SEAL Wolf In Too Deep(60)

“So you’re saying we’re already mated?” Debbie asked, sounding and looking mortified.

“No. You weren’t one of us before—a lupus garou, a wolf shifter. That part of us compels us to find a mate and to stay with him or her for life.”

“Okay, so let me get this straight. Since you can’t mate with humans, it’s perfectly fine to fool around with them whenever you want? But you could never make a commitment?”

“Right. Although we don’t ‘fool around’ as much as we want. We’re not dogs.”

“Dogs originated from wolves,” she said.

“There’s a big difference between dogs and wolves. Dogs don’t mate for life. They…cat around. Wolves stick with their mate and they help to raise the pups. All of the pack does.”

“Except when it comes to one of you taking up with a human,” she reminded him.

He let out his breath. “All right. I see I’m not going to win this debate. Suffice it to say we aren’t mated. Yet. And it’s your choice. No one would ever force you to mate someone against your will.”

“That’s a cheerful thought. Okay, so when can I be on my own again?”

This was the part he really didn’t want to have to explain. “Maybe a year, maybe more. It depends on how long it takes you to get your shifting under control and other things.”

“Holy cow. No way.” She paced around the room. “And what other things?”

“For some, it’s not easy becoming one of us, personality-wise. Specifically, if the newly turned wolf is wolfishly aggressive and gets himself into trouble over it.”

“Because newly turned wolves in jail during the full moon could cause real problems, I gather.”

“Exactly.”

“So you haven’t found the wolf of your dreams and that’s why you’re not mated already?” She lifted a brow.

He nodded.

Then she frowned at him. “But I wouldn’t have been the right one for you, since I was human.”

“I agree. But at least for me, the mating instinct cut through the division between our species. Anyway, for the most part, you won’t see a lot of differences in the way you are as opposed to the way you were before.”

“Right.” She stiffened in his arms and pulled away, turning the burner to medium heat to cook the sausages. “Being a wolf all night is no big deal.”

“Well, sure, that is a big deal. And that’s the part that will be the greatest issue to handle. You won’t have a lot of control over when you shift, particularly around the phase of the full moon. It will get better over the years, but I won’t pretend it won’t be troublesome in the beginning.”

With fork in hand, she turned to stare at Allan. “What do you mean by particularly around the full moon? Don’t tell me we can turn anytime during the month. The werewolf stories all say when the full moon is out, they have no control over it. Nothing about any other time of the month. I figured they had been based on all of you.”

“That’s fiction. There’s only one wolf I know of who writes werewolf stories, though she changes them up a bit. For the most part, she shows them for what they truly are.”

“Who?”

“Julia Wildthorn. She’s now mated to a Highland wolf. I only know about her because my sister and Lori are avid fans of hers. I think any wolf is, because they know she’s one of them.”

“They have them in the Highlands too?” Debbie took a deep breath. “I’ll have to look her up. Maybe I can learn something about all of this.”

“Her stories are fiction too. They’re all about hot and sexy wolves in romance novels, so you can’t put a whole lot of stock in them.”

She considered his abs and her mouth curved up a little bit. He probably should have worn a robe.

“I guess I should have dressed for breakfast.”

“You were worried about me. And for your information, if God forbid I turn into a wolf and have to pee, you better not put a collar on me. I don’t plan to run anywhere.” She glanced down at Allan’s boxers. “I don’t usually serve breakfast to half-naked men, but since I was sleeping naked with you this morning, it’s a little too late to worry about such things.”

“You were wearing a wolf coat. That doesn’t count as being naked.” He wondered what she would have done if she had woken up as a human, nestled against him and wearing nary a strip of clothes.

“Says you.”

He stared at her for a moment, then slugged down his coffee and offered to refill their mugs. “Where the hell was I when all this happened?” How the hell had he slept through that?

“Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”

Well, that was a crying shame. He swore if she ever joined him in bed like that again as a wolf, he was staying awake the whole night. Not that he could do anything more than tuck her under the covers and fold her in his arms. But naked when she was now one of them? Hot damn, yeah.

Getting his mind back on the business of teaching her about their kind, he said, “Wolves that have genes going back several generations can shift at will, even during the new moon. That means several generations were pure lupus garous, no human mix. If a wolf has a parent that had been turned and one that was born a lupus garou, the wolf offspring won’t change during the new moon, whether he or she wants to or not. Well, any new wolf, like yourself, won’t either.”