"No," Ashley told him. "Wrong form. He bit her, and he did it on purpose. The bite on her arm? It's from a wolf."
Those words hit Kim hard. "What?!" she demanded, turning her attention to her son. "After everything we've told you about your father, you did it intentionally? She could die!"
And she stepped toward her kid, nothing but murder in her gaze. Roman yelped and spun, running back to his room, but Kim followed, racing up the stairs, yelling about showing him what it felt like. I understood. I'd been there, but I was still trying to make all the rest of this make sense. Disciplining our kids? That was normal. It was the only normal thing about all of this.
"Elena," David said gently, reaching up to touch my arm. "I'm so, so sorry. You have to be reeling. Come, sit down and have a drink." Then he glanced over to his daughter. "Hun, go watch something in the den, ok?"
"Ok," the girl agreed, but she was barely standing before she looked at me. "Is Gabby going to be ok?"
"We don't know yet," her father told her. "Now go on. I need to talk to the alpha's mate."
The girl jiggled her head, grabbed her books and scurried from the room. I saw Ashley smile at her reassuringly, but my brain felt like there was a disconnect somewhere. My daughter was sick. She was going to become a wolf. Those two things didn't fit together, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make them.
"I don't know what's going on," I admitted.
He smiled at me kindly, pausing to look up when some banging started, then he led me to a chair at their kitchen bar. "You're going to want something stiff. Ashley?"
"Yeah, I'll gladly take one," she told him. "Elena, David is a converted wolf."
I glanced back. "Kim did it?"
"No!" he assured me. "Oh, no. A girl I was dating back when I was like twenty. Thought I was hot shit and told her I hated condoms. She didn't even try to change my mind. That lasted about a month, I think? Soon as the fever hit, she was gone."
Condoms. Sexually transmitted. How close had I come to being exposed this weekend? I'd sucked Ian's dick without one! But no, he'd pulled me away before he came. But that didn't mean it was ok. There was still pre-cum, and what if a condom had broken? Oh my god. I could be next.
"Elena?" Ashley asked, watching me intently.
"What if I have it?" I asked.
"You don't," she promised. "After seventy-two hours of exposure, you'd be obviously sick. You'd be trying to turn already. You're fine, sweetie, and they're safe. They don't take chances."
"Condoms break," I hissed, completely forgetting David was there.
He dropped a tumbler of something almost the color of his eyes right in front of me. "And this crap isn't that easy to catch. Not from our human forms," he promised. "Drink that. I have plenty more, and I'll carry you back if I need to." He tipped his head to the glass. "Go on. You drink, I'll talk."
"You willing to send a bottle back with me?" Ashley asked. "All I've got is wine."
"Yeah." He turned around, grabbed the bottle, then put it beside my glass, proving it was whiskey. "Little sex ed for you, Elena. This virus is contracted the same way as HIV. Blood transfers, sexual fluids, and things like that. Not saliva. Unlike HIV, the risk of infection is a lot lower. Has something to do with fewer parts per million, so a drop isn't enough. Usually, even sexually, it takes repeated exposure. Look at Miles and Sasha."
"The Chimorys," Ashley explained. "Miles is a wolf, his wife isn't, but they're trying to conceive. She said it's been almost a year - and she still hasn't turned."
"But wouldn't the baby get it?" I asked.
Ashley nodded. "Yeah, if the mom has it, and it's easier to be natural-born. Like Olivia said, we never know anything else. It's the conversion as an adult that's so hard."
"One minute everything is normal," David said, "and then your face and bones start shifting, you can smell stuff you never knew existed, and your vision is impaired because of this big nose hanging out there. Our shoulders aren't even the same. And that's the problem. Most converts never feel at home in their new body. We can't just trot around like it's nothing. We have to