Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Merrik

I can't tell if she believes any of this or not, but she's at least pretending to listen. I knew it wouldn't be easy to tell her who I was but given the circumstances at least she isn't questioning whether we really exist.

"Dire County is a little different than a lot of the other Lupin communities in the fact we are about half and half in our population demography."

"Half and half? Half…what you are and half…?"

"Human."

"Do, um, all the humans know…about you?"

"Not all of them. We have a college on the very edge of town and none of the humans there know unless they knew before they started."

"Before?"

"People do know about us…when they have married into the Lupin community or one of their parents have married one of our wolves."

"People marry into…? I mean, they can…um, you can…," she interweaves her fingers together to try to show me what she means and is cute as hell doing it, "with humans?"

I nod. "Annie's mother is one of the humans that have mated and married one of our wolves."

"Annie? She…knows about you guys?"

I nod for her.

"She…has a…what do you call it? A mate? Annie has a mate?"

"If she would get her head out of her ass she'd have a mate in Larry."

"You know about that?" I nod. "Is Larry a wolf?"

I shake my head this time. "I think that's one of the problems. She's watched her mom fall in love with a wolf who will stay true and devoted to her mother all his life and beyond and she thinks that is the only way to be sure someone really loves her."

"You're… different from…men when you, um, mate?"

"We have what's known as a destined mate, the only woman or man who will hold our heart for the entirety of our lives."

I can almost smell the curiosity coming from Piper now. "Destined mates? You marry only once?"

"Marry, have sex, go through life."

"Wait, you only have sex with one person…your entire life?"

"Yeah. We can't get it hard for anyone else and although we can take ourselves in hand, so to speak, there is no enjoyment in it at all. Like eating but with no flavor to the food or drink."

She sits and looks at me for a long time as what I have told her sinks in.

"What happens if you're, um, mate dies or something?"

"A lot of my kind choose to die with their mate. If they don't they never take another wolf or human as a mate."

"But…you…you got, um, you know in the shower. You were hard when I -we- kissed at the camp. If you can only get hard for one person your entire life, how come you were that way with me?"

I lift an eyebrow and wait for it to hit her.

"Was it because your mate was close to us?"

I roll my eyes. I can't help it. Why this is the biggest concept humans struggle with about my species is a constant reminder of why I am really glad I'm a different species.

"Yeah, she was close. Like right in front of me."

"Then why would you kiss me?! What kind of person does that?" She stands and huffs. "You tell me some bull crap about fated mates or whatever you call it and then you go behind your mate's back and kiss other women. In front of her! So, you can kiss anyone you want, you just can't fuck them? What kind of sense does that even make? It's disgusting. You're just like every other man. You say one thing, but you don't mean it. And if you lied about that shit, what else are you lying to me about? You are going to eat me, aren't you? Does calming me down make me taste better somehow? Fuck this! I'm out of here!"

She takes off, running from me and my wolf yet again. And this time I can't hold the beast back from chasing after our mate and making her ours.