Aaron's Mate

by Abigail Raines

  I seriously start to consider leaving with Michelle. Of course, I’d have to convince her first. I don’t know that I’d be able to. There’s only so much she can take, I’m sure. And packs don’t just let you take off. To a certain degree, we’d have to be on the run. It’s a nightmarish prospect to me. I love my family and I’ve fervently believed in loyalty to the pack. But I know in my bones, that if they were to vote against me, it would be the wrong vote even for the good of the pack. I’d have to take a stand.

  When I get home, I’m pissed, and restless all over again.

  Having no better ideas, I take it all out on my apartment. The wolf in me is scratching to be let out and I allow myself to shift right there in my condo. Maybe running around a little will get my frustrations out.

  I didn’t plan on destroying the place, but that’s exactly what I do. Every bit of missing Michelle and every bit of anxiety at whether or not she’s okay and every bit of fear that we might be parted takes control. I shred pillows with my teeth, I rip apart the bedding where Michelle and I made love. My couch is ruined by the time I’m done and there is broken glass everywhere and papers in confetti bits all over the floor.

  When I’ve tired myself out, I actually feel much better. I shift back into human form and grab a bottle of beer from the fridge and plop down on the floor, sitting up against the wall, and surveying the damage.

  “Well, that was stupid,” I mutter.

  I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to better explain to Michelle how much being away from her affects me when there’s a knock on the door. I grimace at that. I figure it’s got to be neighbors having heard the ruckus. I take a breath and a sip of beer. Well, it is a condo. They can’t kick me out anyway.

  I’ve got a nice kiss-off speech on the tip of my tongue when my eyebrows raise as I open the door.

  It’s my mom.

  “Mom?” I try to inconspicuously shut the door as much as I can around me, not letting her in. The last thing I need is for my mother to worry about how I’ve trashed my own place, or worse, lecturing me. “What’s up? What’re you doing here? You okay?”

  My mother looks as well put together as ever. She’s wearing a little gray sweater set that probably cost an absurd amount of money and nice slacks, her hair in her typically well-coiffed updo. She’s holding one of her beaded clutches.

  “Oh, I’m just fine, dear.” She frowns, and looks me up and down. “I’m a bit worried about you though.”

  “I’m fine, mom,” I say, trying to sound as convincing as possible.

  Mom scowls at me, clearly suspicious. “I don’t think so.” She stands on her tiptoes and rests the back of her hand against my forehead. “You feel warm. And you’re clammy. And pale. Also, I need to talk to you.”

  She starts shoving at me, trying to get in the door. My mom can’t bodily move me but I know she won’t give up until I let her in so I relent with a long-suffering sigh.

  “Oh, dear God!” My mother howls when she sees the state of my place, and she spins around, glaring at me. “Why didn’t you tell us it was this bad?”

  “Nothing’s bad,” I insist. “Just…letting off a little steam.”

  “Sit down,” she mutters, pointing me toward a chair. “For God’s sake, Aaron. I’m making you jasmine tea. For starters.”

  “I’m not sick,” I say, but I sit down in my good reading chair anyway. “I don’t need tea.”

  “I know you’re not sick,” she mutters, kicking some thrashed books out of the way as she heads to my kitchen. Despite her command to sit, I get up again and sit at the kitchen counter instead, watching her putter around. “Not sick like you have the flu. It’s much worse than that. Didn’t we ever tell you about when I was pregnant with Micah?”

  I frown and lean on on my hand. My mom’s like a whirling dervish when she’s got something to do that she thinks is important. “No?” I can’t think of any stories in particular about when my mother was pregnant with Micah. Except that she craved pepper all the time.

  She’s filling up the tea kettle and then she turns it to heat and goes about tidying my demolished kitchen. “Well, yes, I guess that makes sense. See, when I was just a few months pregnant with Micah, your father had to go off with the pack. It was back when there was that big feud with the fox packs down in California? Aaron, help your mother and find me a dustpan?”

  “You don’t have to do this, mom-“

  “Did I ask for you advice?” She snarks. “No, I didn’t. Go find me a dustpan.”

