Page 88 of His Hungry Wolf

“Yeah. Because I think I love him. And I keep running from him, and the thought that goes through my head when I do is, ‘What if I let down my guard and it gets Momma killed?’”

Momma’s eyes softened.

“Oh, Baby, you can’t think like that.”

“How else am I supposed to think? You told me that if I made the wrong move or said the wrong thing, everyone I cared about would die. I don’t want you to die, Momma,” I said vulnerably.

“Son, you opening up to someone is not going to get me killed.”

“Are you sure about that? Because that’s not what I was told,” I said painfully.

Momma took a deep, sorrowful breath.

“You’re right. That’s what I told you. And, when I did, I thought I was doing the right thing. You know, I wasn’t much older than you are right now when I said it. And I was raising a beautiful little boy in a town full of strangers that scared me. All I wanted to do was keep you safe. But, maybe there was something else that I should have told you back then.”

“What’s that?” I asked watching my momma’s thoughtful eyes.

“What you are isn’t a curse, Son. The fear that others feel for us has nothing to do with what we are. Wolf shifters and fae are used to being on the top of the food chain. When they are reminded that they aren’t, they get scared. They make up stories where we’re demons, when all we are are people like them. No better. No worse.”

“Momma, you say that, but we feed on the life force of others. They have a reason to be afraid.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“That’s what you taught me to believe.”

“Then I am sorry, Son. I truly am. Yes, folks like us can be dangerous. When we are starved for connection and human contact, we can turn into monsters. When we are deprived of what we need, we lose our ability to moderate our actions. Feeling empty, we might drain a person dry. But that’s no different than the rest of them.

“How many wolves go on killing sprees because they’ve been rejected their whole life? How many vampires? No one can survive that type of isolation. And anyone in that situation goes a little insane. That’s not just people like us. That’s everybody. And the way you prevent that is by making connections.”

“Momma, we’re feeding on people! We need to take from others to survive. That’s not right!”

“It’s as right as anything else in this world. And us taking it isn’t always a bad thing.”

I looked at Momma disbelievingly. “In what way could feeding off someone else not be bad?”

Momma looked at me with sadness. “This is my own fault. I thought I was keeping you safe. Instead I was preventing you from learning what our kind needs to survive.”

“What are you talking about?”

Pulling into our driveway, Momma switched off the car and turned to me. Taking my hands in hers, she said,

“People like us weren’t meant to live alone. I mean, no one is, but folks like us especially. Yes, we feed on the life force of others, but if we find the right person, we feed them.”

“What do you mean?”

Momma shifted in her seat as she thought and then continued.

“You know how I said that when we get starved we can do questionable things?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the same is true for everyone else. Some people live with an emptiness inside of them. It’s like a hole that can’t be filled. They’re starved for connection.

“On the other hand, we have these tentacles made of energy that are constantly probing others sipping a little from everyone as we go. But when we touch one of the empty ones, that feeling can trigger them.

“Suddenly getting what they need, their life force overflows. It’s the connection that does it. When that happens, they produce more life force than they’ll ever need. It’s there for us to feed on.

“So, we feed them and they feed us. Drawn together, the connection becomes a knot. One can’t live without the other and each person is better for it,” Momma said bringing her explanation to an end.

---