ask or nag for help. They always jumped in. It didn't even matter who came over that night, I knew he'd be willing to help.
Then Lane spoke again. "I remember running around my yard as a wolf. I couldn't have been very old, maybe five?" And he glanced back. "Our parents can make us shift, you know. We can't do it on our own, which is for the best. Means we won't wolf out in the middle of the grocery store or something, but we still have to learn how to run on four legs."
"Just like what Gabby's learning now?"
He nodded. "Yeah, basically. But it felt like playing. My sister used to roll me over. Like, she'd rush me from the side and try to knock me off my feet, and I'd get so mad. She was a couple of years older, so she was always just a bit bigger, and I hated losing." He chuckled. "Gabby reminds me of her. So proud of who she is."
"Yeah," I agreed. "I was so worried that all of this would make her, I dunno, submissive or something."
"Nah." He paused to turn on the flame, shift the pan over it, and then set the steaks in it. "But I don't really know how to tell you what it's like to be a wolf because I've never been anything else. I think Seth could answer that best. For me, it was just hiding it from people, staying with my parents or pack, and then the accident. After they died, I was a real wolf for far too long, and that was the scariest part of all. I thought I was stuck. I tried to shift back and couldn't because I'd been too young to shift in the first place. I never learned how to change on my own - I'd just freaked out and did it by accident."
"Then Henry found you," I said. "Well, one of his people, and he helped you?"
Lane huffed at that. "They always make it sound easy when telling the story, but it wasn't. Elena, I lived with that man for months as a terrified wolf. I spent two days cowering under a couch. Everything smelled so strange, and yet it was almost familiar. I was completely lost, and I had no idea how to explain to him what I needed, but he didn't care. He brought me meals on plates, and would sit on the floor and feed me until I finally trusted him enough to fall asleep in his lap. And that was when we started working to get me to change back. Still took months. Six? Seven? I don't know, but a long time."
I reached over to rub his arm lightly. "But she won't have to worry about that, right?"
"Never," he promised. "She's old enough to control her shift, and we've made sure that she's capable of doing it when she wants, and only when she wants. She's going to be just fine, Elena."
"What about me?" I asked.
He turned to face me, not caring about the meal we were cooking. "I will never let anything happen to you. I also can't leave. I can't change my mind. I can't stop thinking about you because you are my fate."
I pointed him back at the meal. "Fated mate, right?"
"Yeah." Lane pulled in a deep breath. "You ready to talk about that part yet?"
"After dinner," I decided. "After Gabby's gone to bed. Lane, I have a million questions, and the first is why you're so willing to go through teaching me all of this, and the last is what you get out of trying. In the middle are so many about challenges and the full moon, and things like that."
He grabbed a fork and began flipping the steaks over. "Do you remember when Gabby was born? How after all that pain, suffering, and misery, you had this beautiful little girl to hold tight against you?"
"A day I'll never forget," I assured him.
He nodded slowly. "It's like that. Convincing you is the suffering, I suppose. Worrying that you will hate me is the pain. But the feeling? That bond? That's there too. I can't tell you why I feel like I do. All I can say is that I'm sure I feel it, and I really don't want it to ever stop." He glanced over, meeting my eyes. "That's what it means to be fated. I didn't get to choose who I love, and I don't even care. I got you