Jane's father is a very blunt and abrupt man. Not mean or harsh, just efficient to the point of forsaking civility.

          "So how do you feel about being a werewolf's mate?"

          It was a good thing he didn't offer me a drink before, I would have spit it all over the place. "What?"

          "I'm not wasting my baby girl's time with confused little human teen thoughts. Are you playing around with my daughter or are you genuinely wanting to be with her?"

         "What?"

          He gave me a you must be shitting me look. "I knew that I was serious about my mate the first moment I laid eyes on her. You've had most of a day. Piss or get off the pot, son."

         Well, damn.

         I glanced at Jane, who was beet red and not looking anywhere near my direction. My poor girl. I couldn't really loosen my tongue before looking at her but just seeing her reminded me of a decision I had made maybe an hour before. "Yeah...I get it."

         I glanced back at her father. "But pretty much everything else, I don't know what you're talking about, man."

         "Jane, sweetie, go ahead and shift."

         Since some sort of spectacle was supposed to happen right beside me, I turned towards her...and she shrank down into her clothing.

         Got to understand, this girl wasn't all that big in the first place.

         Something yipped softly inside her overlarge shirt, and with the feeling she gave me, I was anxious to help this little voice. I still can't describe it, to this day. I pulled the shirt off of what looked like a puppy, not a full grown wolf.

        "Are all shifters so cute and cuddly?"

        The derisive snort from the man still in front of me pulled my attention back to him. "Hardly. Most of us are terrifying and deliberately set out to improve on that fearsome look. My Jane is a true runt."

~~~

         There's different kinds of weres that get called runts. First is the Omegas. Smaller than the average wolf due to a specific gene called the Beta gene (because it was the 2nd conditional gene the shifters found). They aren't weaklings. True Omegas--that is most those called Omegas or runts--are usually hyper-aggressive. Not necessarily violent, but more like they pushed far more of their growth into ADHD-like physicality than height. They can be obsessed with organization, and are often better equipped to doing menial tasks that allows their minds to wander.

        That was not my girl.

        Nor was she a midget--the proper term for people built on a smaller but proportionate scale. That's 4'10" or smaller as humans. Shifters like this were often disproportionate, as in their wolf eats up all their growth. So, they're puny as humans and absolute bruisers as wolves. Apparently Jane had not met the first part, being at least 5' as a human and even smaller as a wolf--she didn't rip any clothes when shifting.

         Then there were late-bloomers. It's still possible that she would do this, as I'm writing this before her 26th birthday, but usually those kinds of transformations give warnings. There's a fire to their wolf's temperament. While Jane is assertive--and all wolves are unless it's beaten or trained out of them--that spice that speaks of a purely lethal attitude just isn't there.

          And then there are the premature or the weaker of multiples. They are born as runts, but catch up and often surpass their siblings, rivaling me in size. They only remain runts when their pack starves them. My girl was coddled.

         No. She was a true runt. They don't fight for or against their mates like any other wolf would, which is why her father came after me so bluntly. I wasn't even her first mate. The first was an Alpha who didn't want the hassle of a docile mate. His loss.

         And it really is a loss because it's balanced out by one of the biggest traits of pack Alphas, the very faith that binds an Alpha to his pack. They are an extremely mentally connected people and hold psychological or psychic power over each other. The mate bond is 1 attribute, and the mindlink is another...as is the Alpha command.

         Mates can share mental power, and packs can share the same with their Alpha, a focal point to the strength of the population. Lunas are prized because they make the pack and Alpha stronger. They also make the Alpha weaker because his focus isn't only on his pack, so Lunas are a trade in amplifying your power for an easy spot to place a threat in order to force an Alpha to submit to another.

         So, the more powerful the Luna, the less she amplifies and passes on to her mate because she hoards power like her male counterpart--she is an Alpha, by all rights. A weak Luna may be because she cannot channel the power due her position--this happens very often with human mates, and with a lot of lower ranking wolves as well. It still strengthens the Alpha, but not as much as is possible.

        But a true runt--especially one of Alpha stock? All the power shunts to the male. None is held back for herself. That Alpha fucked up. Not that I care.

~~~

        "So, how committed do you intend to be?"

        That confused me. If you're in, you're in. Why should anyone check for commitment that was implied? "What, you mean like a wife and a side-chick or just being a manwhore?"

        "Any, all the above."

        "I gave my word that it will be only her, sort of in jest, but my father would kill me if I wasn't faithful. I don't know what he would think of her turning into a puppy, but he's really old-school Baptist. Marry young, marry for life, don't stray, don't air your dirty laundry and only drink when no other Baptists are around to see you." I found my hand rubbing the crown of Jane's head as I spoke--it was quite calming, considering that my heart was going about a mile a minute.

         The Beta relaxed after that. Apparently he wasn't one who was overly paranoid about the religious. Not that I really ever was, otherwise I would have waited for marriage. I didn't understand that in theirs, we were as good as married when we first met each other. Maybe if I really had read my Old Testament, then, I'd get that marriage is wherever that commitment starts, not when you get the piece of paper.

         "There's complications with true runts--most of which you'll learn with time--but the big one is that they're often so unassuming that other females try to take their mates. At least weres know what is going on, somewhat, and can resist it. Humans don't understand it at all. You're about to enter a world of temptation, and I need to know that you'll fight for her."

        I had no idea how difficult it was going to be, but I nodded in agreement.

~~~

         It started with girls fake tripping into me at school, as we walked down the halls. I didn't know what was going on, at first. I was wondering if they oiled the floors or something. Its polite to catch people before they fall on their face. They started sitting with us at lunch, interrupting our conversation. A couple of brave ones would touch my arm when they spoke to me.

         The only two that really didn't change much were the friends that said I was hot enough to be a player.

         Charlotte was somewhere between Goth and old school grunge with a lip ring shaped like tiny skulls. Everyone assumed she liked girls because she acted so manly. Funny, boys don't act manly, so how was everyone judging this?

         "Shoo, bitches, before I bite you." She shoved a trio girls I couldn't place off from the table. "Hi Jane. Starting to get thick up in here, isn't it?"

         The second part was more directed at me. I winced.

         "That bad?"

         "Other than you and Dani, yeah, its getting annoying." I sighed, almost yawning. "Why are you two different?"

          "Well, with Dani, you guys friend-zoned each other so bad that she's scared to lose her best friend if she doesn't behave as she always had. Me? I'm a lone wolf, remember we're somewhat immune to it, if we try."

          My girl spoke for the first time. "What was the last generation that shifted?"

          "A Great-grandma on mom's side had a shifted sister, and daddy's a defective Gamma's boy. They think I'm an at-need shift since I've not been tested."

         "Who's they?" I was bewildered, since I'd not had a talking to since that one meeting with Jane's dad.

         "The pack on the other side of town." She curled her lip. "The Alpha is on my ass because his Beta swears I'm his mate..."