17

A WSZ or, as I now know, a werewolf safe room. As a human, I couldn't really imagine something like that. I wasn't aware of any room in my hometown that could be described as such. All people would probably imagine this space to be completely different from how it actually was.

Presumably, people would interpret this as a space that protects or shields them from werewolves. But well, ... now that I stood in the doorway of this room, I had to realize that it was probably more intended to hold a werewolf inside.

To get to this room, the twins, who were the only ones accompanying me, had led me down a long flight of stairs into the basement. And when I mean long, I really mean extremely long. We climbed the stairs for minutes and I had a more than queasy feeling in my stomach.

The walls of the WSZ were, as far as one could tell from the door frame, at least on this side, well over a meter thick. The door itself was nothing to sneeze at either. It appeared to be made of steel or iron and was itself between 30-40 cm thick. From the outside, this could also be secured with heavy metal beams, which could be anchored in the wall.

There seemed to have been quite a few werewolves in here as well. There were scratches everywhere on the walls, some of them very deep, which probably came from werewolf claws and the like. But I found to my surprise that it was neither cold here nor did it smell in any way. Furthermore, there was only a single piece of furniture in the room, a thick, snow-white mattress.

"Well, as you can see, this is a WSZ. In fact, pretty much every pack has at least one. We have easily a dozen of them here. The purpose of these rooms is pretty obvious, I think." Jared told me. "The room looks a lot like a prison and has a similar purpose, but there's a completely different reason why people are locked up here .", added Luke: "Especially during the full moon, werewolves are particularly territorial and become aggressive towards all strange werewolves who do not belong to the pack, and try to drive them away or kill them. And so that there are no such 'accidents' with our guests, there are these rooms."

Unsure, I let my gaze wander around the room again. So if I've got this all right, Tyler would be locked up here overnight like the other werewolves who were guests. I thought it was awful being locked down here, even if it was just for one night.

Jared spoke up again: "You and your companion will somehow agree down here."

It took my brain a few seconds to really process what I said. I turned to the twins in horror. I should also spend the night here?

"Well done Jared. Now she's panicking for the second time that day. Her heart is racing as if she had just run for her life." Luke said and rolled his eyes. "What else should I have done? Hidden it from her and presented her with a fait accompli in a few hours? Now Can she at least prepare for it?"

Unsure, I looked again at the room I would be locked in tonight, along with a werewolf who was somehow influenced by the full moon. This may indeed be something.

A hand briefly touched my shoulder. "Hey Lily, we should go back upstairs. Your companion should also be through with the conversation with the alpha in a timely manner."

Well, now I was sitting in the room I had been in before. Tyler, meanwhile, was back from the Alpha and had joined them. He seemed to have noticed relatively quickly that something wasn't quite right. He peppered the twins, who were still present, with questions to find out what had happened. I didn't quite know why, but the twins always avoided him when asked questions and were very vague. Tyler wasn't exactly enthusiastic about this behavior, he wasn't that stupid now and noticed that they avoided him.

"What's that nonsense?! I need one of you guys to tell me what happened that you're acting so weird." Tyler almost growled at them. "I... We... Um, well." one started. In the meantime, I couldn't say which of the two twins it was, because Luke has now taken off his doctor's coat and, for whatever reason, he wore the same thing underneath as Jared.

Tyler gave them both a withering look. ,,Oh well. We showed your companion earlier where you're going to sleep tonight...", someone said. The twins seemed to be waiting for thunderstorms, which didn't happen, however. Tyler remained calm to the obvious surprise of both of them. "And Why did you do that? Without even asking me if I wouldn't rather do it myself? After all, it's my mate, not yours." Luke and Jared were silent. Tyler gave me a worried look. "I can imagine that it's not quite okay for you. To be honest, I didn't expect to stay here for more than a day. But unfortunately we don't have much of a choice. We're in foreign territory and you'd be here on a full moon only sure your mate would be a werewolf from this pack and I'm not that. We're both safe only in the WSZ." He sighed: "Then I hope now that there's more than just a mattress in there, if my companion is supposed to go in there." The twins exchanged a surprised look that Tyler didn't miss either. "You can't be serious now! Liliy needs at least one warm blanket and pillow. It is best to add our bag with the change of clothes and something to eat and drink for them. Take care of that!" Tyler spat in a tone I've never heard him use before. Without waiting a moment, the twins stormed out of the room. if my companion is supposed to go in there." The twins gave each other a caught look, which Tyler didn't miss either. "You can't be serious! Liliy needs at least a warm blanket and a pillow our bag of change and something to eat and drink for her. Take care of that!" spat Tyler in a tone I've never heard him say before. Without waiting a moment, the twins stormed out of the room. if my companion is supposed to go in there." The twins gave each other a caught look, which Tyler didn't miss either. "You can't be serious! Liliy needs at least a warm blanket and a pillow our bag of change and something to eat and drink for her. Take care of that!" spat Tyler in a tone I've never heard him say before. Without waiting a moment, the twins stormed out of the room. Tyler spat in a tone I've never heard him say before. Without waiting a moment, the twins stormed out of the room. Tyler spat in a tone I've never heard him say before. Without waiting a moment, the twins stormed out of the room.

I looked at Tyler, who seemed very surprised himself. "Where did that come from?" he asked me seriously. But I just shook my head. How was I supposed to know that? But Tyler probably noticed that the question to me was a bit nonsensical. "Sorry" mumbled he and twisted a corner of his mouth up.

Undecided, we continued to sit in the room. "What did the werewolves actually serve here," Tyler asked, probably just to break the silence. I, however, just looked at him a bit confused. All the food the werewolves served me here, I didn't even eat hadn't been around by the time the twins and I got back from the WSZ. Tyler, however, just tapped his nose. "I can still smell the odors of the food in here that was in here." I nodded in understanding and, for whatever reason, had to grin at the thought of the vast amounts of food. "The way it smells here, they have set up a whole banquet here. Did it at least taste good?" he asked me. But I could only shrug my shoulders. After all, I hadn't eaten anything apart from the ice cream, even if I could eat some food. "Oh man, they serve you up like that and don't even let you come to eat. The people here are a bit strange. Don't you agree?" he asked me with a joking undertone.