stack of “Yeah I wouldn't be so sure.”

  He glanced around, examining the various objects clustered around the rest of the spacious room. Various pieces of clothing and junk food wrappers were strewn carelessly around the brown wooden floor, two dying plants lay limply on his desk and a towering pile of books, drowning in crumpled forms and worksheets, lay in a corner on his desk.

  Extremely unexpected.

  His gaze followed Leo blankly, who had disappeared into the bathroom with the pile of clothes then re-emerged — this time with no clothes — and wiped his hands on his T-shirt.

  Leo glanced at his bed, then his eyes moved to the corner of his room and he frowned at the single chair full of yet another pile of crinkled clothing. Then he walked up to Ivan and stood in front of him, joining him in the middle of the room.

  “So there. Now you know.”

  Ivan crossed his arms over his chest, the question that had been racking his mind immediately coming to him. “How do you even know?”

  “Well, I—” Leo rubbed a hand on his neck. He paused, as if contemplating whether he would tell Ivan or not, then he just shrugged. “I just do. Like— it was a feeling.”

  Very specific. Ivan nodded then lowered his eyes at the other boy. “Okay….So when did this ‘feeling’ occur?”

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  “Is this an interrogation?”

  Ivan raised an eyebrow at him and gave him a look, hoping Leo could read how much he really didn't want to be there any longer than he needed to be.

  The other boy ran a hand over his face and made a vague gesture into the air. “Uh, A few days ago….. At school. When you ran into me.”

  Ivan thought for a moment. He remembered that day. He had found it weird that Leo had just suddenly run out of the school building. He would have never expected him to help him pick up any of the books or papers, but he had figured Leo would stand there and make snide remarks as he just stood there uselessly. Well, there was that one book…..

  Then the idea hit him. ”Wait, so did you feel it when you gave me the book and we—”

  “Yes.” Leo interrupted, looking away from him with a shrug, his eyes intently focused on the wall of posters beside them. Ivan could swear he saw a faint hint of pink tint on his cheeks, but he just ignored it.

  Both of them said nothing, the awkwardness in the air suffocating them. Leo began slowly walking around the room, his hands fidgeting behind his back. He reached his desk and Ivan nearly missed it when Leo spotted something in his desk and roughly shoved a half-empty pack of cigarettes into his desk drawer.

  Ivan crossed his arms and glanced at him from his place in the centre of the room. “Do you wanna break the bond?” he finally asked.

  Leo turned to him with exasperation. “How? I mean I don't know how to.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I've been trying for the last few days and —well….. Do you know?”

  Yes. But you can never know that. Ivan thought.

  “I meant if we could. Would you?”

  Leo scrunched his head up in thought, then sat down at the desk. “No.” He finally replied, which surprised Ivan. He thought the most popular boy in school would be ashamed to have a male mate. He wasn't exactly jumping on tables either. But that was mostly because it was Leo…..maybe. He wasn't exactly sure what to feel about any of this.

  “But we wouldn't tell anyone obviously. That would be a terrible idea.” And there it was.

  But strategically, he knew it wasn't a bad plan. No pack members would accept two people from rival packs, who would potentially run the pack one day, being mates. And both of them being men made it exponentially worse, because neither of their packs was exactly the most progressive pack.

  And him being a wizard in a species that made it their life's mission to hate witches and wizards was also not great.

  He started to think about what would happen if anyone found out about him, but he pushed the thought away.

  “So what's your plan? We don't break the bond, go our separate ways and pretend this never happened?” Ivan didn't think it was a terrible plan. He knew that rejecting each other would cause them both immense pain, and because it was such a rare occurrence, the effects of it had never been deeply studied. But he had heard rumours of cases ending in death. Ivan wasn't willing to risk it, and he would never ask another witch or wizard for help.

  Leo raised his head from the table. His body perched animatedly, as if all the tiny grains of seriousness he had mustered throughout the first fraction of this conversation had now been washed away. “Exactly. We'll go our separate ways and everything will stay exactly the same. Then when I become Alpha and you become Beta, we'll break the bond. And I'll get a Luna and…. Yeah.”

  Ivan raised his eyebrows. “When? Not if?” He knew that being the son of an Alpha made becoming an Alpha incredibly easier, but it wasn't a guarantee. Nothing ever was.

  “Of course I'm going to be Alpha. You on the other hand…..”

  Ivan rolled his eyes. “I fucking hate you. “

  Leo gave him a sarcastic smirk. “The feeling's mutual.” He stuck out his hand. “So we have a deal, right? No one finds out.”

  Ivan ignored his outstretched hand and placed his own hands into his pants pockets. “Right.”

  He walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs, making his way out of the house. When he opened the front door, he cringed when a strong breeze of cool air swept over his face. Bumps raised on his arms from the cold, and he rubbed his hands over his arms before placing his hands back into his pockets and starting the long walk home.

  Ivan suddenly realised that it hadn't really occurred to him while in Leo's room, that Leo could be lying. That this whole thing could be some big, elaborate prank he was pulling on Ivan for reasons unbeknownst to him. Leo had done things like that before, pranks that went too far, but so had he.

  One part of him was still sceptical, because this could still be a joke. He hadn't let himself react so he wouldn't give Leo the satisfaction. But this seemed too specific to be a prank. Mates were a sacred thing, not something people joked about. And as much as Leo loved messing with him, Ivan knew that he wouldn't do something like this. And the way he had spoken had seemed genuine. But he still wasn't willing to let his guard down.

  And maybe a part of him, one deep within his soul, was wishful. Sure he had never put more thought into this mate stuff than he ever needed to before, but it had never sounded like the worst thing in the world. And the part of him that wanted to have finally found his mate also wanted to believe that Leo was telling the truth.

  Then his mind drifted back to the conversation they had had in Leo's room.

  I fucking hate you.

  The feeling's mutual

  Ivan couldn’t really remember when exactly his hatred for Leo Reyes had started. Probably somewhere around middle school.

  They had known each other for almost their entire lives and because their parents frequently did business together, they had grown up around each other for their entire lives. Not friends exactly, but they did hang out occasionally when no one else was available.

  Then in middle school, Leo had started arguing with him and trying to rile him up, then Ivan would argue back and they continued like that for the rest of middle school. They would insult each other, compete, and do everything in their power to annoy each other. Then the pranks started. And then they got progressively worse.

  Then before he knew it, Ivan had developed a deep hatred for the brown-eyed boy. He hated that Leo knew exactly how to make him furious, he hated his smile, his laugh and how popular and admired Leo was. He hated his personality.

  He hated how Leo would argue with him about anything and everything because his big ego never let him admit he was wrong about anything, and he hated Leo’s constant need to make Ivan's life a living hell.

  And now they were mates. Just great.