by James Wolfe
“No. I’m not insane, and, when you’re feeling better, I will gladly show you around the village. But, for now, you are going to have to trust me.”
This was insane. Like, there was no way this was real life. I was absolutely dreaming. Nothing this stranger had said made any sense to me.
But, for some reason, the way he was looking into my eyes right now… it did make me want to trust him.
It was weird, because I found myself oddly comforted by his presence, but I really shouldn’t have been. Because, as far as I could see, there was nothing comforting about him. He came off stoic and cold, the exact opposite of what you’d prefer when you wanted someone to be a comforting force in your life.
And yet, I was comforted anyway. I trusted him anyway. It was almost magnetic, how I was drawn to him right now.
But, I wasn’t going to trust him completely.
“You’ve got to give me more than that, you just… I’m so confused.”
He nodded as if he understood and then walked slowly over to the bed. “May I sit?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, a weird tingle going down my spine as he sat himself on the edge of my bed.
“I know you are confused,” he began, “but you are safe. I know you are eager to get home, but, for now, it is best you rest. You can stay here and relax. I’ll feed you, I’ll care for you, our doctor will come check on you, and, when you’re ready, you can return home.”
I’d be crazy to agree to this. Like really, truly insane. I didn’t know this guy. I needed to go home, maybe be seen by my own doctor.
But, what the hell was I going home to? It wasn’t as if I had anyone back home to care for me now. Not only had I broken up with my boyfriend, but he had attempted to beat the shit out of me.
God, in all of my confusion, I’d forgotten just how fucked up that had been. He’d never been physically violent towards me like that before. And, honestly, I was actually a little scared to go home. I mean, he knew where I lived. He could come over at any time. What if his anger hadn’t subsided? What if he still wanted to hurt me? I was in no position to defend myself right now, as exhausted and hurt as I was.
So, maybe staying here wasn't the craziest idea in the world. I was still weary, but at least I felt safe here right now. At least there was some comfort lying here and staring into this stranger’s eyes…
“Okay,” I agreed, “I'll stay.”
And, even though his stoic, serious expression didn’t change much, I could have sworn I saw an imperceptible smile.
15
Alexander
He was the one.
I expected he was last night, strongly suspected, but it wasn’t until I’d spoken to him that I became completely sure.
There was a feeling you got in your chest when you met your mate. It was an instinctual, gut feeling. We were taught from a young age that this feeling would overcome us when we met our mate, though we didn’t know how it would feel until it happened to us. We were told when you felt it, you would know.
And I did know. The second I’d heard his voice, though from far away it had been faint and weak. It hadn’t mattered, the soft breeze of the wind had brought me his scent, and I’d known I must have found my mate.
And still, I was a little unsure of myself, because when I’d run through the brush to find him, I hadn’t been prepared for what I’d seen.
He was a human, through and through. Humans had this scent about them, it was hard to distinguish from far way, but, when you were up close up, you could smell it very clearly. They didn’t smell like my fellow werewolves did. It was a very unique scent... not good, not bad, just… unique.
But never had I heard of a werewolf mating with a human. I wasn’t sure it was even possible, if humans were even able to carry our children. And, of course, all mates are able to bring children in to the world. That was the point of mating in the first place, though from what I’d heard, humans didn’t always see it this way.
But then again, humans didn’t mate as we did at all. They didn’t know when they’d found their mate, they had no instinct for that. When two werewolves who were fated to be together met, they both knew it instantaneously and would fall in to a deep love within moments. It was a practical kind of love. We did not date, we did not explore other options, we had our mate, and that was the only person for us. There was no question about it.
But humans questioned everything. They did something called dating, where they met a lot of other different humans and had intercourse. They were also trying to find their lifelong mate, most of the time, but they were just guessing at who that may be and attempting to find them clumsily.
I didn’t know how they did it. I would have been perpetually frustrated in their position. Hell, I was not even in their position, and I was still finding myself perpetually frustrated by romance.
I was twenty-seven years old, and I still had not found my mate. It was unusual to reach this age and not find your mate. Most people met their mate at a much younger age. Our tribe was not very large, there were thousands of us, of course, but it didn't take long to meet everybody. Most people find their mates within their own tribe, so they meet young, usually not long after becoming an adult, as it is impossible to have the instinctual mate connection as a child.
But, clearly, my mate did not exist within my tribe, as I had met everybody. There were other tribes across the country, and, in an attempt to find my mate, I’d visited many of those tribes. It was not unusual for us to do, and, in this day and age, we had no tribal rivalry. Males of mating age frequently visited other tribes when they had not found their mate within their own.
But still, even with my visits, I had not met mine. And I was growing lonelier every day. I saw all of the men I grew up with finding their mates and building their families, and I was still by myself.
So, naturally, my heart had soared when I’d finally caught the scent of whom I’d believed to be my mate. But my heart had sunk once I’d realized he was a human, as well as what kind of state he was in.
