I'd like to say that the weeks blurred together and time moved on, but it didn't.

My mornings were a constant haze of scanning reams of paper into a computer that hated me. I swear, it mislabeled files in the middle of the night. It was more accurate to say that I'm not the only one touching the machine. Without access to pack funds, we weren't buying new equipment, so I had to live with this dinosaur.

Someone went through the trouble of titling all the papers when they typed or printed them out, so you could tell where the paperwork began and ended. Half the feared work is done. I also got the brilliant idea to stuff everything that was scanned into grocery bags. Label the sucker and the computer file the same way, and voila! It's no longer a part of the great uncluttered mess.

If you need the original, come find the right tied-up bag. A file box takes up about 6 of those, and then the whole thing can go into the attic storage, away from the office space. Every morning it went that way, and it didn't take long to start clearing the room.

School was...interesting. I mean, I wasn't much for PDA—Liar—in the first place, and everything that ever happened between us was always Nathan-instigated. Yes, I claim innocent party and will die on this hill, thank you.

But he's not used to sitting in a class without something to do, a person to mess with. I take notes. I mean, he's the one rambling on about needing me. He's also the one who has been passing all his classes without writing a thing down, so I know he can be full of it. It's this wave of desperate restlessness that feeds the behavior, not inability.

They weren't designed for sitting in classrooms.

Unfortunately for my grades, only I'm allowed to fill that need now. I have a stupid bite mark that makes it easier for him to get his way than ever before.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this change in behavior, over the years. A lost guy fucks around. A focused man only accessorizes his life with sex. It's like the jewels in a crown. Doesn't do any good to have the gems littered everywhere, when the crown is all that matters. There is no surprise in this change. If he was going to be serious about his goals, I was going to become his focus beyond anything he's done so far.

It was a bigger fight that first week when I was trying to catch up on missed homework and tests than as I got accustomed to it. After all, I'm no longer having to feed myself or clean a house. So, yay, no more other girls. Honestly, the way it upsets him more than me makes it hard to hold a grudge. Notice more. I wasn't joking about being his mate made his past difficult—I clearly warned him it would. But it could have been worse. He could have continued being an ass after taking me on.

Me? I didn't stop being an ass, but nothing budged him off me.

Girls were starting to lay off of Nate, on their end. Not because he told them off—although that has happened. No, I'm beginning to show.

Between that and his affection for me, a lot of the more self-respecting types realized that they didn't want to play Stepmother with Baby Mama while still a teen. Hey, even girls accused of being hos have standards. That's often why they get shamed in the first place. There is a place to stick the knife in and twist it, in any woman's conscience.

That complicated life is still doable. Plenty of people have that very set of issues to work through to reach their happily ever after. There's always a sense of betrayal that is hard to dismiss when you're young. Older people understand that streak of jealousy better. Shit happens. You build your real life on the wreckage of the past. But we're not out of high school yet. These are supposed to be the party years—not that we had time for that.

That makes me look too old for my peers. That's not it. I'm a jealous puddle of hormones, quick to rage. It's not as stressful as it once was, is all.

I'm coming into this relationship from a starting belief that these monsters beat the weak, treat people like property, live to make babies, and mates were the Goddess' punishment for a life well sinned. It's not like that.

I was still right to warn Nathaniel that he would find a mate to be a traumatic experience. These guys were begging for a karmic bitch-slap, but that is not the end for us, at least not yet. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how well we mesh over time.

Get that, I'm excited to be with someone. More than I fear it. Much more.

Anyway, most girls leave him alone. There are a few whom I am not allowed to punch over their antics. (Nathaniel is worried about the baby.) So he gets frustrated extremely easily. That and his wolf needs reassurance that his human and mate are a united front, even as dormant as it is. Thank god most sexual encounters are short. I spend way too much time walking into classrooms late, adjusting my skirts. Teachers look the other way because of him as it is.

And it ain't these sexy skirts. I've switched to a ton of maxi dresses, a kind of boho flare because I've got a noticeable bump. I've a feeling I'm going to look like Violet Beauregarde before long. I want to be comfortable.

Only Nate has to find it sexy, and he doesn't need more sexy in his life. Like, at all. Boy's worse than a fully charged vibrator.

I may not be able to punch them, but their lockers got crabs. We would come in on Mondays and the halls would have to be fumigated. I think the janitor is about to quit.

