Page 44 of Planet Wolf

All three of them were back in their human forms, and beautifully naked. Alfie smiled at me. “You smell like your pain has ended. Yes, it was fast, but you probably had just enough resources to manage that long a shift. I don’t know how it’s going to work for you. If you’ll need to have enough each time to run for that long and won’t be able to or if you’ll be able to really start to store it, save it, and shift for longer. I just have no idea, because I swear no two half-breeds are ever the same. Every one is unique, and you are, too. We’ll figure it out with you.”

I pulled my knees to my chest. “You know, the thing is, I don’t know that I will be. What you’re describing really doesn’t sound very fun. Maybe I’m being selfish and nasty. A spoiled brat.” Jadon knelt down, but when he would have spoken, I kept going. “You were raised expecting to shift, to become a Wolf. I wasn’t. No one told me that could happen to me, yet here I am, shifting. Maybe I should feel joyful, but I just feel exhausted. I’m going to feel better, shift again, feel lousy, and start the whole cycle again? I didn’t love being a Wolf. It didn’t feel like I’d suddenly experienced half of myself that I’d been missing. I was just confused.” I wiped at my eyes. “And you bit me, didn’t you?” That was to Jadon directly.

“Well, my Wolf wanted your Wolf’s attention. You weren’t giving it to him, so yes, he nipped you, but he didn’t even draw blood. That’s what they do. He bit the shit out of Carl last week. That time, he did draw blood.”

Carl shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t think it hurt him.”

It was so interesting, how they were talking about it. “Do you actually feel separate from your Wolf?”

They looked at each other. “Sort of,” Alfie answered. “Like, when I needed a run recently, I became aware of him in my human head. But, yes, for the most part, they’re separate. Wasn’t it like that for you?”

“Not really. I was still me. I could still think. There were things that were confusing—like, I didn’t know your names, just who you were in relation to me, but I was still me in there.”

Alfie touched my forehead. “Nice and cool. That’s interesting. I’ll see if I can find any information on that happening to anyone else. In fact, that’s exactly what I need to do. There have to be other half-breeds around, even if they’re not here. I have to find out what their situations are and how they’re treated. I’ll find out, learn all about them.”

“Another thing,” I really was on a rant now. “Ihatethat term. Half-breed? It’s derogatory. It’s nasty. We need something else to call it, because half-breed makes me feel mad and aggravated every time I hear it. You say you’re not anti-human and you want us here? Fine, but you can’t show it by using a term that already implies otherness and less than.”

Carl looked at Jadon. “She’s right. She’s absolutely right.”

“We’ll come up with something else and use it. Thank you for pointing that out, mate.” Jadon picked me up in his arms. “We used that term because it was always used, but that doesn’t make it okay that we didn’t recognize it was wrong. Forgive me?”

I nodded. “Of course I forgive you. You don’t have hate in your hearts. I’m just… a mess. I don’t know if I can spend the rest of my life hiding in this house making our own fun if the things that we do for fun aren’t fun for me.” I shook my head. “It was one thing when I was feeling sick, oramfeeling sick, like right now. It’s going to be something else entirely when I’m feeling okay. I want to be able to just live like a normal person here.”

“I’m sorry. We haven’t been thinking about that,” Carl stroked my hair as we walked back to the house. “Forgive us. We only want your happiness, above all things.”

“And now I feel even worse.” I buried my head in Jadon’s shoulder. He took care of problems, kept people safe, but there was no way he could fix a bitchy, complaining mate. All they wanted was my happiness. I wanted theirs, too—so much—yet all I could see were problems. Maybe I wasn’t being fair to myself? Maybe I was just being truthful, for once. I spent my whole life trying to make everyone around me comfortable with what was wrong with me. I wouldn’t do that anymore. Everyone was just going to have to deal with it.

I sniffed. “This is what I’m like, sometimes.”

“We love everything about you.” Alfie stroked my back. “And if anyone has the right to complain about things, it’s you.”

Was that true? I’d never thought about it that way. “I guess there will just be no juice for me today.”

“Let’s see how you feel after we get you your vitamins.”

* * *

Days passed,and I hardly saw Alfie at all. Carl and Jadon were training to take out their father, but at least they were around. My freak out after my shift had set Alfie off. He had to find answers, and he wouldn’t rest until he did. I missed him, though, despite his magical vitamins making me able to eat enough.

I stared out the window as the mate I missed ran through the door. “We’re going to try something.”

“Hello,” I wrapped my arms around him, thrilled to see him, and he sighed. “I did it again. Too much healing, not enough telling you that I love you.”

I kissed him, the taste of his lips sustaining me. He hadn’t slept with me all week. “I know that you love me. It’s why you’re making yourself nuts.”

He shook his head. “I promised you we’d fix it, and I am doing my best to try. I got a hold of a person who is half Wolf, half human who lives on that planet with the woman you communicate with, Jessica. She’s mated to those Bears.”

They’d fixed how they talked about me, but I was never going to get them to stop making the face like something tasted bad when they talked about the Bears or the Cats.

“That open planet, with no discrimination against whoever wants to live there?”

He nodded. “I doubt it is that much of a utopia, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment. Anyway, he reminded me that you’re half-human as much as you’re half-Wolf. I was only thinking about the Wolf side, not the human part. I apologize. Normal humans’ kidneys can filter things out that they don’t need or get too much of. Not everything, but it turns out...” He held up the vitamin. “... you can filter this out. We can’t overdose you, so we’re going to give it to you differently. If it makes you nauseated or sick, we’ll stop. Sit down. It’s going to be an infusion. I’ll throw in other vitamins in there, too. It’ll keep you really hydrated.”

That would be amazing, if it worked. “So I’d always have enough? I couldn’t run through it by shifting?”

“The young man I spoke to can shift as he likes, and he doesn’t feel sick anymore. He knows how you’re feeling. He felt like that for years, too. We’re going to try it. If it doesn’t work, that’s okay, we’ll keep trying.”

I was up for anything. “I do it every day?”