She fishes her phone out of her bag and her pretty blue eyes blaze at me. “Privacy?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. Not until we know one another a little better. Make your call. And be good. No funny business. You realize how serious the secrecy level here is, right?”
Those blue eyes narrow and I’m expecting her to argue. Instead, she angrily scrolls her screen.
I’m sensing a lot of tangled up emotions in her. Until I’ve helped her untangle them, she won’t be getting privacy.
She thinks she still belongs to somebody else. She feels guilty for enjoying my body. She feels lust for me, but guilt as well as baggage from her old life are holding her back from letting that lust bloom.
For me? I’m already sliding into it with her. She’s beautiful. She’s got fire in her veins. I know she’s mine without a doubt and I’m happy to figure the rest out as we go. I’m excited for the future ahead of us. Stoked that I’ve got my mate, that I know in my soul who I’m supposed to live my life with. I know it, my wolf knows it and I’m sure this is what’s supposed to be.
She’s not there yet. I realize humans wouldn’t have the same reaction as us to mating, not knowing what’s happening and not having the equivalent pairing in their world. Their marriages are lax in most cultures and no longer considered permanent as ours are.
I know exactly what’s happening and I’m thrilled about it. Shifters are taught about mating early on, particularly alphas. She so far just knows she’s attracted to me and that she feels guilty about it. Guilt. Worry for her sister. She keeps getting caught up on the witchcraft detail, as if that’s the biggest reason to push back.
That says something, too. Witchcraft is most of why she’s pushing back, not the useless fiancé. I doubt she knows much else about our nature outside the fact we exist. And she’s not asking questions despite limited knowledge, and I think that says something about her state of mind. She’s trying to stay aloof.
Plenty of people believe in the supernatural, but very few get confirmation. We prefer it that way. Much safer for us. Humans outnumber us and most react poorly when faced with the truth.
We’ve brought non-shifters into the pack because they’re fated mates or sometimes they become significant others as well as extended family. It gets complicated sometimes. Sometimes we have to wade in, such as if someone threatens to expose us, or if we get a hunch they’re the type to try to profit from knowledge about us.
We’ve had people attempt abductions of their loved one thinking they’re saving them from a dangerous situation. Sometimes a human that joins our pack through a relationship must sacrifice their past completely because their loved ones aren’t trustworthy, and some relatives have difficulty accepting that. Other times, their families are brought into the fold. We’ve had to resort to blackmail a time or two to keep people quiet and I’ve seen couples move overseas, joining other packs or starting one of their own in an effort to distance themselves from human in-laws. Unfortunately, too, there have been times where the governing supernatural collective has had to resort to extremes to silence someone. Most times, people that manage to spout off about us are simply discredited, though sometimes problems require creative solutions.
I’ll have to gauge what things are like with Amelia’s family. At least it’s not all on me. Tyson and I can share the responsibility of the risk mitigation of in-laws since we’re mated to sisters. I think this is a first for our pack: for two council alphas to be mated to human siblings. And I think this might also be the first case of our council alphas mating with non-shifters period, other than Greyson’s father (though that was his second mating). After I get Amelia settled, I’ll request a meeting with Tyson and do what I can do to start to build a relationship since we got off on the wrong foot. Understatement.
From my brief conversation with Riley today, it sounds like Tyson has his hands full with his mate, who Riley says is devastated. I feel for Tyson after being there in that moment where he hurt her. I can only imagine how difficult it’ll be for him to make up for it, particularly given that his mate has no previous knowledge of our ways or the fact that sometimes alphas go into a rut and can’t help themselves. I’ve seen it happen many times. What happened with Tyson, and I was clearly more complex than that, but it was just as primal, and just as out of his control.
Shit happens when alphas get protective, get proprietary. It wasn’t the first time our pack has witnessed an alpha rutting a female and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But for her, being human particularly, it was obviously traumatic.