Page 26 of Rock Pucking Bottom

So I moved into the kitchen. I pulled out everything that I needed to make a spinach and artichoke frittata and a container of protein balls. Before I chopped anything for the frittata, I popped a couple protein balls into my mouth. That helped calm my stomach.

By the time that I finished making breakfast, Emmy came into the kitchen.

She looked so damn good in my t-shirt. It hugged her boobs and ended just past her panties, so I got a good look at her legs. I was instantly hard as she flashed me a smile.

"Mmm. That smells good."

I nodded as I put a spatula size portion of the frittata on her plate. I didn't want to tell her just how good both the food and she smelled to me. That would be too creepy, and I knew I freaked her out too much as it was.

She sat down at the island where I placed a latte for her.

Trying to keep things casual, I leaned back against the counter with my coffee maker as I waited for my cup to brew. "So that was my big secret and one reason that my mood has been off the last two days. My wolf doesn't like stress. With the Stanley Cup finals and not having a contract, I'm more in my head than usual."

She nodded, but didn't launch into a barrage of questions. Instead, she picked up her fork and picked at her food. "Can I tell anyone?"

"Hell no!" Then I caught myself and chided myself for snapping at her. "I'm sorry, but there are strict laws that you can't show humans anything about the paranormal world unless you're getting married, having kids, or preferably mated. If you do, there are severe consequences…."

"Got it. I'm good at not telling other people's secrets."

That was an understatement. I loved how discreet she was and never tempted to share anything that she shouldn't about her clients or those in any of the support groups that she hosted.

"So, how long have you been a werewolf?"

After grabbing my plate and coffee, I sat down beside her as I tried to think back to the exact date. I came up blank since it was so long ago and shrugged. "I was about twelve or thirteen."

Her brow furrowed and looked at me with so much curiosity. Then I realized how the only thing she knew about my kind were from the movies and they were wrong about basically everything.

I took a breath and said, "It was part of puberty for me since my parents are both shifters. Although you only need one parent to be a shifter to carry the genes. Most of the pack grows into shifting like I did. But sometimes people get turned by being bitten."

I wasn't going to mention the third option since it was so rare: being born with the capability.

Maybe I shouldn't use the word pack in front of her, but why hide it now? She already knew too much. Now it was about mitigating the damages.

"How many werewolves are there?"

I shrugged. That was such a hard thing to quantify, especially since so many of the packs didn't actually interact very often.

"Not a hundred percent sure. My pack is about five hundred wolves, although only about half that live on our lands. But no clue other packs. I think that the Canadian and Russian packs are about the same size. I'm pretty sure that Scottish and Scandinavian packs are tiny. No clue about any other packs since I've never interacted with anyone from those."

Telling her the truth didn't unburden me. If anything, I felt more on edge, but I wanted to put her at ease, so I continued to answer her questions.

I figured she would ask about mating and I could finally explain the process to her and potentially save our asses. Of course, she didn't ask about that.

"Why do wolves hang out in the woods behind the dorms of UM?"

I racked my brain. Why would we do that? That wasn't on our typical patrol route. At least not in a few years, and then I remembered. She was there at the same time as Jayden's girl and she was alpha-light. Jayden would hide in the surrounding woods all the time and if it wasn't him, Dino wasn't too far away since he was always up for patrol and kept an eye on all the alphas and alpha-lights with the pack.

"Um. It's not something we normally do except when Jayden mated with Kennedi, since he wanted to keep an extra close eye on her. Why? Do wolves scare you?"

I really hoped that she would take the bait about the mating process, yet she didn't go with that one. Instead, she answered my worst fear.

"Yeah. It was freaky, and I kept thinking that one of them was going to jump out of the woods and eat me."

I snorted at the mere idea of eating another person. Sure, I loved fresh meat, but that meant deer, bears, and bunnies.

I put my hand on top of hers since I wanted to offer her some of the comfort that she gave me daily.

"For the most part, that's stuff of legend and horror movies. The only bites I've heard about are those who are consensual or wolves that had to be hunted down after going crazy. The wolves that went blood mad are our bogeyman. So you're totally safe around wolves, especially in Minneapolis, since it's typically part of pack territory. The last thing we want is a wolf attack on the news."

---