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Mated wolves (especially young, newly minted, high-ranking ones) were supposed to be having sex, absent some obvious reason they weren’t, like someone was sick or wounded. Sex meant stability and unity. It was a prelude to pack anxiety if a high-ranking pair weren’t carrying a whiff of Eau De Orgasm around them on a regular basis.
Reluctance was noteworthy and cause for worry. Shyness and bashfulness regarded as silly.
“Is everything okay with you two?” was the legitimately concerned inquiry.
“Everything’s fine.” Everything wasnotfine, but this conversation was the most not fine of the not fine things happening in my life right now.
Confused looks between the she-wolves who didn’t know a thing about me, and absolutely no response from Emily, who knew exactly who I was, which only fueled that there was some super-secret concern in play.
“He’s not… pressuring you, is he?” one she-wolf asked.
“Searle wouldn’t,” another said.
“He might,” the oldest commented with a glance at Emily, who said absolutely nothing.
“Did something… bad… happen to you?” the third she-wolf asked, clearly not sure how to ask what she was asking of me. The second and oldest swatted at her and told her to shush, and she growled backwell, is that what we’re talking about here?
“Maybe everyone should just mind their own business,” Emily finally said.
“Are you a virgin? Is that it?” the oldest asked anyway.
Did I give off Virgin Vibes? Did I have a sign on my head that saidVIRGIN? Maybe I was wound so tight everyone thought I couldn’t get my knees far enough apart for so much as a breath mint. “No.”
I picked up my folding chair and empty bag and headed to the house. They could keep having this conversation, but it wouldn’t be with me. MaryAnne would be waiting for me to sort mail and work on her processing schedule, and before that, Ireallyneeded to go for a run.
Emily followed close behind. We walked in silence up the hillside, with the other she-wolves toddling along behind like intimidated puppies.
In the house, she took my chair and bag from me and headed towards the basement, where such things got stored in AmberHowl. In the quiet of the basement, she told me, “Ignore them.”
“Already doing it, but if this wasn’t nothing, I didn’t know.” I’d become recently acquainted with the reality that love could bloom even in the shadow of an abandoned or rejected mate.
“It was nothing. We liked each other, but we both knew it could never be more than that. I like Searle enough that part of me’s sad he’s not the one. But we also both knew one day…” she snapped her fingers.
Gaia’s Will. A wolf passing in the forest could turn your life upside down. Or a wolf your father summoned from the other side of a continent and walks into your living room.
She averted her gaze to some point over my shoulder for an instant. Was that her chin quivering? But just as quick, she looked back at me, expression set. “There’s nothing to talk about. It is what it is, for all of us.”
Not much I could or would try to say to that. No point in apologizing for a situation I had no control over, or her mourning a future with Searle that could never have happened.
She asked, “How’d you do it, anyway?”
“Do what?”Itnot beingfuck Searle, because that had not happened.
“When you were getting taken all over and knowing you weren’t going to mate well, if you did at all?”
“Dad didn’t give me any other options.” But she was pissing me off, the way she was digging into my backyard full of emotional corpses. There’d be no smug parading of bones. “When you start meeting wolves of lower and lower position, and see the wolves in their vicinity, you realize mating a no-prestige wolf in a no-prestige pack isn’t what you should be afraid of. It’sis he a drunk who can’t hold a joborabusive sadistthat starts to worry you.”
If I could have smelled better, I’d have probably smelled anger rising off her shoulders.
“The view from the bottom puts things into perspective. But maybe I’m just not wired right.”
This time it hit, and she flinched and looked away.
A familiar ache filled my soul. Looking back at SilverPaw from the vantage point of AmberHowl? Garrett had been right about what happens when love only lasts as long as you’re useful, and you aren’t the one who decides what “useful” meant. That had echoed everything I’d ever felt and never had a name for. And I didn’t believe for one instant AmberHowl would stand by me if I ceased to be useful.
Neverwas going to be a very long time.
But It Is Real
