It's just not, and Elena has a point! Not even with just lycanthropy, but a car wreck could do the same, and Gabby needs a pack right now, more than ever. Why would we risk that?"
The truth was that while I appreciated him being on my side, I also hated it. Not that I wanted to be a wolf, but it almost sounded like he thought our relationship wasn't possible. Hearing it from the other side made me realize exactly how these guys were feeling, and this sucked.
"So how would this work?" I asked, wanting to get the hard part over with. "Can we even make it happen, or would we just be torturing ourselves?"
Lane huffed and slid out of the chair to stand before it. Then he started to change. I closed my eyes, needing nothing else to make my mind spin. When I heard Pax say, "Here," I opened them to find Lane draping a blanket over his lap as he sat back down.
"I need to talk for this," he explained. "And I want to try, Elena, even if it's torture. I have to."
Seth groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "Yeah, and we'll need to explain that to her as well."
"That?" I asked.
"Fated mates," Ian mumbled. "Which I have a feeling will get us in even more shit."
All I could do was shake my head. "So there's more?"
"Lots," Pax said. "The kind of lots that will take months to figure it all out. Elena, we didn't hide this from you because we wanted to. We hid it because we want you to stay."
"But why?" I asked. "When I first moved in, why was I even allowed?"
They all looked at Ian. He let out a heavy sigh, then nodded a few times. "Ashley moved you in because she really wanted to tell you; she just had to work up to it. At first, I wasn't sure about this, but when I met you mowing the lawn, you triggered my protective alpha instincts. Here was this woman who needed someone to guard her, and that's my job, Elena. I just had to figure out how to make it work, so we had the cookout."
"And I smelled you," Lane said softly. "Ian noticed when I went stupid, and he kept me from making it worse, but…" He crushed a fistful of the blanket even tighter in his lap. "From that first time I met you, I knew there was no one else, and I didn't know what to do, so I tried to ignore it, but that doesn't work."
"Fated mates," Ian explained, "are rare. It's also an addiction, which means he literally can't 'move on.' There is no other woman for him. It's thought that it's caused by a change in the brain from spending too much time in our wolf form, but we don't really have a lot of scientists who can study these things without getting caught."
Which made sense. It was also a whole lot to have dropped on me after everything else, so I decided to simply shuffle that information to the back of my mind for now. I'd think it over later, when I was staring at the ceiling trying to fall asleep, or something.
"Thanks," I muttered, not sure what else to say, but appreciative of the explanation. "I just... Guys, can we start over? Just dial it back to when we met, and try again without all the secrets?"
"No," Ian said, moving toward me. "I can't stop caring about you. I can pretend like I don't, but that would just be another lie, and I'm not willing to risk it."
"Me either," Trent agreed. "How about we try something else? A fresh start. No secrets. No bullshit. Just six consenting adults figuring out how to make this work."
"Someone has to do it first," Seth agreed. "I mean, if we want to integrate humans, someone has to try it first. Might as well be us, and maybe Elena can help us figure out how to not fuck this up again?"
Pax was nodding. "How about you say when you're worried about something, and we'll all work together to figure it out? Doesn't matter if that's finding research on condoms or teaching Gabby to drive."
"She's fourteen," I reminded him.
"Mhm. And she gets her permit next spring, which isn't that far away. I'm making her learn how to drive a standard."
That. Those little things, and how easily they made plans for my daughter, were what convinced me that this had