He was being hurt by another human, one I could only guess he had a romantic connection to based on their arguing, which I heard from a distance as I approached. This alone showed how inefficient human dating could be. He had found himself with a man who had not even loved him enough not to hurt him. I could not fathom ever laying a hand on my mate, but, as I approached, I watched him actually hit my mate.
I was instantly filled with rage. In my wolf form, which was considerably more primal than my human form, it took all I had not to attack him brutally. But, we had a pact with human government leaders in order to keep our tribes and villages secret from the general human population, and, part of that pact was that we would never harm any human, not that we wanted to much anyway.
But, right then, I’d wanted to. Right then, I’d wanted to destroy anyone who dare laid a hand on my mate, whether he was human or not. But, instead of attacking, I used intimidation to force him away and allow my mate to be safe once again.
Unfortunately, in scaring away his romantic partner, I’d also seemed to scare him quite a bit. But, only for a moment, as he’d seemed to pass out shortly after, which was when I’d brought him back to my village and had him seen by a doctor immediately.
He was unconscious for it all, and the entire time I wondered if I was right. If he was really my mate, and, if he was, what that meant for me.
But now, in the broad light of day, after speaking to him, I knew he was absolutely my mate. Again, this left me wondering what this meant for me.
I suppose it made sense, that my mate maybe was human, given that I’d never found him amongst any of the werewolves I knew. And while I didn’t get to choose who my mate was, if I had had a choice, I certainly wouldn’t have picked a human.
In school, we were taught extensively about humans. About their biology, their behaviors, their culture. It was imperative that we knew about them, even if they didn’t know about us, because if we ever ran in to them, we
needed to act as if we were also human. We needed to assimilate as much as possible.
Outside of the necessity of understanding them, though, I had always found humans very interesting. I’d frequently researched them even outside of school, curious about the species. While I wouldn’t have liked to live like them and thought of their culture as a little ridiculous, I enjoyed learning about them.
But, because I’d done so much research in to them, I knew how they were. I knew how frivolous they could be when it came to matters of the heart. This particular man, Daniel, had clearly already dated other people in his life. He dated like most humans did, which meant he did not understand the immediate, primal connection the two of us shared.
And that scared me, because, what if he never understood it? Though I could feel in my soul that he was my mate, what if he didn’t? Already, he’d wanted to leave and go home. And, of course, he was free to after I made sure he was physically well, because I’d always provide for my mate whatever he wanted. But, the fact that he wanted to leave in the first place was troubling.
Because I didn’t want him to. Not now, not ever. I wanted like him to stay here with me for the rest of our days, living in my village with me, carrying our children… if he even could, which brought me to the next obstacle.
Children are extremely important to me. Having a family has been a lifelong goal of mine. It was one of the many reasons I’d been so frustrated with the fact that I had not found my mate yet. And, now I was in a strange position where I had found him but was not even sure if that meant a family was possible.
This was just not what I’d expected to feel on the day I’d found my mate. I’d thought I would be overcome with love and commitment, and, in a way, I was, but I hadn’t expected it would also be accompanied by fear and doubt.
Not to mention, I’d expected the love and commitment to come from the both of us. As of now, it was me being committed to him without him being as equally committed to me. To be in love with a stranger who did not realize our bond was difficult, to say the least.
I was racked with stress for so many reasons. Now that I knew him, now that I felt our connection, I did not know how I would be able to let him go in a few days when he wanted to return home.
I know that, in human relationships, partners frequently spent time apart. They even had something called a “long distance” relationship when they almost never see each other. Well, that was not how we were with our mates. Quite the opposite, we were almost never apart, and, when we had to be, it was quite difficult, even for short amounts of time. We saw each other every day. We were both almost always in the same village together. So, to not only separate from him indefinitely but to know he may never come back to me… it was more than I could bear. It was heartbreaking on a level I could not even articulate.
I had to keep that from happening. Not by holding him hostage or anything, of course not, I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t stand to do anything against the will of my mate. My ultimate goal in life was to provide absolutely everything that my mate wanted from me.
I had to make it so that he didn’t want to leave. I had to give him what he wanted, though I wasn’t even sure what that might be.
All I wanted to do was go in and explain everything to him. Tell him that he was my mate, that I knew this because I was a different species, and, in my species, we were able to identify our life-long partners instantly. Explain to him that, with me, he could have a happy life, that I would be able to provide absolutely everything he could ever need or want.
But he’d already had such a weird reaction to me using the word village, which I’d forgotten was not a word used in the human world anymore. He was already so nervous sand skittish, if I tried to tell him the truth, I knew it would scare him off. I had to find a way to explain things slowly, to get him to trust me before I told him the truth, even though it killed me.
