Chapter 41

Valen POV

Valarian and Casey excitedly pulled me down the halls of their run-down school. The floor alone was filthy with scuff marks, and I shivered with disgust and had to fight the urge to start scrubbing the floor. The classrooms weren’t much better, the desks falling apart as the chipboard flaked, some kids were even sitting on milk crates. I looked around to ensure this was a school and not some homeless shelter.

Valerian showed me to his desk, and his desk was definitely the cleanest one in the room. I watched as he removed a white tablecloth from his bag and set up his desk. His pencils sat neatly in a row as he placed each one out carefully. However, Casey opens her pencil case and upends it on the table, and I see him cringe before he glares at her and starts rearranging her pencil in a straight line.

I didn’t want to touch a thing in here; this place was a bacterial infection waiting to happen when the teacher came in, and I had to do a double-take of the woman. She indeed had a poodle’s hair, like she chose the style out of a dog magazine. It was short and curly on top, and then a poof of hair cascaded to her shoulder, her round glasses perched on the end of her nose. She taps her ruler on the desk, trying to grab the students’ attention when the ruler snaps, and she stares at it before tossing it over her shoulder. It landed in the bin, making me wonder how many rulers she had broken.

“Oh, Alpha Valen, and why are you here?” She looks around nervously at the students like she thought I was somehow a danger to them.

“My son,” I tell her, pointing to Valarian, and she giggles. The sound was more like a hyena; damn, she was a strange lady. She waves me over, and I glance at Valarian, who rolls his eyes at her. I gave him a pointed look at his rudeness, but I now understood why he called her a poodle. I had to fight the urge to straighten her poofy hair as I walked over to her when I got a whiff of something that smelt strangely like weed, the kind you smoked. I sniff the air as I stop next to her.

“Are you high?” I whisper to her.