It’s not a question I ever thought I’d ask, but I’m starting to feel a little desperate for brain cells. Not that I think I’ll find them among my brothers, but I would die before I asked my mom or Laura.
My brothers aren’t a better option by much, though.
“Whoa, dude, we’re not talking about that,” Aiden dismisses it immediately, his words a hiss as he glances around to make sure no one else in the store heard me.
“We didn’t need to bring you along,” Logan mutters, turning back towards the mirror.
I was in the middle of catching up on work, crouched between the couch and the coffee table my laptop is set up on, when I got dragged into more wedding prep. Some people hadcome by to decorate the house, and our mom had rounded us up into Aiden’s Jeep and told us not to come back until we all had something appropriate to wear to Logan’s big day.
“Sorry, let me just Google werewolf puberty.” I scoff and roll my eyes to push away my own embarrassment.
“Hate it, hate it, hate this conversation,” Aiden mutters, scooping one of the pretty throw pillows off the waiting room couch. He plops back on the seat, covering his head with the pillow.
“Fine, never mind.”
Logan shrugs out of the suit jacket and pulls another off the rack. He jerks his head to move his hair out of his face as he starts buttoning this one, and glances at me from the mirror. He prompts tonelessly, “And you brought this up because...?”
If it were anyone but Logan who had found Elise and me in the kitchen before, I’d have thought they were behaving a little chilly towards me. But with Logan it’s always been a little hard to tell.
He’s well aware I need to keep my hands off Elise. She wants me to. I want me to. Or, she did, but it seems like she’s changed her mind, and now it might just be down to my ability to say no to her, and if that’s all that’s holding me back, I don’t know how I’m going to manage to keep it together for another few days.
Considering the fact that my knot’s been showing up every time I touch her, I’m more than a little confused.
Theoretically, I should be obsessed with finding my mate. I mean, all the stories you hear about it from distant cousins during reunions, that’s how it goes. Maybe it has about as muchmerit as their urban legends about going feral. Still, it doesn’t make sense that all I can think about is her.
As an experience, as a sensation, these thoughts felt out of place with the rest of the spirituality my parents had impressed upon me. Like a mismatched patch hastily sewn into a larger tapestry. Is it just because we used to have a connection? Not a wolf-y, supernaturally charged connection, sure. But we used to be solid.
I can’t be so much of a fuckup that I can’t get the mystical fated mate thing right, can I?
It’s all a bit much to explain in the middle of a second-hand clothing boutique, however.
“I mean, not that werewolf families are all that pro-sex education to begin with,” I grumble, failing to actually come up with a coherent excuse. Things I could have thought about beforehand, maybe. “All I know is some really uncomfortable points Dad made about the knot, and that whole thing about the church and not spilling any semen, all-life-is-precious kind of thing.”
“Hey, what now?”
I turn back and glance at my brothers, a little perturbed by the mix of concern and confusion on their faces. “Did Dad not give you the anti-masturbation talk?”
“Wow, you really were the trial-and-error child,” Logan says, and while I have always felt a particular kinship with packages that get absurdly dented going through the mail, his remark feels an awful lot like finding a “FRAGILE” sticker that’s been punctured by the corner of something else.
“Whatever. I mean. I hate feeling shitty about wanting to know things. I don’t know about you, I’ve never been with another wolf.”
They both glance away at that, a different sort of energy hanging in the air. I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it before, but there aren’t exactly other packs in our area, and for the number of times I’d seen both of them sneak out of the house, I doubt they’ve fully kept faithful to the pack rules.
“It only happens when you find your mate,” Aiden supplies, not really muffled by the pillow, reaffirming everything I already know and offering nothing I don’t.
Probably in an attempt to change the subject, Logan points out, “Would there be animal attacks happening if finding your mate was an easy thing?”
“We’re not talking about that either,” Aiden grumbles through the pillow, and on that I agree with him. It’s not exactly great conversation to wonder which of us might be running mindlessly bloodthirsty through the woods. He puts the pillow aside and sits up. “Those things don’t have anything to do with each other.”
“Sure they don’t. Mom just married the first wolf she found for no reason after her sister went feral.”
“What? No. You don’t think Mom and Dad were in love?”
I blink in surprise.
I guess Aiden, being the youngest, doesn’t remember the rocky start they had, before they settled into a more amicable pattern. I’d never really thought of them that way. I don’t know how he can know our family history and not think they started as anything but duty and convenience.
I glance at Logan’s reflection as he faces the mirror, fidgeting with the non-pockets of the jacket. His expression shadows over, his mouth grim. “I don’t think it’s something worth holding out for.”
