Xander's Mate

by Abigail Raines

  Xander is frowning and staring at me with all of his intensity which is considerable.

  “Olivia, are you okay?” He says immediately. “I mean, no you’re not. You said you weren’t okay. What’s the matter?”

  I sigh and actually relax a little. Despite things being a bit complicated, I feel comfortable around this man. Too comfortable probably. “Come in,” I say, stepping back and opening the door wider. “I’m sorry I texted, I shouldn’t have I know, I just-”

  “Shut up,” Xander says simply. He spins on his heel. He’s wearing a suit that’s probably equal to three times my rent and a big overcoat that he takes off and tosses over his arm. “I’m glad you texted. I...I want us to be friends.” He gives me those intense eyes again. But they don’t say “friends” to me. “If we can, ya know… I’d like to be your friend, Olivia.”

  I nod and I don’t know what to say to that other than, “Good. Um...do you want something to drink?”

  “No, no…”

  “Please let me make you some coffee?” I plead. “So I can have something to do and make this less awkward? I am begging you.”

  “Sure,” he says. He follows me to the kitchen and I see him looking around the place with wide eyes. He must think it’s the home of a kook. But he doesn’t say anything for a bit as he just takes it in slowly. Finally I see him nodding to himself as he leans in the doorway of my kitchen because I’ve moved the boxes behind the couch. One of my cats brushes up against his legs and I wrinkle my nose. She’s going to get cat hair all over his suit. “I like your place,” he says slowly. “Yeah...it’s you. It’s you all over.” He watches me pour water into the coffee maker and fill up a filter with grounds and says, “I like what you’re wearing. God that sounded all...lascivious. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant ah...it’s a lot more you than that stuff you wear to the office.”

  “I have to wear that stuff,” I say, frowning as I switch on the coffee. “It’s an office.”

  “You don’t have to,” Xander says. “Not that I think you should wear overalls and rainbows but I mean… You could wear what you wore when we flew to Chile? You had this uh, colorful flowing thing?” He makes a funny gesture that I think is supposed to signify “flowy” and it makes me smile. “It was more you than the black skirt and the gray blouse. I mean you’re not gray.” He taps his foot and he seems a little shifty. Maybe it’s because I’m staring at him trying to figure out if he was mentally cataloguing all of my outfits. “You know what, wear whatever you want.”

  “Oh...kay, “I say, laughing a little.

  “So why did you call me?” He says, crossing his arms.

  “I uh…” I lick my lips. It’s hard to know where to start. I felt panicked when I texted him and now I really don’t know what to tell him. And yet, I feel like I do want him to know me and where I come from. I trust him. Even if we’re only ever friends. I feel like he’d be an important friend, and not because of his status or anything like that. I feel like he could know me, truly know me. And I could know him. “I flipped out today...when you mentioned Jack Didion. And...I was trying to forget about it and then this song came on and I just… It made me panic and flip out again and it… I wanted to see you. I wasn’t thinking ahead very far.”

  Xander nods at that, taking it all in as he loosens his tie. “You had heard of Jack Didion,” Xander says. “I kinda...figured.”

  “Yeah…” I pour coffee into my two favorite mugs; they’re handmade mugs from one of my favorite customers, made on her pottery wheel and hand painted and glazed. I remember that Xander drank his black with sweetener and stir it up before he asks and he nods his thanks as he takes it. I brace myself with a sip of black coffee before adding cream and sugar and take a deep breath. “Jack Didion is my father.”

  Xander’s surprised and then immediately suspicious which is what I expected.

  “That’s impossible,” he says flatly.

  I can only laugh at that. “Oh, I assure you… It’s possible alright.”

  “But you’re...you’re…” He waves a hand in front of me and it’s not as if he’s disgusted but it is as if he’s referring to something forbidden.

  “Human,” I say nodding.

  “Human…”

  “Yes. I am absolutely human and Jack Didion is absolutely my father.”

  Xander looks at me and blinks and says, “I have to sit down.”

