Page 35 of Mate
“If you have the assembly, why do you still put up with an Alpha?”
She chuckles. “We’re not Human, Serena. We are biologically hardwired to coalesce around a worthy figure.” She tilts her head at me. “You’re a Were. Not a full one, maybe, but you feel it, too, don’t you? The importance Koen has as a symbol. Unity. Strength. Safety. I guess it’s like faith, in a way, but also not at all, and . . .” She lets out a small laugh. “I don’t know how to explain it, but you understand, right?” I don’t know if I do. Not the way she’d like me to, at least. I nod anyway, and she seems pleased. “Koen will be back soon. He just needed to discuss a . . . situation.”
I bury my hands inside my sleeves. “AmIthe situation?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” Heat creeps up my cheeks. “I promise I don’t go about my life believing that I’m the center of the universe.”
“You kinda are, at the moment. Honestly, if I were kidnapped and man-hunted at the rate you are, I’d assume, too. But this is something else— hopefully nothing to worry about.”
Like the vast majority of Humans, I grew up suspecting that if I ever met a Were, I’d be skewered into a kebab before I could politely inquire about their customs and traditions. Most information publicly available on them was speculation, often contradictory, always incomplete. I get it, Weres not wanting other species to know their business— sworn enemies and all that. Still, it wasveryinconvenient for me. When I realized that I was one of them, their secrecy made it impossible to predict what their reaction to a hybrid would be, and that’s what prevented me from reaching out and asking for help. But even in my hardest days, when my body clawed at me with needs that I couldn’t decipher and I contemplated walking into a pack’s territory, waving a white flag, and letting the chips fall where they may, I never, notonce, considered approaching the Northwest.
Out of all the packs on the North American continent, they are the least conflict prone, mostly because their territory doesn’t abut the Vampyres’. They are, however, surrounded by various Human settlements, and while they don’t exactly cohost monthly block parties, I could find no indication that their borders have historically been as contentious as the ones between the Southwest and the Humans. The Northwest pack has perfected the art of, as Koen would put it, minding their goddamn business.
And yet any mention of them induces brick-shitting. In Humans, and in their own kind.
It’s the zero strike policy, Alex told me while I was staying at Misery’s. She and Lowe would frequently disappear to do newlywed things that, in my humble experience, should have taken no longer than fifteen minutes. Alex noticed me listlessly wandering around the garden and graciously took me under his wing for a couple of remedial history lessons.They don’t tolerate any invasion.
Isn’t that true of every pack?
Most packs will kill the intruders and call it a day. They won’t line their perimeters with vertically impaled corpses.
A long pause.Impaled on . . . ?
Oh, you know. Just your regular, um, stakes?
Why would they do that?
To remind their neighbors of the exact location of their borders.He looked as nauseous as I felt.You have to admit, Koen’s logic is solid.
I don’t think Ihaveto, actually.
Anyway, they’re equal opportunity haters. They’ve done this with Humans, but also with the Canada and Midwest packs. So no one messes with them anymore.
So nice, to discover that the dude who’d told me I was his mate was impalement happy.Koen and Lowe are allies, though, I said. To soothe myself.
Yup. The North- and Southwest were never enemies, but they became close allies because Koen’s aunt was the mate of Roscoe, our former Alpha. When Lowe turned twelve and started feeling a bit too Alpha for Roscoe, Roscoe sent him to the Northwest. An exile- in- everything-but-name type of deal.
And Koen took him in?
Yeah. Basically raised him. Rumor has it that Koen didn’t want to play nanny, but it was obvious that Lowe would one day be Alpha, and he couldn’t let him become too fucked up.Alex laughed, but I wasn’t so certain that Koen had been joking.
They’re different, though, I mused.Lowe is much more about diplomacy, and less about . . . impalement.
They are. But I was in the Northwest for several months a couple of summers ago, doing some IT work. I get why Koen’s considered a great Alpha.
By whom?I asked skeptically.Himself?It was important to me that Koen Alexander was a mediocre . . . man, Were, Alpha. My pride and self-respect were at stake.
Everyone, really. He reunited the Northwest after the pack had splintered into different factions.All of a sudden, I could see the faint green undertones of Alex’s skin. He smelled warm and nervous and . . . scared?By the way, I heard about the mate thing.
Ah. Yeah.What an unfortunate direction for this chat.
And . . . you know how the first week you were here, I kind of asked you out?
I do.In my dreams, I violently slammed my skull against the wall.
You said no. And it’s totally fine. But would it be possible for you to . . .A deep breath.Never, ever,evermention it to Koen?
