Love - what price?

Emma’s POV
I slump back into my seat. I am having difficulty processing what I am seeing.

‘What the actual fuck?’ I exclaim. My eyes wide with shock and fear.

Saba is sitting on the sofa, still a gorgeous creature, but somehow terrifying now I know she is a wolf. Peter is standing in front of me… His mouth is moving, but I can’t hear any sound coming out.

This is it, I think to myself. I have finally lost my mind.

After a few moments, there is a rushing in my ears and I can hear again. Peter is leaning over me.

‘Emma, Em, are you okay? Speak to me,’ he pleads.

My mind is working overtime.

‘Am I going to become a werewolf?’ I ask. ‘You bit me.’

‘Are you Braon?’ ‘Did you spy on me?’ The questions start to flow. ‘How…. just how and why… why me?’ I entreat.

Cracking fills the room again and a very naked Fel is reaching for her clothes.

How the hell did she find time to strip last time, and damn… if I wasn’t straight I would definitely go for that girl, I think to myself.

‘Have you got anything stronger than tea in the house?’ Peter asks me. ‘I think we are all going to need it before this night is done.’

I walk into the kitchen and rootle around in the cupboards before returning triumphantly with half a bottle of cheap brandy I used at Christmas. I am soooo sophisticated I think, as I snag three brightly coloured plastic tumblers for us to drink from.

Peter is still standing, and Fel is now fully clothed. Peter rescues the brandy and cups from my hands, and I sink back into the chair as he pours then passes us our drinks.

Peter joins his sister, back on the sofa, swirling cheap brandy in a purple plastic cup. He looks drawn and worried. Like he has aged in the few hours since he dropped me off. I want to go and comfort him, but I sit and watch and wait.

‘Firstly werewolves are born, not made… well except in very rare circumstances when someone has pissed off a powerful witch,’ he starts. A small smile twitches his lips, ‘So I can eat you all you like with no danger’

His sister punches him saying ‘Oooo… TMI brother, TMI’

My face floods with heat, and the first licks of fire in my loins, I moisten at the memories. His nose twitches, and his eyes darken as he looks at me.

‘Well that’s a relief,’ I squeak. I am not sure it is, being a werewolf looks kinda cool on TV, although PMS must be a bitch if you turn into a wolf on the full moon. ‘So do you like turn into a wolf every full moon, like in the movies?’

‘Urgh,’ Fel fields this question. ‘No, please ignore what you see and read about werewolves in popular culture - ninety percent is just plain wrong, and of the remaining ten percent most of that is misleading or erroneous on key matters. If you want answers ask a werewolf’

‘So how did you,’ I wave at the two of them. ‘come into being?’

‘Well, when a mummy werewolf and a daddy werewolf love each other very much, sometimes the Goddess blesses them with pups…’ Peter replies sarcastically. ‘Derrr… very similar to humans, and as you have two kids I am guessing you understand the biology… just werewolves take after their wolf halves and only ever have a single mate.
The mate can be chosen, or fated… if it is a fated mate, then the Goddess has blessed the union.’

He looks over at me and proclaims. ‘You are my fated mate.’

I laugh, ‘Are you on drugs? You must be high if you think I am anyone’s fated anything’

‘No, its true,’ Fel countered. ‘He has been searching for you for years, although you are a bit of a shock.’

I’m a shock, I think. Here I am in my nice normal house, in a nice normal street in suburbian. I have a normal life (not always nice, but definitely normal). And a supernatural being who shouldn’t even exist according to the laws of science is sitting on my couch telling me I am a shock.

‘Shock?’ I retort. ‘I am a shock?’

‘Em, I don’t mean it in a bad way,’ Fel says soothingly. ‘It is just we didn’t expect Peter’s mate to be a human… it has been a long time since anyone has had a human mate, probably not since the Age of Magic… or the Dark Ages as you humans call it… but Braon sensed you in the park where you run and knew immediately’

‘Wait Braon is Peter?’ I extrapolate. ‘What the… I dog sat you, welcomed you into my home… I… oh shit’ My mind dives back to a very heated dream, and confessions to a dog… He knew, the bastard knew I liked him, and he used it against me.

Peter has the good grace to look sheepish. ‘Yeah, sorry about that. I was desperate, you have no idea what it is like… not being able to connect to the one person who will make you whole, your mate.’

‘You didn’t do anything creepy while I was at work?’ I question. ‘Urghhh no don’t tell me, although I am not sure I am ever going to be able to sleep again.’

‘Is watching daytime telly creepy?’ he asks smiling sweetly.

‘A little, cos unless you nicked my clothes you were naked in my house,’ I shudder.

‘What is it with humans and there aversion to nudity,’ Fel interjects.

I just stare at them and shake my head.

Peter is back on his feet. ‘Refill?’ he asks. I pass him the orange beaker I am holding, and watch him refill it and pass it back. His fingers brush my hand as he gives me the cup, and it is like and electric shock, except rather than pain, pleasure shoots through me.

‘So what is the sudden urgency to tell me now?’ I ask.

Peter is looking down, he won’t catch my eye. ‘Errr..’ he begins. ‘I marked you.’

‘Yes I bloody well know you did. I am covered in more hickies than a teenager. But since I am not going to turn into a werewolf what’s the problem.’

‘No I MARKED you,’ he reiterates. ‘I marked you as my luna… my chosen one, my mate, my wife… one of the 'hickies' is a little more, a little deeper’

I think of the one on my thigh, and it throbs in response.

‘So you… married me? without me knowing… without my consent… SHIT what are the kids going to say? How the hell am I going to explain this?’

‘You aren’t,’ Peter says forcefully. ‘I mean you can’t… you can’t tell anyone about me and Fel… can you imagine what they would do to us? What they would do to find out where the rest of the pack are?’

My imagination wasn’t short of very vivid and very brutal imagery. Humans are the worst sometimes… there would be men with guns, who would capture or kill them. If they captured them they would do experiments… to understand them... but if they don’t see them as human the experiments would be callous and bloody, probably ending in the vivisection of both of them. If they realised there were more… urgh that doesn’t bear thinking about. And if they realised that Peter and I have been intimate I would probably find myself on a one way trip to the cage adjoining his.

I realise that both of them are staring at me. ‘Okay I am not going to say anything to anyone… they would think that I am nuts anyway’

The tension in the room drops by about ten points, and I realise that both Peter and Fel have been scared of what I would do.

‘We leave in a month for the pack. You will love it there and hopefully that gives you enough time to get your affairs in order ready to come with us,’ Peter declares.

‘What?’ I am really over using that word I think. ‘what do you mean affairs in order, and come with you.’

‘Fel told you you are my luna. I am hardly likely to go home without you now am I,’ Peter smiles, speaking slowly, as if I am a child. ‘You need to leave this life behind, break all the bonds that hold you here. It is like moving to the other side of the world, except no one will be able to visit you, and you might find it easier not to come back and visit either.’

This man has just told me he wants me to give up my daughters, my granddaughter, my cats, my job, everything I have worked hard for, everything that defines me and just follow him to god knows… or should that be Goddess knows… where.

‘Mark or no fucking mark,’ I respond angrily. ‘I need time to process this… to decide what I want’