  He looks so out of place, it’s ridiculous. But he takes his coffee and I lead him back to the living room where he sits on the red velour couch that I bought from Goodwill five years ago and cleared off just for him. Its seats are sunken and he’s sitting low to the ground, his knees sticking up a little funny. He doesn’t seem to mind that. He looks too discombobulated from this news I’ve just given him. He loosens his tie more and then sort of growls and takes it all the way off before unbuttoning his shirt then he snorts in derision, sets the coffee on the old army trunk I use as a coffee table, and takes off his suit jacket. He takes another long drink of coffee then and looks up at me.

  “Tell me that again?”

  I can’t help but laugh a little. I sit next to him on the couch with my mug and take a breath. “The thing is, nobody knows the rules of genetics when it comes to shifters and humans procreating because it’s never supposed to happen. Most people believe it’s impossible for shifters and humans to reproduce together but it’s not. It’s just that, it’s so forbidden for shifters to take humans as mates that any children who have come from such a union are hidden away and never spoken about. Something that’s never even discussed can’t be studied. All I know is that my father was definitely a wolf shifter and his name is Jack Didion. I lived with him until I was seventeen and ran away. And my mother was completely human. But I’m not a shifter at all. No gene, no nothing.”

  “That’s how you can smell them though,” Xander says slowly.

  “Yeah, I just picked it up after a while.”

  Xander rubs his eyes. He suddenly looks very tired. “Jack Didion was one of the alphas most vocally against my brother Aaron choosing Michelle as his mate when we thought she was human. And all this time he had a daughter with a human? Son of a bitch…”

  “Yeah, that sounds about right for Didion,” I say bitterly. “He had an affair with my mother and he always wanted to hide it but she came with me… She left me with him. She was human but she knew about shifters. She said he would take me and raise me as his own or she would tell his whole pack about their affair and me, their unnatural love child. So he took me in and… he hated me.” I smiled sadly. I haven’t talked about it in a long time and it’s never easy. “He hated himself for having had an affair with a human woman but he hated me even more for being the reminder and being human on top of it. He was a big believer in saving the shifter race…”

  “He still is,” Xander mutters. “He wanted to experiment on my sister-in-law, find out if he could use the shifter gene she carried to somehow breed more shifters or turn human into shifters...something…”

  I don’t know how to talk about this part. I’ve barely even talked about it with Myra. I’ve only vaguely alluded to it. Now I sum up all my courage and stare down at my hands and say, “Yeah. He experimented on me too.”

  Xander just stares at me and says, “What?”

  “He was always obsessed with saving the shifter race, especially wolves. He wasn’t even formally trained as a scientist, but he did study at the feet of other shifter scientists who were into shifter genetics. His theory was that shifters might be able to breed with some types of humans and come out with pups. Didn’t work with me and he wanted to know why…”

  “Why would he want shifters to mate with humans if he hated the…” Xander mutters.

  “Breed with,” I say firmly. “Not mate with. Big difference. My father did care for that human woman before things went south with her and he hated himself for it. Shifters don’t take humans as mates. But using them for their own survival...that he could accept. He just
wanted to figure out how. He thought I was the answer. He drew my blood, poked and prodded me. A lot of times he just refused to believe I was human and tried to force me to shift through electric shock or-”

  “Jesus Christ,” Xander hisses. “You went through all that?”

  “If he wasn’t experimenting on me, he was just angry that I was so tragically human,” I say softly. “So he’d lock me in my room and never let me go out or...whatever. It was...too much to talk about. And he had his mate and his couple of pups at the same time. But they never saw me. I’m not even sure they knew I existed. I was just part of his lab that nobody else was allowed to see. And when I was seventeen...I finally got away.”

  “Olivia...” He puts his arms around me and I lean into it and his shoulders are so broad and he’s right there in his rolled up shirtsleeves so I rest my head against him because I can.

