CHAPTER 7
August 2014
Brandon, age 28
She was finally gone. Fuck. This had been the worst week of my entire life. Just spending the whole month at my in-laws had been hard enough, with them constantly dropping hints about us moving back to Chicago, talking about how well all of their rich friends' kids were doing, asking what fancy preschool we were looking at for Ben – both Hailey and I were uncomfortable by the end, ‘cause there was no rational way to explain to her folks why we had to live with the pack, and why Ben needed to go to the non fancy pack preschool. I could see Hailey's gears turning, her parents' words getting to her, her trying to think of a way of giving our son a head start in life while simultaneously taking into account his unique nature. Then Ben got the measles, which in itself wasn’t bad, but with Hailey being 4 months pregnant and her parents being old (and human), it was a disaster waiting to happen. So it was decided – I would take Ben back to the pack and she'd stay with her folks until the danger was over.
When we arrived back at the pack, I’d noticed people giving me strange looks on the street – which, at this point, most of them had stopped doing, so that felt weird. Then the Alpha summoned me, telling me Samantha has been visiting her parents in my absence (she seemed to have taken a page from my playbook in that regard) and warning me not to talk to her or harass her in any way until she can leave. “If you happen to see her, cross the street,” were his exact words. I could feel my wolf stirring inside me, offended that our Alpha was telling us what to do about our mate. He'd been very quiet lately, and I guiltily realized I hadn't been shifting as often as one should. I let him out on the mandatory monthly pack runs, but that was it. My life with Hailey was still very human within our four walls, but I was going to need to step it up for my pups soon. Ben was 3 already, and I made a mental note to play with him in my wolf form more, so he could get used to that side of us. Through clenched teeth, I thanked Alpha Tom for his warning, assuring him I had no intention of contacting Samantha in any shape or form.
After the colossal waste of time that was that meeting, I ran to the pack hospital, so Ben's pediatrician could check him out. He was still running a slight fever, and his rash was getting worse so I hoped there was some ointment he could give us. Shifter pups were basically human before they shifted, and they suffered from various diseases that they needed human medicine for. However, all rational thought fled my head as I approached the office door, and all I could think of were summer meadows filled with wildflowers, the sage flowers in them warm and fragrant in the sun. Lucas, Samantha's brother-in-law and Ben's pediatrician, smelled so strongly of my mate that my vision suddenly became very blurry and my face felt wet. My hands were shaking and I was trying to breathe through my mouth but failing to, since my wolf needed her scent. I felt my mind getting away from me, I vaguely saw a plan forming: I needed to see Samantha, I needed to hear her voice, I needed to be around her. I felt my claws extending, and I used the opportunity to pierce my palms with them as a last resort to overcome my animal. I needed to think of Hailey, my beautiful, pregnant Hailey, who smelled only of the fragrances contained in her shampoos and perfumes, Hailey who was so devastatingly good to me and who was not my mate. Lucas sniffed the air and just observed me with a knowing gaze while looking Ben over; he prescribed him something and I didn’t even listen to the instructions, I just needed to make it out of there and lock myself in my house before I did something I might come to regret.
I spent the week locked inside my house, caring for Ben, my parents bringing us groceries and other necessities, until one day my father looked at me with a dark gaze and said, “She's gone.” I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my heart, but there was a depression left from where it had been. Ben felt better so I left him with my folks, saying I needed to run for a bit. My wolf ran to her parents' house, a last ditch attempt to catch her scent again, and he did. His eyes rolled back and he groaned, his entire body shivering in ecstasy. I'd never seen him experience anything like this in all of our years together and a gigantic wave of guilt threatened to knock me over. I'd denied him his mate, his other half. We'd never even seen Samantha's wolf. That was probably why he had distanced himself from me, he was alone and suffering. One of our kind dying after the loss of a mate wasn’t unheard of. I just selfishly assumed that, because my human side loved Hailey and because we’d never marked Samantha, that my wolf would have an easier time of it. Samantha's sister came out to the porch, narrowed her eyes at me, and opened the door for my wolf to pass. He followed his mate's scent to a room on the second floor, curled up on her bed, feeling closer to her than he'd done in years, and we slept through the night for the first time since that night with her . The next morning, Lucas threw a pair of shorts at me and told me to get out quickly, before Sam's father got up. I took the long way home, my head hung in shame.
I just needed Hailey to get home. I needed to hug her, smell her, be buried inside her. She was insatiable during both pregnancies and often rode me with abandon, which paradoxically caused me to hold back even more than usual. I could never let my claws out with her, could never pound into her with my full strength, especially when she was with pup. At the pack gym, I’d see other males walking around shirtless, sporting bloody scratches on their backs that persisted for days despite shifter healing. Some of them would talk in the locker room as they smirked at each other, saying “you know how females get” or “my mate was in heat last week”. They never looked at me or taunted me directly, but I still felt as if they are mocking me. In the human world, being with Hailey made others look at me with envy, and if I was being honest, I’d enjoyed it. Here, no one envied me. Quite the opposite, they pitied me. Not because she was human, but because she wasn’t my mate. I tried not to look at other wolves' marks. Most of the males here had experienced both – being with their mate, sexually, and with others (often humans) before that, so they undoubtedly had knowledge of something that I could only guess at – nothing could measure up to being with your mate. But I was more human than animal, and sex wasn’t the only thing in a relationship. I loved Hailey and I was happy with her. I really was.