The Contrary Mate

Jack

I was in a haze of happiness, right until the moment I left my lovely mate at her parents’ home, while my wolf whined in the back of my head. She was ours now, how could we just leave her?

But that was exactly what I did. At least now, she was ours, in a way that no one else could ever have her.

I slept fairly well that night as if I were exhausted and I woke up the next day feeling renewed, although she was still the first thought in my mind and I already missed her. I’d see her again tonight, when I took her on my newest idea for a date, something I was pretty sure she would really enjoy. I wanted to see her, but also her reaction and looked forward to it with great anticipation.

Lenora was more satisfied with my work performance than she had been lately, so she was in a better mood. I was feeling fantastic and everything was going great, until we received word that we were having issues in our main network operating system. I ended up in a last minute meeting with the director of internal IT and our highly skilled magic security programming team.

“They stopped the most recent threat, but it took some manual intervention,” the director explained with a frown.

I nodded for him to continue.

“The virus was more sophisticated than anything we’ve seen, with definite magical augmentation.”

“Were you able to trace the origin?” I asked. This threat was serious, and it seemed specifically directed at Meteor Security. My wolf, usually disinterested in my day to day work, jerked to alertness at the idea of a threat against us. He could understand nothing of computers and coding, but he understood possession of territory and that this belonged to us. And if someone was a threat in one way, they were also a potential threat against other things he cared more about.

The director looked towards one of the programmers questioningly, who responded, “Unfortunately not. We couldn’t trace it. The first sign we picked up was on the company intranet.”

That was chilling. “Was this done by someone on the inside?” I tried very hard to treat our employees well over the years and the idea that one of them could potentially be sabotaging the company I had worked so hard for felt like the worst betrayal. It also made my wolf growl but I held back the urge.

The programmer shrugged. “Could be, or it could just be someone on the outside really good at hiding their trail.”

“We’ll keep looking into it,” I decided. “The threat was neutralized, and for now keep your team’s focus on vigilance. Anything else that can wait.”

A human witch on the team spoke up tentatively, “Sir, did you get a report about the recent hack attempts?” She stood out if the group and was easy to recall because she kept her hair dyed a shocking red.

I nodded. “Yes, thank you.” I hadn’t put much thought into it at the time because such things were not completely unusual and nothing had come of them. I had been so preoccupied with Aura at the time it had barely registered, but she was correct that there could be a connection.

After more reports and strategizing, I dismissed the meeting, and attempted to get my day back on track. It went surprisingly well. Having my wolf stirred up gave me a nice jolt of energy—a lot like coffee—but it also made me a bit more careless and aggressive. Still, I got through, and soon—although not as soon as I would have liked—I was driving back to pick up my mate.

I had told Aura to wear clothing for the outdoors, so I was a bit surprised when she came out again in a dress like always, although she had running shoes in her hands rather than light sandals like she would usually wear or not wear. I appreciated the sight, since she looked lovely, smiling, long hair streaming down her back, natural blue-green of her hair just growing out at the roots, pink floral dress sliding along her curves. I was hit with the sudden memory of what it felt like to be running my hands along them and my body responded at once.

She smiled and those beautiful eyes flicked up to me. I got out of the car and pulled her close. My wolf was soothed, we’d missed this since we left her here. She giggled a bit at my actions as I brought my mouth to her ear. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. Although it hasn’t really been that long.”

“Every minute we’re apart is about a lifetime for my wolf.”

“Impatient wolf. I hope he’s not planning to handcuff me to you,” she teased.

I switched to the link. “No, but he would bind you to us in any way he thought he could get away with.”

“Bad wolf,” she laughed. “We might be different, but I don’t think fairies do any better in cages than wolves do.”

“We’d never cage you.” It was true. I’d have done it already if I were going to. A werewolf with no control over their wolf could do many terrible things. Our human side had to control the wolf or we truly would become monsters like the old human tales of us. I opened the door for her and she slipped inside.

“So, where are we going?” she asked as I backed out of the driveway.

“A surprise.”

“Ooh. Will I like this surprise?”

“I think you will.”

“Will I like it as much as I liked last night?” she asked.

My pants got more uncomfortable at the reminder of her soft gasps and moans. “Maybe. How much did you like last night?”

“Oh, quite a lot.”

“I did too. Too much to quantify. How are you feeling today?” I didn’t want to hurt her. She looked so delicate.

She laughed. “I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“My wolf will always worry about you, even if I try not to.”

“Well, what’s your wolf worried about?”

“I couldn’t even list the number of things I’m afraid could happen to you when we’re apart.”

“Life’s too short to worry about all the what ifs, Jack. We should just enjoy ourselves.”

“That’s easy to do when I’m with you.” A lot harder when we were apart.

She glanced at me, and a slight touch of nervousness came to me through the bond. “I told my parents about the fact I let you mark me.”

“Oh? How’d they take it?”

She shrugged. “Dad took it great, of course. Mom not so much. I think she was hoping you were a phase I was going through, and the permanency of the bond made it real for her. It’s not that she doesn’t like you, Jack, it’s that she’s worried about all the repercussions that might come from our relationship.”

“Aura, I...”

She shushed me. “No, Jack. You see these eyes? Wide open. I saw what I was getting into. And besides the fae issues, there’s other things. Like, can we even have children?”

I hadn’t questioned it. “I would assume so. There are half-human werewolves. And half-human fae, right?”

“A few. And even if we can have them, what would their lives going to be like, trapped between the fae and werewolf worlds?”

“Aura, I can’t answer all that. All I can say is that if we have kids, we’ll love them, and do whatever we can to make sure that they have a good life. And while the fae might be suspicious of outsiders, I’m sure they’d be treated well by werewolves. Pack is pack. The odd human is assimilated without issue in most packs and I don’t see why a fae would be any different. There might be exceptions, but Greyclaw would never turn away our child...or you.”