Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“Tomorrow night!? She’s still going to be sleeping off her first shift… she’s not going to be in any condition for that kind of social pressure. Call everybody and postpone it by a week.”
There’s another long pause.
“I can’t really do that. The entire pack has mobilized.”
“Unmobilize them.”
“That would be very irregular. No conclave has ever been postponed. This way, you look eager to present her to the pack. If we push it back, it might look like there’s doubt.”
“And if she’s half-asleep, exhausted, and has little to no control of her shifting, that’s going to make her look like she’s not alpha female material.”
“She’s not. She’s a domestic dilute. But she is your mate. Do the same thing with her as you do with everyone and everything else. Be determined to get your own way no matter what.”
If I didn’t know better, or if I were the type to be suspicious, I might think that he is trying to sabotage me.
I have started pacing back and forth outside the bedroom.
“Fine. The conclave will go ahead. But I will not be following whatever schedule you set. Run everything else to do with this by me first, Abel.”
“Very good. Do you want me to call you every ten minutes, or every five minutes?”
“Don’t call me that much. I am going to be focusing on Kira. Leave me messages, and I will get back to them when I want to, I mean, when I can. Don’t finalize anything until I approve it, understand?”
“Understood,” Abel says.
I return to the bedroom and find Kira in the process of crawling into bed. Abel’s shenanigans melt into insignificance as I see her sweet face turn to me with an expression that is half-pleased, and half a little concerned.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I was going to get into bed quicker, but then there was a…”
“You’re okay,” I reply. I know I probably walked in with a glowering expression, but that was because of Abel, not because of Kira. She is perfect. She will always be perfect. “Let’s have a nap together.”
She smiles. “That sounds good to me.”
As I approach the bed, she watches me with hungry eyes, her expression shifting from sweet happiness to something a little more carnal. I can scent her attraction almost immediately.
But I can’t fuck her right now. I don’t want to push her into a second shift this quickly. It’s not guaranteed that she will shift again the next time we mate, but I am not prepared to risk it.
I get into bed and find her warm and snuggly in her pink pajamas. They’re adorable on her, complete with the little business pocket that has never made any sense to anybody and yet persists regardless.
I wrap her in my arms and pull her close to me, sheltering her against my body.
I feel her squirm up against me, pushing her curves against my hard lines, looking for safety. She tucks her nose into my neck and breathes deeply, taking my pheromones inside her. As she exhales, I feel her relax.
This is the beautiful side of the horror of our kind. Once we find our mates, we bond practically immediately. The bond between Kira and I will never be broken.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to do the same work that human couples have to do. And it doesn’t mean I can keep her in the dark. This is a good opportunity to educate her as to her true nature while she cuddles with me.
“So you wondered why the first you knew of your wolf nature was when we slept together,” I say.
“Mhm,” she says. “That was so weird.”
An understatement, to be sure.
“Male shifters start to experience their shifts around thirteen years of age. Females don’t shift until they are first mated. We don’t really know why. There are theories about it. Some say that it isn’t safe for a female to be in her wolf form until she is old enough to have already mated. It prevents unfortunate matings that might occur earlier, and confusion with wild beasts.”
“Well, those are disturbing thoughts.”
“They are, and both of them are avoided by the fact that a female shifter must find her mate in his human form first. It means she gets to truly choose the sex, and the mate while she has a brain that is able to function above the animal level.”
I feel Kira start to shiver next to me. Snuggling her against my body, I try to give her warmth and comfort.
“So I got to choose you? But it really didn’t feel like we were making a choice. It felt like I had no option but to…”
“I know. It’s an imperfect theory, but it does cover some of the more obvious pitfalls in mating strategy when you’re talking about people who are also creatures.”