Page 35 of Feral Werewolves

“What do you mean?” I said in a tiny voice.

“There was a light in her, and it turned off. We tried after that, but it didn’t work. It was like she was a different person, I think. She wasn’t the woman I’d fallen in love with—not the teenage girl I married, and not the moon-tinged sex goddess I fell in love with either. She was someone entirely else. I think I could have fallen in love with her a third time. I really do. But I was still justme, and she had fallen out of love with me a long time ago. I think probably right after her first gathering. I was never going to be enough for her, not after all of that. She left. We have a very amicable divorce, and she moved close to where both of our parents live, so sometimes I see her when I go home for family gatherings. We always chat, and it’s nice. But that spark, whatever it was that was there, it’s gone.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

He flung an arm over his face. “Now, I dothis. Bring tithes home and fail to fuck them.”

“Really?” I said. “I’m just a typical Saturday for you?”

“You offended?” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You have difficulty maintaining an erection a lot?”

“Ooh,” he said. “Now, you’rereallyoffended.” He laughed again.

“No, just… why?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I could say it’s because I want her back, and tithes remind me of her, and there’s probably something to that.”

“But?”

He was quiet.

“Is she remarried?” I said.

“No,” he said. “When we got divorced, she said something to me about how she didn’t think regular menwere enough for her anymore. I figured she was just saying that. A version of, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ or whatever. She said that it wasn’t fair to keep me in a relationship when I could be with someone who could genuinely love me and want me, like it was this altruistic thing, and I didn’t believe her. But when I do see her, there’s some weird hollow, longing in her face now. I don’t know.”

I eyed him. “You should try to get her back.”

He snorted, moving his arm away from his face. “What?”

“Well, it’s too late for her,” I said. “She should have mated, and that would have satisfied her, but she didn’t. She missed her chance, missed the window. All she can have is second best, now, and that’s better than nothing. You don’t seem to be moving on. You want her second-best. Just stop trying to give yourselves some beautiful, impossible love story and be happy for what you can have.”

He laughed again. “You don’t understand anything. How old are you, anyway? Twenty-three?”

“Twenty,” I said.

“What the fuck?” he said. “You were in a bar.”

“I have ways of getting served,” I said, defensive.

“Oh, my God,” he muttered. “I’mthatguy, trying to fuck children.”

“I’mtwenty.” I looked him over. “How old are you?”

“Older than you,” he said, chagrined.

After that, I left.

I spent the next week in a state of grim determination. I knew what had to happen now. It didn’t matter how I felt about it, or what plans I’d had. Things had changed. I didn’t exactly like the fact that they’d changed, but I knew that I didn’t want to end up like that man’s ex-wife.

I could see that it would happen, though.

I’d go through the rest of my full moons, fucked sideways by different wolves, and come home at sunrise, until it all ended.

And then, maybe I’d have a life where I could go to school and be a lawyer. Maybe I’d meet a man and we’d get married, and I’d have children. Maybe I’d do all of thosethings. But I could see now that it wouldn’t be enough.

It wasn’t that we didn’t have choices in life.

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