But this was my guaranteed mornings, and the face we put on before our schoolmates. The evenings were when everything shifted around on us. That had some pretty chaotic moments.

~~~

It was pretty early on, right before agents moved in. Nathaniel drove as usual towards the somewhat manky pack house. Not that it was filthy on the inside, but it's been a generation since the outside was power washed and basic upkeep applied to the thing. We still didn't have full access to the accounts. Thankfully most bills were automatic, and the rest were accessed by that stupid computer, where they were already linked to what we couldn't directly withdraw.

Nate had been a bit off, most of the day.

So off that he didn't even instigate his normal antics.

If the slow shift in our mate bond was anything to go by, it wasn't because he was cheating. After reading up on that, I will stake my future on that aspect of our tie. I was already betting everything on it because we couldn't continue in failure. I still felt it was a bit early to talk about full loyalty, but it's the goal. Like a wolf would take that thought so lightly. I was being a human fool, thinking like that.

Anyway, he was getting angrier as the drive continued. I swear, it became a living entity in the car.

I was searching through YouTube for covers of Addicted to Love for the next video I made. Unfortunately, the best is still the Arnold Palmer version from way back in the 80s. There are teens running around whose parents were conceived to this song. Sheesh, creepy enough thought, but the lyrics have been on my mind, almost as much as Nathaniel...for obvious reasons.

I needed to get started back on making videos.

Even so, I couldn't shake his pissy mood. "Dude, let it out already." I'm in for hours of this hell.

"Were you really going to kill our pup?"

What the hell? I didn't speak with anyone about that. "Look, I know werewolves are weird and shit, but what the hell?"

"We came across a record of your search history. Dad was keeping tabs on you."

I knew it wasn't him snapping. The dude's a stalker. "I have nothing in my search that should make anyone think I was about to abort this baby. What did you find?"

"You looked up survivors."

"Of course I did! That damn stone gave me 2 different futures, and I was working under the assumption that multiple children depended on my choices—that means I thought... I didn't know I was carrying a singleton! Jeez, look at the dates, see how long back things are before you get your ass chapped!" No way in hell I'm telling him that that even crossed my mind. Not through the hell I've gone through to carry her this long. I'll take that to the grave.

He pulled over abruptly, and I jerked forward in my seat belt. Stupid primitive.

"Damn it, Rachael, I'm not primitive!" He snarled at me. "Stop projecting thoughts and then saying damn near the opposite with your lips!"

So you're really stupid....oh, shit, he heard all that. I was embarrassed. I try to sound like a good person when I open my mouth, but I'm not, not at heart. The core of me didn't trust, didn't want love or acceptance, didn't want to lead, nothing that I was called to do by one insane deity. "I'm sorry Nathan."

"Yes, I'm stupid, because I'm still right here." His hands were restless, but he kept them on the steering wheel. I guess he didn't trust himself. "I'm not going anywhere. I can't go anywhere."

Where was this clingy asshole months ago? I can't have anything separate from him, can I? Fucking hell. "You're not the one who was trapped."

He leaned his head back against the headrest, about as spent as he was enraged only moments before. "If you want me to let you go..."

I didn't say that. "I said was, not am..."

He stared at me, eyes watery—that weird point where you couldn't tell if a man was about to bawl his eyes out or about to sneeze. Alright, I knew which he was about to do if I couldn't be...well, soft.

Blondes aren't pretty. They often fade away. But I want this one.

"Whose voice is that in?" His own was still thick, but he quickly lost his self-pity as he had something to latch onto.

"What?" Watching him is like whiplash.

"I can hear you thinking that you don't like how I look, but it's not in your voice. Who said that to you? We are both blonde. Who told you that and had it mesh so deeply in you?"

"My mom...ah, aunt." The people who raised me, the woman was a brunette. The man—my uncle, had the same hair as I have. And I can see what she meant when looking at him—he was getting kind of doughy with age. His thinning hair made him look a bit more bald than anything. All I could think was that one day, I'd look like him.

I'm not a vain person, not by a long shot, but I never put myself in my videos for a reason. It keeps echoing through my head. My natural attraction to something familiar was all but eroded by that mantra. I would have never volunteered to be with someone I love to tears, all because Blondes aren't pretty. They often fade away.

His look was thoughtful, as he worked his way through it all. At least he's distracted. "Have you ever freely spoken to any of us?"

"Once, to Stephen, the same day I did that search. That stone monstrosity scared me. A bit at that diner..." where you stole my hamburger.

At least that thought put a bit of a smile back on his face, as wistful as it was. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

Trying not to command me, enh? I began the story of that day, much the same as written here. 2 days, 2 days out of 3 months were the only times we truly talked before this moment. We drove for hours in Nevada's weak spring, picking apart the mess that is me.

I really need to work on this. It's not healthy.

~~~

Not all of these altercations were...altercationy.

Quite early in the logistics of moving families held prisoner to this town to other packlands Nathaniel figured out that I wasn't graduating this year. "What do you mean you're a Junior? We have all the same classes!"

I must have been held back a year as a child, somewhere, since I'll turn 18 before the start of the next school year, so I get his confusion. I can't place exactly where I went off schedule, either. Not that it mattered.

"I was trying to get out of my last year. Remember, I didn't want to be here anymore." By this point, I moved on from most of my internalized snarky comments to more boldly speaking what was on my mind. I wasn't going to get hit for it. He had fewer headaches and I got to be myself, finally. I don't know how he feels about that, but it was so damn freeing to be open.

"Then why aren't you graduating?"

"I'm about 2 credits short." I shrugged. "Not that I want to be in there for 2 classes a day with a newborn, but I can't see getting out of it."

"Anything you have to take?"

"No, they're both electives."

He smirked.

I wish I could pick up his thoughts like he can pick up my "projections". Pisses me off that he has the upper hand like this.

Nathaniel winced again, "Well, go take some CLEP tests for college courses. Pass 2 and I'll make them accredit it as high school courses. I'm not getting stuck in that office all damn day while strange boys get to hit on you."

I threw my pregnant self at him like he had bought me a diamond tennis bracelet. "Oh please, like your Gamma would let that happen."

It's one of the few times I remember instigating a damn thing with him. He doesn't have the patience to wait for me to start anything.

But then, he claimed my squirming to get comfortable in bed is taunting him with my ass.

I happen to know that isn't just a wolf excuse.