Page 123 of The Black Witch

They both lean forward with interest.

“Really?” asks Diana. “What type of rumors?”

I instantly regret saying it. There’s no way out now. I take a deep breath and spit it out. “I heard you sometimes mate...as wolves.”

Neither one of them so much as bats an eyelash.

“That’s true,” Diana brags. “My parents conceived my brother and me as wolves.” She smiles thinking about it. “That’swhy I’m such a good hunter!”

“It’s true,” agrees Jarod. “She’s one of the best hunters in the pack.” Diana’s smile brightens at her brother’s praise.

I’m speechless for a moment, then manage to collect myself enough to continue. I can’t get any more embarrassed than I already am, so I figure I might as well lay all the cards out on the table. “I also heard,” I continue, hesitantly, “that sometimes you mate when...your men are in wolf form...and your women are in...human form.”

They both stare at me blankly, their mouths agape.

Finally, Jarod turns to Diana, an incredulous look on his face. “Would that even be physically possible?”

Diana continues to stare at me. “That’s ridiculous,” she spits out, her tone clipped.

“Some interesting conversations you’ve been having with the morally upstanding girls of Gardneria,” muses Rafe, grinning widely at me. I shoot him an annoyed look.

“Let me guess,” he speculates. “Did that one come from Echo Flood?”

“Fallon Bane,” I admit.

“Figures,” he says, chuckling to himself.

“What other rumors have you heard about us?” asks Diana. “That last one was very creative.”

“I really don’t want to offend you,” I say.

Diana waves her hand in the air dismissively. “Your people’s ignorance reflects badly on them, not on us.”

“I was told you mate in front of your entire pack.”

Again the blank stares.

“That’s just simply untrue,” said Diana, sounding truly offended for the first time.

“Mating is aprivatething,” Jarod adds, looking at us like we’re foolish to need this explained.

“Where would they get such ideas about us?” Diana asks, perplexed.

“I think nudity gets our people’s minds going off in all sorts of strange directions,” offers Rafe.

“Well,” says Diana with a sigh, “I’ve heard lots of fantastic rumors about your people, as well.”

“Like what?” I ask, curious if hers are as colorful as ours.

She leans forward, her voice low. “I heard that you force girls as young as thirteen to choose a mate.”

“That’s actually true,” I say, thinking of Paige Snowden. “It’s called wandfasting. It’s a magical way of binding people together as future mates. It creates the marks that you see on the hands of most of the Gardnerian women here. Sometimes the girls are quite young.”

Jarod and Diana stare at me gravely.

“But you can’t possibly be old enough at thirteen to choose your life mate,” counters Diana, shaking her head.

“They’re chosenforyou, usually,” I clarify, thinking of Aislinn.

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