you." He dropped his voice, as if not wanting to be overheard. "Andres is extraordinary, Elena," he said happily. "I can't wait for you two to meet."
Pulling her hair back into a tight, businesslike ponytail, Elena thanked James and got off the phone as quickly as she could. Extraordinary, she thought apprehensively. That could mean a lot of different things. The Celestial Guardians she had met had been extraordinary, and they had taken away her parents and Power, crippling her. Still, James clearly thought Andres was good.
She tried to push her thoughts about the Earthly Guardian away as she jogged across campus to join the others. There was no point in worrying about him now; she'd meet him soon enough.
Stefan and the werewolves were waiting for her on the outskirts of the woods. Tristan and Spencer had already changed into their wolf forms and were restlessly sniffing the air, ears cocked for any sound of trouble. Shaggy-haired Jared, in human form, stood with Stefan, his hands stuffed into his pockets.
"There you are," Stefan said as Elena came up to them, and pulled her close to him in a brief embrace. "Ready?"
They set off into the woods, Tristan and Spencer pacing on each side of them, their heads and tails up, and their eyes alert. There had been too many attacks on and near the campus, and Elena knew the Pack felt that they were failing in their responsibility to keep the Dalcrest students safe. She and her friends felt the same way: they were the only ones who really knew what supernatural horrors were out there, and so were the only ones who could keep other people safe.
Bonnie, Meredith, Zander, and two more of his Packmates were patrolling the playing fields, trying to keep another section of the campus safe. Elena would have liked to have Matt's quiet, stubborn strength beside her, but he was still sequestered away with Chloe. Stefan had been checking on them daily, and said Chloe was making progress, but that she was still not ready to be near anyone else.
It was a clear, starry night, and everything seemed peaceful so far.
"Sorry I was late," Elena told Stefan, linking her arm through his. "James called just as I was leaving. He said Andres is here. I'm going to meet him tomorrow."
Stefan opened his mouth to say something when the wolves stopped, their ears cocked, and stared into the distance. Stefan's head swung up, too. "Check it out," he told them, and Spencer and Tristan were gone, racing into the forest. Stefan and Jared stood still, alertly tracking their progress, until a howl came in the distance.
"False alarm," Jared translated, and Stefan relaxed. "An old scent."
The two wolves came trotting back through the woods, their tails arched high over their backs. Despite being very different as humans, Tristan and Spencer made similar wolves, sleek and gray and not as large as Zander was in wolf form. Only the black tips of Spencer's ears made it possible to tell them apart.
Watching them come back, Jared hunched his shoulders and shoved his long bangs out of his eyes. "I need to learn to change without the moon," he said irritably. "I feel blind trying to scout as a human."
"How does that work, anyway?" Elena asked curiously. "Why can some of you change without the moon, but not all of you?"
"Practice," Jared said glumly, letting his hair flop back over his face. "It's hard, and it takes a long time to learn, and I haven't managed to do it yet. We can learn how to stop ourselves from changing when the moon's full, too, but that's even harder, and they say it hurts. Nobody does that unless it's really necessary."
Spencer sniffed the breeze again and gave a short bark. Jared laughed, not bothering to translate. Stefan turned to follow their gaze, and Elena wondered what Stefan and the wolves - even Jared - could sense in the night that she couldn't. She was the only true human here, she realized, and so the blindest of them all.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Stefan asked as they started walking again. "To meet Andres?"
Elena shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I should do this by myself." If she was going to become something new, she had to be strong enough to face it alone.
They patrolled the woods throughout the night without finding any vampires or any bodies. As dawn began to break over the horizon, Elena could see the