  I chortle at my mother (which makes her roll her eyes) and find her a dustpan from the broom closet. She points me back to my stool and I sit back down, watching her sweep up broken glass before she pours me a cup of tea and sets it down in front of me.

  “Where was I?” she mutters. “Oh yes, Micah. Anyway, our pack was at war with the California fox clan, which meant he had to go fight. And be away from me while I was pregnant and Aaron… We’re lucky he made it out alive.”

  “It was rough on him, huh?”

  “I mean, obviously I wasn’t there. But I heard enough about it. By all accounts, he was very brave and a vicious warrior. But he was half-crazed, you know, being so far from me. He attacked his own wolves more than once. They said he was acting rabid.”

  “No way,” I said, sitting up straight in my chair. It’s crazy to me that I’ve never heard this story. “Dad?”

  “Yep,” she says, with a little nod. She points to my tea and says, “You drink that right now. Jasmine tea is very good for you in this state.”

  I’m not much for tea usually but I suck it up and down half the cup. It is pretty soothing.

  “Mom,” I say, “what if she doesn’t come around? What if she just takes off? I wouldn’t even blame her. Will I just lose my mind? Go off into the woods and turn mad? Or what if the clan votes against me? Xander said-“

  “Don’t worry about Xander,” she says, a little clipped. I spin around in my stool now because she’s finished tidying up the kitchen and now she’s starting on my living room. I destroyed so much of my stuff, though luckily nothing terribly important. Most of it’s replaceable. It was stupid of me, but I couldn’t quite control my actions.

  “You know if he does vote against me,” I say carefully, “even if they win and he votes against me… I’ll have to leave, mom. I’ll have to try to convince Michelle to come with me. The way Xander was talking about the baby… I’m worried they wouldn’t be safe-“

  “Don’t you dare talk like that!” Mom was stacking up books but now she stomps up to me and points her finger in my face. “I know things are very tense right now, but your brother would never hurt you or anybody you love. Or maybe you have lost your mind, if you think so.”

  “I’m not crazy,” I say darkly, narrowing my eyes. “I was there. I know what he said. He’s thinking about the well-being of the clan and I know that. But I have to think about my mate and my pup.”

  “He’s worried,” my mom says. “But he wouldn’t vote against you in the end. Besides, he doesn’t know what I know. You’re in no danger, sweetie. I assure you.”

  “And you know this how?” I drain the rest of my tea. My skin feels a little looser in a good way, like something has come unwound.

  “Because!” My mom laughs, and puts her hands on her hips, turning to face me. “Because I’ve got that same mix of human and shifter genes that Michelle’s got. I was in exactly her position. The only difference is, I knew what I was.”

  I blink at my mother, disbelieving. It would have been less shocking if she’d told me she was part porcupine. “What?”

  “I’m a descendant of that scientist’s daughter you’ve all been talking about,” my mother says. She’s smirking a little. She looks so proud of her secret. Typical mom really. “The scientist was named Joseph Krakauer. And that daughter with the shifter gene is my great, great, great, great grandmother… I’m not sure how many greats. I don’t remember. But I’ve got all the ancestral history writ
ten out. It’s all hidden away, of course. Most of the descendents had no idea about the shifter gene. They lived their lives as ordinary humans. But I was a direct descendent. I knew that Joseph Krakauer studied werewolves and I knew shifters were real and that I was partly one of them. But also not. We lived between both worlds. But we kept away from shifters. Until I met your father.” She smiles softly. “I was poking around, being curious and stupid probably. I found him in the woods and I knew what he was. The rest is romance,” she says, shrugging.

  “But you-you…” I stutter, trying to wrap my mind around this. “That’s bullshit! You can’t be part human like Michelle is! You can shift!”

  “Can I?” She laughs like I’ve told a good joke. “When have you ever seen me shift?”

