Mates?!?

After putting in his order, I went back to Damien's table. I had no idea what I was going to say to him or what I was going to do, but I knew that I wanted to be beside him.

'Mate smells good,' agreed my inner mouse, causing me to pause just behind the counter of the diner.

'Mate?' I asked cautiously.

I could see the tiny field mouse in my head nodding hers as she quickly cleaned her whiskers. 'Mate,' she confirmed. 'He will protect us.'

'But you thought the other three smelled good too. We can't have more than one mate, so are you really sure that he is ours? You don't want to smell the others either?' I would fully admit that I was starting to panic just a little.

But the idea of a mate in the shifter community was everything. They were the ones that the gods had chosen to be absolutely perfect for you. An ideal match in every way.

I leaned against the counter, watching the man as he scrolled through his phone. Like any shifter, I had dreamed about the day I would find my mate. That unconditional acceptance, that unconditional love. It was the stuff that fairy tales were made of.

And then I grew up.

I was a mouse shifter. Potentially the only one of my kind. I knew that there would be no mate for me.

I scoffed. It wasn't until the whole bunny and wolf thing that a 'trend' of mating outside of your species started.

It had never been done before.

Wolves stayed with wolves, tigers with tigers, and no one even knew about the prey shifters.

'He's mate. You can think about it until steam comes out our ears, but he is our mate.' I could feel my mouse smirking at me like she knew a secret that I didn't. 'Might as well ask if he is okay walking around with a mini blanket for nap time.'

Letting out a long sigh, I grabbed one of the plates for a table full of wolves and bunnies.

I was not one to cut my nose off to spite my face. If the wolf really was my mate, then that was fine. I would just need a day to adapt to that idea.

And I wanted to know how much he liked the peanut butter and banana crepe first.

-----

"Have you ever thought about what kind of mate you want?" asked Damien as he sat in a chair, twirling the beer in his bottle around. The four of them were sitting in the basement rec room of their mansion, shooting the shit and playing pool.

"What are we? Twelve? Should I get out the nail polish and do your hair?" asked Lucien, looking up from where he was lining up his shot.

"Fuck off, I'm being serious," growled Damien, his wolf coming out in his voice. His other half had been losing his mind all afternoon since he left the diner, and the need to shift rippled under his skin.

"Not really," shrugged Dominik as he leaned on his pool stick. "I figured that I would meet some she-wolf, and everything would just click."

"What about you?" asked Damien, turning to the man beside him.

Raphael looked at his long-time friend and shook his head. "What's the point? I will mate someone that would make the best Luna for the pack. End of story."

"And if you were mated to a human?" pushed Damien. None of them had ever discussed something like this, something so personal. But it wasn't that they weren't thinking about it in the back of their minds.

"God, I hope that would never happen," shuddered Raphael. "If that were the case, I would have to reject her for the good of the pack. And I really don't think that I would ever get over that loss."

"You would really reject your fated mate?" asked Dominik as he looked at their Alpha. He understood that the man had a lot on his shoulders, but something like that seemed… inconceivable. To reject your mate was literally to reject who you were… your other half.

"I would have no choice. I would not want my mate to be challenged over and over again simply because some bitch couldn't take the fact that she was not the Luna," growled Raphael.

The intensity of his speech made the other three men stand up and look at him. They had never looked at it from his perspective. But he wasn't wrong. Any female who was mated to him would have to prove herself to the pack.

"And the idea that I might not be enough to protect my mate from my own pack makes me sick to my stomach," continued Raphael, looking down at the beer bottle in his hand. "So, I hope that I never meet my fated mate because knowing what I could have had but never would might just be the final straw."

"You would have us," reminded Lucien, no longer caring about the billiards on the table in front of him. "We could protect her from any female."

"No, you couldn't. It is written into law that any female can challenge a Luna if she thinks that the Luna is unable to complete her role within the pack," answered Raphael with a shake of his head.

"You would think that the pack would want what was best for its Alpha," grunted Damien, taking a swig of his beer.

"You would think," grunted Raphael.

What he didn't want to tell anyone was the fact that his control was slipping more and more each day. His wolf was becoming unmanageable, and he was worried that he would become feral within the year.

While his wolf was always strong and always seemed to have a mind of his own, it had gotten exponentially worse within the past few days.

If it kept up, the men in this room would need to put him down, and he didn't want to put that pressure on any of them.

"But this topic had become a bit too heavy for a Friday night," chuckled Raphael as he tried to change the subject. "What's been going on with the heat suppressants?"

"Oh yeah, like that is a much lighter topic to discuss over beers," grunted Damien, rolling his eyes. If his Alpha ever did find his mate, he would do anything in his power to make sure they were together for the rest of their lives.

Raphael had sacrificed enough for the pack. He shouldn't have to sacrifice his eternal happiness, too.