“Our dad’s been looking for you,” Nereus said casually as Baby settled on a couch with a killer poodle on his knee, and two wolf shifters sat beside him. Baby didn’t think the poodle was actually a killer; for some reason his brother and his mates all called him that. All Baby saw was a cute little bundle of apricot fluff, who seemed to love being petted and having a warm lap to curl up on.
Muffins had been served, along with tea and cupcakes, but Baby could sense Nereus’s curiosity. Like – Why did you come? – which Baby could understand to a point because he wasn’t in the habit of just dropping in anywhere for tea and cupcakes.
“He originally thought you were still with that twat Himeros,” Nereus continued. “But apparently Himeros was up in his face only yesterday claiming Sei had corrupted his boy and turned you into a house-hugging mortal with values more suited to the Victorian era, whatever the hell that means. Sei wasn’t impressed, as you can imagine, and neither was Claude, but they’ve both been asking around about you.”
“Claude doesn’t like me around his wolves, for some reason,” Baby sighed. “It’s easier to stay away instead of causing any issues.”
“Don’t you like wolves?” Raff, who was a cute little red wolf shifter, pushed the plate of cupcakes in his direction. They were chocolate chip, and delicious. Baby had already eaten three of them. “Only, if you want to spend time with your brother alone…”
“No, Raff, honestly, I haven’t got a problem with you or Teilo being here.” Baby shook his head. “I don’t hate wolves. I don’t hate anybody, although I have a few negative feelings about Himeros every now and then, but who doesn’t? No. It’s just, not many of the wolf shifters at Tulsa are mated and Claude thinks I cause trouble when I’m there. It’s easier to stay away.”
“Oh, that’s not nice.” Raff looked so sad on his account, which was sweet but unnecessary. “Baby’s welcome here, though, isn’t he?” He looked up at Nereus like he hung the moon, and Baby felt a stab in his fragile heart.
“My brother’s always welcome here,” Nereus said firmly, “although, yes, it’s helpful that all of our shifter pack members are mated. But regardless, I never saw you as a trouble maker, Baby, no matter what Sei said.”
“No, to you, I was just the nuisance who wasn’t allowed to go off on adventures with you and Sebastian because apparently I was too young and untrained. And it’s not as though any of you stuck around long enough to train me. But that doesn’t matter.” The last thing Baby wanted to get embroiled in was a lengthy discussion on ancient history.
Nereus had other ideas. “Baby, I never meant to hurt you by anything I might have said back then. It’s just, by the time you were born, Sebastian and I were already globetrotting and fighting in wars. You were in diapers, and Sebastian and I…”
“Were imagining yourselves as big strong warrior types who couldn’t be bothered having a kid hanging around,” Teilo said with a laugh, leaning back so his shoulder sat against Nereus’s. “I’m sorry you got so much shit growing up, Baby. It must have been very lonely living down there with Artemas’ nose in a book, and Poseidon continually oiling his revolving bedroom door.”
“I didn’t die or starve.” Baby shrugged. He didn’t know Teilo or Raff very well at all, but it was nice they seemed to be on his side. “Look, can I offer a hypothetical situation and get some advice on it please? I don’t want to go into any specific details, but I need a mated shifter’s perspective, please.”
“I’ll help you, although, I’m not a man of the world, so I’m not sure how much help I’d be,” Raff said with a cute grin. “These two he-men of mine probably know more about hypothetical situations than I do, but I am a shifter, with shifter instincts, even if I’m a small one.”
“You’re also an amazing baker. These cupcakes are divine.” Baby smiled at his smallest brother-in-law, who blushed under the compliment. “Okay, let’s say there was this powerful shifter – like a bear, or a dragon, or something. It doesn’t really matter what he is. But let’s say, this shifter knows who his mate is, but he doesn’t approach him for ages.”
“How long are we talking,” Teilo asked as he leaned forward and picked up his cup from the coffee table. “A few days? Weeks? A month? Because I have to say, any longer than that and that shifter will be climbing the walls, forcing a shift and finding his mate no matter what his human half has to say about it.”
“Centuries, actually.” Baby twisted his hands together. He couldn’t lie to his brother’s family – they’d smell it. “The pair have never met, okay. Well, not really. Pretend like the shifter had a crystal ball, or a CCTV camera so he could watch his mate, but he didn’t interact with him.”
“For all that time?” Nereus’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair line. “How did the shifter know who his mate was then? He’d have to have scented him somehow, otherwise he wouldn’t know for sure.”
