confessed.
“I see.” He stepped away from me slightly and I felt something in my heart crack a little bit. “Do I see?”
“There’s a lot of pressure on me to marry and have future werewolves, and this guy is considered a good candidate,” I told him.
“And—I’m sorry, I don’t know how to ask this, but was it a good date?” he asked.
“Lord, no,” I laughed. He sagged against my side. I liked to think it was relief. “I mean, he wasn’t awful or anything. I’ve known him since we were children. And he’s nice and all, but I knew there was no chance of anything. He wasn’t any happier than I was. He is definitely in love with someone else, who was also there…which sort of made it worse, and better at the same time.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you. I should have told them no. I should have—I should have done a lot of things,” I told him. “I went because my family wanted me to. It’s something I’m trying to change. I can’t be myself with them. Everything that makes me…me, they think is bad. Not just like, ‘morally wrong,’ but actively bad for me, like cancer bad. They spend a good amount of time trying to talk me out of being myself for my own good.”
He frowned. “I can’t say I’m thrilled about it. I don’t like the idea of you agreeing to something you don’t want to do because of your family. And to be honest, I really don’t like the idea of you being courted by someone else. Isn’t there some way you can talk to your family about this? Would they listen?”
I burst out laughing, which seemed to alarm him. Alex may have come from a family a lot like mine, but clearly, the centuries of separation from them made him forget what it was like.
“I’m sorry. No. The pack wouldn’t listen. The pack thinks of itself as a unit, what’s good for one is good for all. It’s considered selfish to put yourself ahead of that. And it’s not just our pack, that my family is thinking of, it’s a global thing. The number of werewolves who can shift is dwindling and more of us are marrying humans, which is reducing that number even more. My family clings to the way things have always been because they’re trying to protect what they know. They do it because they’re scared.”
He seemed to think about that for a long time. “Cal and Nik explained to me—that it takes a spoken agreement, a commitment for an ‘exclusive’ relationship these days. They also mentioned becoming ‘Facebook official’ and when I didn’t understand what that meant, they told me you would explain it,” he said, tilting his forehead against mine. “I want to be with you and no one else. And I would very much like it if you wanted to be with me.”
“For how long?” I asked.
“However long we can manage it,” he said. “However long you want me. Do you agree?”
“I would like that a lot,” I said. “The way I feel about you, it’s not just something that comes along so often that I can ignore it. I like you so much. I more than like you. It sounds so silly to use a word so small for what I feel for you. I’m just not ready to say I love you.”
He leaned close, pulling me into his lap and kissing me firmly. “I’ll wait.”
“If my family tries this whole set-up thing again, I’ll do whatever I can to get out of it.”
“But you can’t tell them about me, I suppose?”
I stayed silent for a long moment. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings by laughing again. No. Jolene was accepted after she married a human because her parents insisted on that acceptance. My parents? They’re so terrified that they’ll lose their place. They wouldn’t bother with any sort of defense for me. I would be disowned, tossed out. For a werewolf, that’s a terrible fate.”
He nodded. “I’m only sorry you didn’t think you could tell me. I understand what it’s like to be pressured by your family. My family wanted me to be a priest.”
I giggled. “Clearly, you went in a different direction.”
“Yes. I was the third son. And while my father had purchased a modest second estate for my brother, by the time I came along, the only options were the church or the army.”
I relaxed against him as his voice rolled