  “No, I know you don’t anymore but…” I rack my brain. When we were kids, our father took us out to the woods as pups. We were told that at the full moon, our mother preferred to go off alone, her people’s custom, my father said. Then when we were older, they took to their little transformation cottage for the moon. And by then it was the only time my father ever shifted as he’d said his hunting days were over and he didn’t feel the compulsion anymore, having retired as alpha.

  I gape at my mother. I feel as if my entire world has just shifted a little bit around me. Is it really possible that our entire lives, our mother has secretly been more human than shifter?

  “Does Xander know?” I say.

  “No.” She takes my hand in hers and looks on me with sad eyes. “We kept this a secret, your father and I. In those days when I met him, your father was patrolling the wild country on his own. I went with him-“

  “As a human?”

  “As his mate, Aaron.”

  “Wait.” I laugh at myself. Because an obvious question has been right in front of me since she started speaking. “This doesn’t make any sense. If you’re like Michelle and you can’t shift, you’d have no shifter’s scent on you either. But you do! Everyone else would’ve been able to tell-“

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she says, squeezing my chin. “Your father and I were able to be together for a long time on our own. His alpha duties made that possible. He knew what I was, he didn’t care. Then I got pregnant with Xander and by the time I gave birth to him, the pregnancy had changed me just enough to pass for being a wolf. We were only lucky that nobody tried to prove it and make me shift.”

  “Jesus,” I mutter. “Oh…so Michelle will smell like a shifter soon too?”

  “If you hadn’t told anyone, they wouldn’t have known the difference soon enough,” she says, shrugging casually. “But it’s good you did, Aaron. It was wiser than the course your father and I took. Keeping it a secret was reckless of us. We could’ve been found out if the Tremblay pack was any less powerful. We had a lot going for us.”

  “Are you going to tell Xander now?”

  “Of course! He can’t vote against you now, knowing his own parents and the pack’s former alpha committed a much more egregious sin.”

  “I dunno,” I mumble, still feeling a little bit of spite towards my brother. “He could decide to punish all of us.”

  “Oh, Aaron.” She rolls her eyes, and punches my shoulder. “I know Xander carries that alpha’s chip on his shoulder as much as any of them, but can you really see him tearing our family apart in the name of some old fashioned clan rules? Do you really think so little of your brother?”

  When she puts it that way, I almost feel bad about it.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

  “Of course, he wouldn’t. You have to have a little more faith in family.”

  “You don’t see the irony in saying that after telling me you’ve been lying to us all our whole lives?” I smile wryly. I’m not really mad. Not at all, in fact. I might have been before Michelle. But now I understand what lengths a man will go to to protect his mate.

  “Don’t get smart.” She tousles my hair and I roll my eyes. “More importantly than all that, I want you to know that your father and I have your back. And Michelle’s back. And your pup’s back. We’re behind you, Aaron.”

  “Thanks, mom.”

  She pulls me into a hug and I let her. It springs to my mind that Michelle will be as wonderful a mom as my own. It’s a happy thought.

  “Besides,” shey says, as she pulls away, now straightening my disheveled shirt, “I really like Michelle. Human, shifter, whatever you want to call her. She’s very smart and very…”

  “Spunky?” I say. “Feisty?”

  “Strong,” my mother says.

  “No question,” I say, feeling a little proud. “Now if she’d return my calls, we’d really have something.”

  “She’ll come around, sweetie,” my mom assures me, patting my hand. “Never underestimate the charms of a Tremblay man. And never underestimate their talent for making an absolutely mess. You’re helping me clean up the rest of this.”

  “Yes, mother,” I say, chuckling.

  Chapter Seventeen: Michelle

  I’m ostensibly scrolling Instagram but I feel like I haven’t really seen any of the pictures I’m looking at. I miss Aaron and I’m starting to think it’s time to put this whole thing to bed. I’ve been missing him so much, it’s been like a constant ache, but I suppose I’ve been waiting for the anxiety about this whole situation to pass. If I’m honest with myself, I keep waiting to wake up and find out that I don’t have to worry about some family of wolves who might have a problem with me falling in love and having a kid. Because that is quite literally the stuff of nightmares.