“I don’t know,” Baby said quietly. “I don’t know how he knew, but he’s known for a very long time, from pretty much when his mate was born.”
“There have been cases, very rare,” Teilo said, “when an adult shifter knows someone is their mate before that person has reached maturity. It barely ever happens. I mean, can you imagine how hard it would be for the adult shifter, to want to be with his mate in all ways, when the mate is still an infant? The Fates don’t usually let that happen. It’s too heartbreaking for everyone concerned.”
“But why is that?” Baby was purposefully not looking at his brother. Nereus had a knowing look on his face and Baby was skating close enough to just spilling out the whole story as it was. “What is it about shifters that makes it so difficult to be without their mate?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Teilo said with a sigh. “When I met Nereus and Raff, I knew we were mates, but they had some shit going on they needed to work out first, so I walked away. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. I only went as far as the other side of the pack grounds, and I didn’t hold out for very long. What was it? Two days? Three? And every second we were apart was agony. I tried to keep busy, but I couldn’t think about anything but them. My skin itched all the damn time and my wolf? Shit, my wolf kept pushing to come out just so he could track down his mates. It was not a fun experience.”
“I was the same,” Raff admitted. “I mean, I was already half in love with Nereus, but I knew he was holding something back from me – which is what Teilo picked up on and why he wanted to wait before claiming either of us. But I felt like I was being torn apart. Teilo was my mate too, and my wolf wanted him as much as he wanted Nereus.”
“That must have been really difficult for all of you.” Baby hoped he was showing some compassion on his features, but he was thinking hard about his own situation.
“The thing you have to remember though, is that for the animal side of a shifter, the mating is a slam dunk.” Raff looked up at Teilo. “Is that the right expression?”
Teilo nodded. Raff beamed as he continued. “I’ve been learning about sports. Anyhow, for animals mating is an instinct, as natural as breathing. In shifters it’s very similar. A shifter animal spirit doesn’t care about gender, or logistics like where the mated couple will live, if their jobs are compatible, or things like that. They just want the claim. Their entire being is focused on getting a bite on their mate’s neck and to hell with the consequences. That’s for the human sides to work out.”
Well that answers one question. “Okay,” Baby said slowly, “getting back to this hypothetical situation. If the shifter concerned has known about a certain person being his mate for all this time, and if that same shifter has seen evidence of that mate screwing around, because of course the mate doesn’t know he already has a mate, let alone one that is watching him…”
“Oh, boy.” Nereus chuckled.
“Then when the shifter finally meets his mate?”
“That mate had better hope he’s already well-lubed and stretched.” Teilo burst out laughing, with Nereus joining in.
“It’s not funny,” Raff said sharply, cutting the laughter short. “Baby is being serious here. Look,” he added, swiveling in his seat and putting a hand on Baby’s knee. “Shifters will never ever physically hurt their mates, okay? Ever. It’s like a god-given rule or something. But they can be rough, and pushy,” he glared at Teilo and Nereus. Baby wanted to chuckle at how contrite the pair looked.
“Shifters get funny around previous sexual history. Not funny ha-ha, but more, growly about it.” Raff huffed. “It’s like, they can be the biggest stud on the block for decades, but when they meet their mates, they never want to hear that person has experience in those matters.”
Baby had seen evidence of that himself with other shifters. “But given the situation with this shifter, if he was that upset with what his mate was doing, wouldn’t he have… I don’t know… butted in, intervened, stopped the mate from making a fool of themselves?”
“There must have been a reason why the shifter wasn’t ready. I mean, we’re only animal half of the time, and for some shifters not even that,” Raff explained.
“But,” Teilo added, with a loving glance at Raff, “and I’m not making jokes here. But when the shifter scents his mate, no matter how long he might have been able to hold himself back when he was just perving on him, once that unique scent of his mate has hit his nose, that shifter will be like a Pitbull with a bone. The animal side will push to take over. Which makes things doubly difficult, like say for example if the mate is human. The shifter would have to take the time to explain the whole paranormal world, and the concept of mates, even though the human mate would feel the pull to be with that shifter too and would probably be pushing for the physical side of things. Unfortunately, it’s only the shifter who knows how life changing a sexual interlude will be. Because our world is secret, that time must be taken, otherwise the mate is going to think their new partner is ready for the loony bin.”
