Vane growled at that. The last thing he wanted was a skinny mate. There was nothing wrong with Bride, and if he were in human form, he'd show her exactly what those lush curves did to him.
Unfortunately, he needed her girlfriend to leave first.
"Is something wrong, boy?" Tabitha asked as she came over to him.
He trotted over to Bride.
Tabitha gaped at him. "Well, I've just been dissed by Benji. Jeez. I think you've picked up a lifelong friend here, Bride. Just wait until he finds out your dad is the if-you-love-them-neuter-them king."
Vane cringed in spite of himself.
They wouldn't dare "Shush, Tabby, you'll scare him." She looked down at him as she stroked his chin. "But you're right, he hasn't been fixed."
And he damned well wasn't going to be, either.
"Maybe I should take him over to Dad's tomorrow and have him look him over."
"You going to keep him, then?" Tabitha asked.
Bride lifted his head so that she could look him directly in the eyes. "What do you think, Mr. Wolf? You want to stay with me for a little while?"
She had no idea. If he had his way, he would be a permanent addition.
Vane stood outside the bathroom in human form while Bride took a shower.
Tabitha had left a short time ago after threatening one last time to hunt down Bride's ex and hurt him.
If Vane ever laid hands on the bastard, there wouldn't be enough left of him for Tabitha to bother with. Not that he should feel that way. After all, if Bride hadn't been on the outs with the man, she wouldn't have been his tonight.
And he might never have known that she was his mate.
But that was human rationale and human rationale had no place in his animal world.
"I'm not human," he breathed, feeling the profound pain of that statement. At least he wasn't fully human.
No one, not even him, was really sure what he was.
He was a cursed hybrid who belonged to no real group. Half Arcadian, half Katagaria, Vane had been born in the native form of a wolf pup only to find his native form changed to human once he hit puberty.
He flinched as he recalled the day he'd changed over. The terror of it. The fear. The confusion. All of his life, he'd existed solely as a wolf, and then for a few months, against his will, he'd been locked inside a human body and unable to transform back into a wolf at all. His new body had been alien to him.
He hadn't known how to eat as a man, how to survive or to cope. Even walking had been difficult at first. He'd been assailed by human emotions and feelings.
Human sensations.
Worst of all, he'd been weak. Helpless.
Nothing had ever been more degrading to him than to realize he couldn't fight back. That he was completely reliant on his brother for survival.
Every night he'd prayed that come the morning he would be an animal again, and every morning he awoke to the horror that he was a man.
If not for Fang and Anya, his pack would have killed him. Luckily, his brother and sister had shielded him from the others and had helped him hide the fact that he was no longer a pure wolf.
For centuries he had hidden from everyone, even himself, the fact that after his puberty he held a human heart.
How could such a change even be possible?
Yet here he was: a living contradiction. A living impossibility.