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Hollow.
    It was a sweltering hot August day and a couple of my pack brothers and I had decided to hop into the car and go hang out at the pool for the day. Ten years ago, we didn’t have a pool in Spruce Hollow, like we do now, so we drove over to the pool in Riverside to cool off for the afternoon but also to check out the girls in bikinis. I was sixteen years old and horny with my adolescent hormones raging.
    I had been sitting there, sunning my rapidly growing muscular Were frame, when I noticed her.
    It was hard not to.
    She arrived with a large contingent of loud, running and squealing children as part of some sort of foster children outing. She was lagging behind the group and seemed to be off in her own little world, just bopping along and singing to herself with her waist length strawberry blond curls bouncing along behind her. She was this scrawny little thing in a pink one piece bathing suit that had “I’m a little sea monster” emblazoned on the front.
    She gave me a shy smile and a little wave as she skipped by and surprisingly, my macho teenaged self actually smiled back. How could I not? She was adorable, as far as six year olds go.
    My wolf sniffed the air as she passed by. “What did you do that for?” I asked. 
    “I smelled something good, something that belongs to us,” he replied cryptically. I sniffed again but she had already gone by and all I could smell was the overpowering scent of chlorine mixed with the scents of various humans.
    Whatever my wolf had smelled was gone. Who knows, maybe he’d smelled the hot dog vendor that was parked on the other side of the chain link fence?
    Either way, I kept noticing this curly haired little girl that afternoon; sitting on her towel, walking past me to get a drink at the fountain or jumping into the shallow end of the pool. And every time she would walk by, my wolf would sniff the air and rumble appreciatively deep in his chest.
    “Cripes, would you stop that! Stop it with the sniffing and rumbling, already.” 
    “I am merely showing my appreciation.” 
    “Yeah, well you’re appreciating a little kid and it’s creeping me out. Stop it!”
    But, I kept watching her all afternoon though. I felt like a total pervert but I couldn’t keep my eyes off her little heart shaped face.
    There was this weird force that kept pulling my gaze back towards her direction over and over again. I would start off by watching a hot little brunette in a blue bikini, only to find my gaze straying to the shallow end of the pool, where this little head would pop up, breaking the surface of the water like a silky little seal.
    I probably watched her clandestinely for two hours or more before I finally got up the nerve and walked over to where she was swimming and sat down by the side of the pool. When she popped her head up out of the water this time, she looked me directly in the eyes and gave me a cheeky little grin.
    And I nearly threw up. She had my mate’s eyes!
    I would know those beautiful green cat eyes anywhere; I just never expected them to be in a six year old face!
    I was sick to my stomach. Here I was, sixteen years old and my mate’s eyes belonged to a little girl. There must be some mistake, there had to be! I sat there, stunned, and watched her swimming around the shallow end of the pool, until she got out and ran over to the water fountain again. This was my chance and although I wasn’t proud of my plan, I got up and followed her.
    I found her, straining on her little tippy toes to reach the water fountain. She wasn’t quite tall enough to reach very well, so I cleared my throat and said, “Do you want me to pick you up?” and she looked me up and down, with the cool appraisal of a seasoned detective, until she decided that I was a safe person and then nodded her curly little head enthusiastically.
    Her bathing suit was soaking wet from the pool, so I held her far away from my body, like a smelly bag of garbage or a wet dog. I felt weird enough