Every time I so much as looked at him, I was overcome with the desire to kiss him. To stroke his face, to pull his body in to mine and feel his embrace. To tell him all about my life, my secrets, my passions, and to discover his.
Usually, that was what two mates did when they met. If they didn’t already know each other, which many of them did as children before they grew in to the mating age, they took days and weeks alone from the rest of the tribe to get to know one another.
It was such an intense feeling when you found your mate, that’s really all you could do. Spend time with them, get to know them, learn them… and I had to refrain from all of it.
But at least he was with me now. At least he was in my home. At least I was able to care for him while he was in pain. As bad as it would feel for him to walk away at all, I really didn't believe I was capable of letting him walk away when he was hurting. He needed someone to look after him. No, not just someone, it needed to be me. I was his only real protector in this world. It was only me who could make sure he was safe.
And I would do so at any cost to myself.
I checked in on him about thirty minutes to later, to see if he was sleeping as I hoped he would be. He was, and I decided to use this time to go to the market and get some things for dinner as well as any meals we would eat tomorrow.
Our tribe was completely autonomous, as far as providing our own food, shelter, and goods. Well, I suppose not completely autonomous, as we got some things shipped from other tribes as well as provided things they were not able to grow. But we were completely autonomous from the humans because, of course, we had to be.
Everyone had a job that provided for the village. We grew our own food, so some people worked in the fields. We build our own homes so many of us do construction work. Others work in the market, where everyone was free to pick up anything they needed as long as they were contributing to their assigned jobs. We had no money. We could all take whatever we needed as long as we were contributing. But I'd never heard of anyone not contributing. Most people quite liked their jobs, especially because their mates were almost always assigned to work with them.
In these ways, it differed so much from human society. Where they got money for their jobs and needed to exchange that money for the things they wanted. And some liked their jobs, but many humans didn’t, and most of them did not get to work with their mates. They only saw their mates at home and in their free time. Which sounded miserable to me, especially considering how large most human village were. Your mate could be working an hour or more away from you everyday! I couldn’t survive that kind of difference.
And an even bigger difference was that in human society there were both males and females. We were an all-male society. We mated and built families with other males exclusively. In human society, most mates were compromise of one man and one female. There are female-female relationships as well as male-male, but, in those couples, they were unable to create a family on their own biologically. Human biology required a man and a woman. Not us, we could reproduce with two men. In fact, it was the only way we could reproduce, since no female werewolves even existed.
Oddly enough, this was one of the biggest reasons werewolves were required to go into hiding. Humans had always feared werewolves, so just our species existing was enough to terrify them, and most humans don’t believe we exist anymore. But that wasn’t necessarily what had forced us into hiding. Because we can hide the fact that we’re werewolves fairly easily, it wouldn’t be too difficult for us to assimilate in to human society and go unnoticed. When we are not shifting, we look exactly like them.
But we cannot hide our partners, not when we spend every moment with them. Not when we are so protective of our mates. And, hundreds of years ago, this had been a major problem since what humans called “homosexuality” was forbidden.
The discovery that you were romantically involved with another man would result in your arrest or, worse, possibly your murder. Obviously it would have been impossible for us to have kept this a secret without a significant amount of us ending up in jail. So, we’d recognized the necessit
y of separating ourselves from humans, and our ancestors had done exactly that.
These days, homosexuality was no longer a criminal offense and had become more widely accepted. But not accepted enough. Many homosexuals were still ostracized in society. I wouldn’t want to live as an openly gay man among the humans, it still seemed too difficult.
Especially when compared to our society inside the village. Where nobody was ostracized, where nobody had to worry about their safety, where fights were few and far between. Our society ran smoothly. We did not even have a jail or any form of criminal punishment. We didn’t really need it. There were few reasons for anyone to start any crimes.
Why would anyone steal? Everything was widely available. Why would anyone feel compelled to hurt another? I wasn’t even sure why this happened with humans. Emotional dissatisfaction, perhaps? Well, we were rarely emotionally dissatisfied, particularly after we’d found our mates and were living comfortable lives with our families.
I walked through the market slowly, smiling at my fellow brother wolves. I was tempted to stop and talk to some of them, to tell them about how I had found my mate. It was something that we usually shared with each other quite openly.
But my situation wasn’t normal. We weren’t even supposed to be interacting with humans, and I had one in my home. I wasn’t going to get a good reaction when I told anyone that. But, if I added that I believed this human to be my mate, I might even be laughed at.
Even our doctor was very weary at first when I’d explained to him that I had a human that had been injured. He suggested at first that I should find a way to get him to a human hospital. But I’d that insisted I couldn’t, that he must be cared for immediately, that it was too far and too difficult to get him to a human hospital.
Though I hadn’t said it, I had seen that he knew. I hadn’t want to take him anywhere else, because he was my mate. It wouldn’t have made sense for me to be this protective otherwise. Though he had the decency not to say anything about it and instead just chose to treat him.