  “I was on the street for a while,” I say slowly. “Then I ended up meeting this coven who would go around helping the homeless kids. Didion was outside Seattle back then. So I escaped to the city. I didn’t have money to go far anyway, I just got lost in the depths of the city as much as I could. Became invisible. I don’t know if he ever looked for me though. By then I think he’d given up on me being of any use to him. I was just a burden. Anyway, the witches took me in, taught me how to brew. Turned out I had a natural talent for magic. Found my way to Lynwood and here I am.”

  “Well, he’s not going to get out,” Xander says. “I was never going to let that happen to begin with.”

  “I should be relieved he’s locked away,” I say. “I guess part of me was afraid he’d try to find me someday. Put me back in that lab.”

  “I’m sorry he hurt you, Olivia,” he says, turning my head so I’ll look at him. He’s being sweet but I see fury in his eyes that he can’t hide. I also see a kind of devotion and we’re so close I can feel the puff of his breath. I find myself leaning in and he pulls away. It’s embarrassing and it hurts.

  “I’m sorry-”

  “No, no,” I say quickly. “I just...got swept up. I understand why you can’t…”

  “It’s not as if I don’t want to…” I look at him and see him wanting to say more, and holding everything inside.

  “Xander,” I say quietly. “You don’t have to worry about hurting me. I understand. But I do want to be friends. How do you feel about staying for dinner?”

  He looks relieved at that. “Sure. That would be great.”

  Chapter Seven: Xander

  Hanging out at Olivia’s like everything is just fine after hearing the revelation that not only is Jack Didion her father but that he experimented on her throughout her whole childhood like she was some kind of guinea pig is exceptionally difficult. Of course, it’s exponentially more difficult for her and I expend some effort meeting her where she wants to be. Me being pissed off at Jack Didion doesn’t really help her so I fight to contain it while I order us Chinese food even as inwardly I’m thinking of all the different ways I could tear Didion apart with my teeth.

  It’s not as if I didn’t already want to tear Didion apart with my teeth to begin with.

  Incredibly, nothing physical happens between us that night beyond the platonic. That’s good. That’s the line in the sand we’ve both drawn. I know that Olivia only tried to kiss me because she was probably feeling vulnerable and wanting some closeness and I understand that. I couldn’t let that happen. It’s not just because she’s human either and that’s too complicated but because I couldn’t take advantage of her while she’s hurting like this. So instead we eat Chinese food and put on some mindless television. We crack jokes about it and Olivia teaches me to fend off her cats. It’s weird how much they like me. Usually cats immediately sense my wolf nature and are afraid of me but Olivia’s cats (Mooch, Scuzz, and Bender) seem oddly friendly. Olivia insists it’s because they understand magical people. I think she’s a little nuts.

  When I finally leave around midnight I’m...a little bit of a mess. I’m glad the two of us have sort of cemented this friendship. I haven’t felt this close to somebody in...maybe ever. Other than my brothers but that’s different. It’s not easy though and it’s never going to be. Not when every time I look at her, I want to make her mine. The feeling of intense connection to her is making me want to think she’s my mate and that’s absolutely impossible. I feel the rebel in me rising up to insist that it shouldn’t be. But I’m a realist too. I know what the clan will allow. It will not allow this.

  At least I keep telling myself that. Because the voice that’s telling me this can’t happen is getting more difficult to listen to.

  My rage toward Didion threatens to take me over the top as I make my way home. I should shift and go for a run to get my energy out but I need to get some sleep. I’m taking the next day off of work but that’s because I need to drive all the way out, almost to Seattle, to Mulligan for the Didion hearing. God knows how long that will take. But I know there are a few people who want to stand up for him. At this point, it’s going to be exceedingly difficult to contain myself and I’m going to need my rest.