“Yeah,” Nereus agreed. “It’s not as though any shifter can walk up to a non-paranormal, hold out their hand and say something like, ‘hi there, my name is Hank. I’m a Taurus, and I work at the fire station. Oh, and by the way, I can turn furry just by thinking about it and my tiger thinks you smell really good. Let me take you for dinner, bite you, and we’ll be bound together for eternity. Then we can get you moved into mine tomorrow if you’re free’.”
Baby smiled, because he knew he was supposed to, but his worry overcame any inclination to laugh. “You said that waiting was really hard for the shifter. Especially their animal side?”
“Usually, the human and animal spirits in a shifter co-exist peacefully,” Raff said. “But in your hypothetical situation, where you have a strong shifter, who knows who his mate is, when the time comes and the shifter does scent his mate for the first time, the animal side will want to take over. Not for sex,” he added quickly, and Baby realized his anxiety was showing. “For shifters, it’s all about the instincts; animal spirits don’t want to have sex with human-bodied mates. It’s the bite that’s important, or more specifically the scar that bite will leave.”
“The scar that renders a bitten person unable to have sex with anyone else again and proclaims to anyone in the paranormal world that person is claimed.” Baby nodded to show he understood.
“It does work the other way too though. I mean, I got bitten, but Raff and Teilo got tattoos from our claiming, and those tattoos are just as effective as a bite. And you can bet,” Nereus added, “if that mate is or was as promiscuous as you claim, and the shifter knows about it, that bite is going to come quickly, and probably without warning. Not even the human side of the shifter might know it’s going to happen until it’s done.”
“Ooh, like Scott and Damien, although of course they were both shifters.” Raff nodded. “Do you remember Troy telling us that time? Damien was a visiting alpha, and he knew he could scent his mate at the packhouse. And then, when he found Scott, Scott had been fighting off some rogues, and he was all covered in blood down his arm, and naked sitting on the ground, and Damien was so pissed off, he just picked the guy up clean off the ground and bit him without so much as a hello. It was so romantic.”
“Not exactly,” Teilo added drily. “You’re forgetting the little matter of Troy asking Kane if he could lay a complaint with the shifter council against Damien for claiming his mate without consent. Or the other little matter of Scott almost dying, because Damien refused to be double claimed so Scott sent him away.”
“Bitten shifters die without their mates,” Nereus said quickly, and Baby realized he was frowning. “Damien was dying too; he was just physically bigger and older, so it was taking longer. But Damien got his head out of his ass, came back here and claimed his mate properly the second time, and Scott is now Alpha Mate of the San Antonio pack. They are both very happy by all accounts.”
It’s probably just as well I left Owen’s when I did, Baby pondered, or was it? He just had one more question. “Is it true with fated mates, when they have claimed each other, they always work out as a couple? Like, they’re happy with each other and everything.”
“The Fates aren’t known for making mistakes,” Nereus said gravely and this time Baby couldn’t avoid his piercing stare. “The one thing you can guarantee if you have a shifter mate is that they will never hurt you, never leave you, never stray and always do their best to make you happy. You would be the single most important person in their life for all time. The human side of a shifter has been known to put their foot in their mouths on occasions and have also been known to say some things that can hurt their mates when tempers flare. Being mated doesn’t make us perfect and when you put very distinct individual personalities together, arguments will happen. But when you know you can trust a mate, especially a shifter one, that makes settling any arguments a lot easier. You could do a lot worse than being mated to a shifter, little bro.”
Letting out a long breath he didn’t even know he was holding, Baby said, “Hypothetically.”
“Of course,” Nereus grinned. “Now, how about coming out and doing some training with me and Teilo while our sweet Raff cooks up some dinner. He and I always train at this time and I’m keen to see if you have any fighting instincts at all.”
“I have wandered the earth for a thousand years,” Baby said, removing Killer from his lap who grumbled but settled quickly on Raff’s lap. Getting up, he straightened his jeans. “I have picked up some skills in protecting myself.”
He made to step past Raff but stopped and looked down when Raff tapped his leg. “It will all work out the way it’s meant to,” Raff said quietly, and Baby found he couldn’t ignore the sweet man’s smile. “Fated mates always work, but sometimes you have to remind a mate, especially pushy shifter ones, that all mates are equal in a relationship, no matter how powerful some might be over others.”
“Equal.” Baby nodded. “That’s a useful thing to remember, thanks,” he added as he followed his brother and Teilo outside for a certain ass-kicking. It was better than sitting at home moping. Fates, I wish I didn’t miss or want him quite this much.