Chapter 26 #2
Rose shrugged again and rocked her head from side to side. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Nadja crossed her arms tightly over her chest. If she’d learned anything from Magda, it was that if you gave a wise woman enough time, she’d tell you what she intended to, if not what you wanted to hear. Asking questions only prolonged the agony of waiting.
“What have they told you about mating?”
“Aside from your Cliff’s Notes version the first day we got here, nobody’s told me anything,” Nadja said, her chest tight with sudden anxiety.
“Okay, then. What do you know about mating?”
Nadja looked at her, an eyebrow cocked high. “I’ve read a lot of paranormal romance, Rose, but I don’t think any of that applies.”
Rose laughed, a sudden bark that sent the birds careening into the air.
“Probably not. Probably not.”
Rose was silent for an infuriating amount of time when Nadja finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“Well, are you going to tell me?”
Rose grinned, revealing that shining gold tooth again. “I suppose I have to. I can’t have you wandering around like a babe in the woods.”
She leaned back on the big rock, lying on her back and walked her feet up so that her knees were bent. Nadja lifted her own knees and wrapped her arms around them.
“There are mates, and then there are fated mates, or so the lore goes. Any wolf can take a mate. But the fated mate is the one wolf that has been made for you across lifetimes. You might not find them in this lifetime. You might not find them ever. But it’s the fated mate that the soul cries out for. Or so they say,” she added hastily.
“Do you believe that?” Nadja asked.
Rose bit her lips between her teeth. “Honestly? Blasphemously? No.”
Nadja waited her out.
“I think that kind of thinking causes problems. Say you have a mate and they piss you off, well, you start thinking that your fated mate would never. Your fated mate would never annoy you or heckle you or ask you where you’ve been.
They would just know. They would never do anything wrong at all.
And that sort of thinking starts to ruin things that are perfectly good even if they’re not perfect. ”
“That makes sense,” Nadja said.
“Also, I don’t know anything about multiple lifetimes.
Maybe we just get this one. Maybe this is it.
Maybe there’s not even anything after. I have no idea.
But if this is it, if this is the only chance we get at this, I sure as hell don’t want to spend my whole life looking for perfect when someone who could make me happy is right in front of me. ”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
“Exactly,” Rose said, canting her head to look at Nadja.
“Nobody’s perfect. And there’s no such thing as a wolf ‘completing you.’ That’s an unfair burden to put on a person.
You’re already complete. And if you’re shit, that’s because you’re shit, not because your mate wasn’t good enough to balance the deficit. ”
Nadja nodded. She often talked to clients about the difference of language between “complementing” versus “completing.”
“So… Robbie wouldn’t necessarily know if I was his mate,” Nadja said.
Rose tilted her head back and forth again.
“That’s what I believe. But there are plenty of people who believe in fate.
And who am I to say they’re wrong? Maybe I’m just cynical.
It’s just that I tend to be the one who receives these broken wolves into my arms and has to help them put themselves back together when a random universe masking as fate fucks them over. ”
Nadja turned in her seat at that, staring down at Rose, who was looking intently at something overhead as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb within the conversation.
“What does that mean?”
Rose sighed. “Look, I like that man back there a lot. He’s sweet as pie and obviously wouldn’t hurt a fly, but once he bites you, it gets complicated, fate or no.”
“Rose,” Nadja said, her voice tight.
“It’s not my story to tell. None of them are. But plenty of women get pressured into matings that aren’t in their best interests, and it’s damn hard for them to get out of them.”
“You said it wasn’t forever. It doesn’t have to be forever.”
“Nothing is,” Rose said, sitting up and groaning as she stretched, rolling her shoulders.
“Learned that in yoga. But bites complicate things. They tie you. They link you forever. You’ll always have a connection to one another.
You’ll always be able to find each other, always be able to know how the other one is feeling. ”
“How would he know how I’m feeling?”
“The bite is a bond. He won’t be able to read your mind or anything, but he’ll have a barometer for your emotions.
When you’re upset, he’ll feel it. When you’re happy, he’ll feel that, too.
And you’ll always know where the other one is in the world.
That’s why this place is so important. These wolves, these people, they come here to get away.
It’s remote as hell, which is a deterrent on its own, but JJ is one of the most dominant wolves I’ve ever met, whether he likes to admit it or not.
And with him as Alpha of this pack, a wolf would have to think twice about coming here to cause trouble for a former mate. ”
Nadja was quiet, her mind reeling. She had always assumed that mating was like marriage, an arrangement agreed upon by both parties.
Bites, she’d thought, were symbolic, like kissing a bride at the altar or exchanging rings.
And, in a way, they were. But they were magic, too.
Ancient magic, woven into the very fabric of life. Bonding and binding and permanent.
“I’m on your side, girlie. I think Robbie is about the best kind of man I’ve ever met and think he’d be a good mate to you, if that’s what you want. But only if that’s what you want.”
“What if I don’t know what I want?”
Rose took Nadja’s hand in hers, lacing their fingers together and squeezing.
“Unfortunately, love bug, you don’t have much time to figure that out. The full moon is in three days. They’ll expect bites under that full moon to bond you. If you don’t plan to stay, you’d best be gone by then.”
“But Robbie—”
“Will be fine. I told you that. If you’re gone, he’ll be an abandoned wolf.
His character speaks for itself. I’ll raise the motion at council the next day to let him stay, JJ will second it, and the votes will go in his favor because nobody wants to go back to eating JJ’s excuse for cooking ever again.
But if you’re here, that changes things.
They’ll expect you to make good on that promise, or you’ll both be out. ”
Nadja chewed on her bottom lip.
“I’ll help you, either way, no matter what you decide.”
Nadja dropped her forehead to her bent knee and closed her eyes, imagining how devastated Robbie would look if she left.
But no more devastated than he would look if she just disappeared into thin air, if he’d bit her and then she got taken back to hell and he felt the agony of her absence but could never find her.
Rose squeezed her hand again. “You’ve got a little bit of time.”
“Three days,” Nadja said with a snort.
“Whole worlds have been changed in three minutes, my love, let alone three days,” Rose said. “It happens all the time.”