Page 26 of Wild Wolf

“That’s because you’re not mated. Julie decided you would be her mate without your consent, and her wolf essentially went wild because of it. If you hadn’t killed her, one of us likely would have. We take that seriously. Once you’re mated, I suspect you’ll either go hardline Alpha or you’ll shake out as an Omega. Your military experience would make you demonstrate as an Alpha because it had been needed to survive. Omegas have similar problems to Alphas in terms of being part of a pack. Sanders has had to deal with that with his mate. Sara does not handle being alone well, and there’s always somebody in Seattle’s pack making sure her wolf has company. They basically have a rotation now. Omegas are stable, but Sara had a hard time starting out as a Fenerec, and it still shows sometimes. And Sanders does everything he can, but he can’t be with her every moment of every day, so the entire pack pitches in now and makes sure she has the support she needs. Could she survive on her own? Absolutely. She’s at no risk of losing control of her wolf, which is what makes her an Omega. I think you have that trait, too, but you were raised to be an Alpha instead. Richard’s submissive, but he was brought up in a pack to be the Alpha, so his submissive traits get buried. That causes him problems. Now that his pack is more aware he was born a submissive, they don’t test him nearly as much. They know he can act as an Alpha, but he gets the emotional support submissives need. I suspect that’s what happened to you, but in a military context. And an Omega being forced to kill? That’s a dangerous position for you to be in.”

I scratched my head. “Is that why I can go years without shifting?”

Amber blinked. “Did you just say you can go years without shifting?”

“Yes. My record is probably fifteen years? Maybe longer? I can’t remember. I couldn’t shift while working with the military. I would have been caught.”

“You did your service without shifting even once? For over fifteen years?”

“Yes.”

“You have to be an Omega. There is no way an Alpha, dominant, or submissive could do that. The wolf would go insane. Only an Omega can do that, because they have no control problems with their wolf and run zero risk of going wild. I thought you’d been resisting the full moon long enough to sneak off somewhere to shift without being caught. That’s what most rogues do.” Amber sighed. “We had been convinced you were an Alpha, but an unusually stable Alpha. Being able to resist transformations for a long period of time without running wild is an Omega trait.”

Great. The more I learned, the less sense everything made. “I’m confused. I was told I create problems rather than solve them, and solving them is an Omega trait.”

Amber offered me a smile. “You’re special, and we’ll leave it at that for now. I’ll recommend we classify you as an Alpha, but we’ll try to figure out why you only have some Omega traits. That’s important, because you need to be in a good environment for you. Your mental and emotional health matter.”

I sighed and wondered if Petra would let me up so I could pace around. I opted against antagonizing the wolf, who’d handled the interruption to her schedule fairly well. It amazed me so many in her space hadn’t resulted in her melting down.

Then again, maybe she viewed my guests as a pack for herself and enjoyed the safety numbers provided.

“You look unhappy,” Amber observed.

“I wouldn’t say I’m unhappy, but I’m concerned, especially seeing how Julie behaved.”

“Yeah. Desmond is going to have his hands full making sure the single women don’t overwhelm you. Most are more restrained than Julie, except they’re not shy about expressing interest. They just won’t act like they’re entitled to taking you on a date. Of course, Fenerec generally conclude date nights in bed, which may not be up your alley. You seem more conservative.”

“Seem? I’ve never been on a date, and you’re telling me that the women want to end dates with sex?” I sighed. “And I thought the military talk was bad.”

“I’ll admit, most military types are not shy about the sex talk, so I’m curious how you handled that.”

“I grunted and didn’t look interested.” I gave her a demonstration of my ‘don’t bother me’ grunt. “Like that, and more forceful if they didn’t get the hint the first time. And if they ignored it the second time, I’d tell them they wouldn’t have to worry about it if they kept bothering me.”

“Ah. And you have a reputation for mauling rather than killing.”

“I never actually had to get violent with anybody. The grunts were effective enough to stop problems before they started. A few times, I got to the second grunt, and that was generally enough to convince them it wasn’t a good idea to test me.”

“Humans don’t have many intact instincts left, but I bet that second grunt was enough to make them realize they might want to back off if they wanted to avoid a beating they wouldn’t forget.” Amber relaxed in my rocking chair. “I love a lot about my life. Nicolina can be a pain in the ass, but she’s a great pain in the ass. Richard’s the same. I sometimes don’t like the dirty work the Inquisition has me do, but some of it is really important. Would I want to spend the next ten years in a slow decline, though? No. Or even months. What I have now is bad enough.”

“Then I perform the ritual on you, and that’s that. It seems like a simple enough solution to me.”

“Not quite. Rituals can end in permanent pairings. The wolves tend to take over for a while during and after it. Richard told me about his life before Nicolina, and he got run through a wringer because all of the pack bitches would have a turn with him because he was the pack Alpha. Inevitably, because you’re performing the ritual, should I bond with a wolf, I might end up running you through the wringer.”

“Surprisingly, I have been told about that part. Well, mostly. I was told it was a possibility.” I considered my conversation with Dante. “Mostly, he was trying to play matchmaker, but I received the message that was the result they wanted, as that is the foundation of the loophole.”

“I hope your mother didn’t teach you being a virgin was some magical, important thing, because that’s inaccurate and stupid. It’s a societal construct, and we’ve found it’s a pretty harmful one.”

How had my life become so twisted, confusing, and disconcerting? “No, she didn’t. She just taught me that if I engaged with a woman, that it was probable it would become permanent. I don’t care who is a virgin or isn’t. I have been given the talk enough times to understand I should take care with a virgin woman. And to take care with any woman, really.”

“Don’t worry about it, Declan. It just means I won’t have any bad habits to unteach. That’s the fun with virgins. I haven’t trained a virgin in a while, but I won’t have to deal with bad habits. I enjoy working with virgins. It makes being a gold medal cougar all the more enjoyable. Of course, there’s something to be said for experience, but I’ve found a lot of the experienced men are more aggressive than I like. I prefer my men capable of being aggressive while also being considerate. I’ll probably have to teach you to be aggressive to tone down your consideration. That isn’t a problem, in my opinion. In even better news, even if you were to perform the ritual right now, it’ll be months before there’d be any worry about children.”

The mention of children captured my wolf’s attention. “Becoming a Fenerec really turns back time that much?”

“It does. It reverses just about every health problem. The Inquisition has a complete ban on anyone other than heterosexuals undergoing the ritual without significant psychological evaluations. There is no such thing as a gay or bisexual Fenerec. There was one experiment done on someone who was a hermaphrodite. After the ritual, she became a female. She did okay, but it was a shock to her, because before the ritual, she’d considered herself to be asexual. She needed a lot of therapy to get used to being a woman with a strong sexual drive. She’s since been mated and has several puppies, but the start of her time as a Fenerec was pretty rough. There was one transgendered individual interested in the ritual, but after what happened to the hermaphrodite, the Inquisition pulled the plug on it. There was no way to guarantee which gender he’d become, and they felt the psychological damage would have been severe if he had become a she.”

I raised a brow. “The Inquisition has put a lot of thought into this.”

“They have rules for a reason.”