  But the truth is, reality isn’t going anywhere. And I can’t keep Aaron hanging on the line forever. Sooner or later, it’s going to be time to face the music. And considering how much I miss him, I guess sooner is better.

  I decide to text him and see if he wants to come over. Luna is out tonight, so it might be a good time for it. I could go to his place, I guess. But I’m feeling like I want to be on my own turf.

  But before that, I’ve got a craving, and it needs to be quenched because I feel like I’m going to pass out. It’s the damnedest thing, but I’ve been craving Pop Tarts. I have to think there’s not particular logic to pregnancy cravings. But it still seems like an odd choice. I haven’t had a Pop Tart since I was a kid, but I’d commit murder for one now. If I call Aaron, he’ll want to come over right away. So I opt to take a walk and stretch my legs. I’ve been cooped up in the apartment and some air would do me good anyway.

  I change into a warmer sweater and put on a coat, even though it hasn’t been very cold outside. If I fail to dress warmly I’ll hear it from not just Aaron but Luna. If shifters are marked by their sense of protectiveness, I could swear Luna is a shifter too. The girl won’t leave me alone. She keeps making me hardboiled eggs and telling me to take calcium and asking me if I have swollen feet yet. I feel bad for not telling her the truth about Aaron and my pregnancy, but I can understand why shifters keep themselves secret from humans. We don’t exactly have a great track record at dealing with those who are different.

  Because Luna has insisted that I let her know whenever I step foot outside the house (just in case), I give her a text telling her I’m going to the store to buy Pop Tarts.

  As expected, Luna tries to talk me out of it.

  You’re going alone???

  I am a grown woman.

  It’s after 10!

  That’s early...

  BE CAREFUL.

  I WILL.

  BRING A COAT.

  I snort at that and take the time to shoot a selfie of me in my big coat and send her a pic. She throws me back a thumbs up.

  Then she adds: AND A SCARF.

  Before I leave, I hesitate at the door for a second and check the weather app on my phone. It is actually nippier than I expected, so I grab a scarf. Score one for Luna.

  Outside, it’s a little gusty, but pleasant and crisp. I like Quinton because it’s just enough like a city to feel metropolitan but it still smells
like forests and within neighborhoods, it even feels like a small town. Having grown up in an apartment building in Seattle, it was so different than what I grew up with.

  Yet as much as it may feel like a small town, crime does still exist here and that confrontation with the shifter the other night has me really jumpy. If Aaron were here, he definitely wouldn’t let me go out walking alone this late. Not after that.

  The paranoid overprotectiveness of both Aaron and Luna make me take extra precautions. So, because I’m walking alone at night, I don’t listen to my earbuds and I hold onto my keys in my pocket.

  I keep jerking, turning my head this way and then because I think I’ve heard or seen something. This part really isn’t Aaron or Luna’s fault. I just keep hearing that voice in my head saying, “Gimme your purse.”

  I’m pretty tense before I get to the convenience store on the corner. But the familiar warmth and light of the place brings me back to earth enough that I have to laugh at how silly I’m being.

  “Hi, Max!” I call out to the old guy who runs the place. He tips his ballcap to me which is as much a conversation from Max as I’m ever likely to get. But when I toss a box of blueberry Pop Tarts on the counter, he raises his eyebrows.

  “Pop Tarts,” he says, in that slow, reedy voice of his.

  “Yep,” I say. “Just had a random craving for Pop Tarts.”

  Eventually, it’s going to be obvious that I’m pregnant and I’ll have to start telling more people. But I don’t need the guy on the corner to be one of the first to know.

  “I like Pop Tarts,” Max says.

  I pass five bucks across the counter and pocket the change. “That so?”

  “That’s so,” Max says, and tips his cap again. “Have a good one, Michelle.”

  “Thanks, Max.”

  Outside, I feel all weird again. I carry the box of Pop Tarts under my arm, and stuff my hands in my pockets. I’m two blocks from home when I see a shadowy figure come out of nowhere, and I feel a spike of fear. I turn, trying to be subtle about it, intending to cross the street. It’s too dark and empty on this block.