  Instead of going on a run then, when I get home I change and head straight to my home gym in my huge basement. I put on some hard rock and slip on my boxing gloves and go at the big, sand filled punching bag I’ve got hanging down there. I can’t help but imagine its Didion’s face I’m punching as I take swing after swing. My knuckles are still slightly sore from punching out that foreman though the scrapes from hitting the trailer have healed. Now I feel my muscles pleasantly flex and I breathe deeply as Led Zeppelin screams and I hit that bag with all the force I have in me, imagining it’s Didion’s face, his jaw cracking, his nose collapsing. It’s the least he deserves for everything he’s done. Yet nothing feels quite satisfying enough and I never tire myself out. It’s only at two in the morning when I finally stop. I hadn’t realized how quickly time had passed. I might as well have gone for a run. At least I’m tired out. But I’m still angry. I’m still so angry. I trudge upstairs to my room, brush my teeth, and collapse into bed. That night I dream that Didion and I are shifted in the woods. I’m chasing after him and when I finally catch him, I take him apart with my jaws and the taste is sweet.

  “Tremblay.” Eli Friedman nods at me, smiling tightly. I was one of the first to show up at Mulligan that morning, having hardly slept yet again, and flooring it from Quinton out to the secret shifter prison. I nod at Friedman and shake his hand. He’s on my side. We’ve talked before. Didion hasn’t even been in prison that long. The thought of letting him go after what he tried to do to my sister-in-law is, to me, outrageous. There’s also no rule preventing him from taking back his position as alpha and that needs to be amended if he ever does get out. Which...he shouldn’t. Not ever. Not after what I know he did to Olivia. The rest of the clan may not know about it yet. But they will soon enough.

  “Thanks for coming in,” Friedman says. “I know the thought of Didion being released must be-”

  “It’s not happening,” I say shortly. “Not today. If I have anything to say about it, not ever.”

  The Mulligan is a nondescript beige stucco building. It’s about six stories tall and covers about two blocks. It’s paid for by the dues that everyone pays to the clan for the small amount of infrastructure it requires. It only holds about one hundred and fifty prisoners. There just aren’t many offenses that necessitate holding someone at the Mulligan for long. A lot of things are punished via exile from the clan. But then there are people like Didion and the men who attacked my family on behalf of Dax and the Hardwidge pack of Oregon. There’s a large conference room that’s been made into a kind of courtroom for hearings and trials such as they are. That’s where I’m waiting today as other alphas and elders begin to arrive. A few people have reported in as absent and depending who it is, I’m by turns annoyed, relieved, or indifferent. In the end, only four people out of all the alphas and elders of the clan have reported absent. That leaves about twenty-five for this hearin
g. Just as Elroy Finch who holds the position of arbiter of hearings and trials takes his seat at the head, about to bring things to order, my father walks in the door. My father is technically an elder. I say technically because a lot of the time he lets me speak for him. He has an injured leg and he’s become pretty quiet and inactive in his later years. But I find myself relieved to see him come in. He gives me a nod and takes his seat next to me.

  I feel like it’s going to be pretty awkward for my dad to hear what I’m inevitably going to say today since I haven’t told anyone about Olivia except Mason and all he knows is that I was going to talk to the activist who kept pestering me about the company’s corporate behaviour. Then again, my dad has trusted me all these years. I expect he’ll continue to have faith in my judgement. I hope so anyway.

  “Hey,” I say quietly to my dad as he tosses me a wry smile. “I didn’t know you were coming here today.”

  “The man attacked my family,” my father says. “Wanted to be here in support of you making sure he’s not getting out.”

  “Good. I’m glad to see you.” I pat his shoulder. I consider myself close to my father yet I don’t know that a close relationship between fathers and sons looks the same way for humans as it does for shifters. He was a doting dad to us when we were young pups and now he is careful to support us while putting in his own word when he thinks it’s necessary. But we don’t exactly pal around. Still, I know how much my father loves me and so do my brothers. That’s the important thing in my book. “Listen, dad, some stuff’s been happening recently that nobody knows yet. But it’s relevant to-”

  “Order, order,” Finch says, banging his gavel and cutting me off. We’re sitting in the front row of the hearing room, all the alphas and elders packed into the long benches in front of Elroy in his big wooden seat. I wanted to make sure I was sitting up front so that Didion would see me right away when they brought him in. I want him to see exactly how strong I am and exactly the extent of my fury at him. “This hearing will come to order.”