The meal was rather ambitious for as little help as Billie got.

Lasagna isn't that hard if you pre-prep. Chicken Scampi, a salad, a pork belly and squash stew...plenty to eat, and I intend to eat my fair share, but I was still thinking about shrimp and grits. Pregnancy brain. I don't know how I'm getting through this.

Going back into the main hall, there were stacks of stored food, everywhere. A quick inspection and a few questions showed that was all up-to-date.

But omigosh, the wine bottles. I think some of them were older than Nevada (1864). We stopped counting at over 400, and just made rough estimates on what came out of the sub-basement, thereafter. That, Amancia moved to the study, their wooden crates stacked carefully on their sides just like they were downstairs. At least she had the sense to do that much with their storage. I was looking up wine care on my phone when in walks Nathan's great-grandmother.

Zsa Zsa was named after a WWII era actress by her mother, who had a habit of naming her daughters after the women her mate lusted after. It was some sort of sabotage to his fantasy life, is my best guess. Can't jerk the gherkin to Zsa Zsa Gabor when your baby girl is a room over calling out "What?"—even if werewolves are freaks. They are. I haven't met one that isn't. Nathaniel had a great Aunt Judy, Marilyn, Veronica, Betty, Carole, and last of all, Audrey. They never had boys.

She wasn't even part of the pack. Her family was driving through the edge of the territory—with permission—when Zacharias pulled them over to claim his mate. Both being wolves and firmly believing in one mate for life, they played up their "love at first sight" to the hilt.

The uncharitable used to say that The Goddess reached the end of that generation's list and was running out of options for either wolf.

Wolves into the 50s were mostly virgins until mate-hood. The 60s just depended on how well you fit into your pack vs. human culture—most were isolated. It was the 70s when Alpha heirs started acting out while young (post-integration, harder to keep packs separate in that climate). In the mid 80s their religious bedrock was challenged. Their faith hasn't recovered to this day. Zsa Zsa and Zacharias are really a late-50s couple, who ran the pack until almost the 80s.

Of course, I'm talking about young weres, here. Mateless creatures, whose generation is well along in birthing babies? Almost nobody is waiting to form a relationship on a Goddess not delivering on the one promise she gave to her people since the dawn of man.

Anyway, Lunal Matriarch Zsa Zsa comes in and starts tearing through bottles with Billie. Her status gave no shits about protocol and could call up whomever she wanted for help. It was a crash course in what was likely bad. "This isn't wine, this is 6 cases of whiskey!" "These are zinfandels and chardonnays. White wines don't usually last, so, these may be used as vinegars." "These reds are likely bad, too, just sniff them before serving. You'll figure it out." This culminated in, "The rest needs a real vintner to sort through. And if I'm wrong about any of the ones I separated, let me know."

Roughly a 3rd had to go through vetting to see if they were worth the risk. Those stacks went back down to the Omega's level. Given that some of these wines may not exist outside a collector's cellar, they were promising. Not like it was a high risk. That was a very cool basement without much in the way of lighting, and the humidity was close to ideal.

My one question about what to do with that cellar was what Nathaniel wanted to hold onto. The bottles could be used for a gathering of Alphas we may be forced to host in the future. Drunk isn't easy to achieve as a werewolf. When they do, they're really dangerous to be around. I thought it was stupid to toy with.

~~~

We had a full account of what had been stored down in the cellar by the time Nathan strolled in. I didn't notice him until he glomped onto my head. His chin rested on top of my skull, arms pinning mine to my sides, and hands nestled between my boobs and belly. At least he didn't lean into me. "So, we ready to eat?"

Whatever bit of claustrophobia I have, it wasn't acting up at that moment, so I had my rare chance to actually enjoy the PDA. A lot of times, I wanted to knee my mate, due to how much pressure he physically put on me. I mean, he's got to be a minimum of 200 lbs, even as lean as he is. I guess we were both learning.

Or was it because he's shot up another 2 inches since he knocked me up?

I mean, they make this shit out to be magical fairy dust, but it ain't.

"So, what is the overall damage?" Nathan was speaking over me, to Amancia. By this point, all the information had been gathered together in one report.

"Well, the lowest crates on the wine had water damage on them. Beth and Perth had it right when they said that water has been in the sub-basement, at some point. We don't dare use them for anything other than in-pack use. Billie's moved all the wine that may be of value to the back wall of the theater den, and that's around 1000 bottles. The low estimate is $50K and high-balling it is well over a million—if they still are good. Other than the rare flooding, these things were preserved. Oh, and you've got cases and cases of stronger spirits. Can tell you now that some of the liqueurs are discontinued."

Nathaniel grinned at that—it lightened his voice. "Did you check for crystallization or discoloration?"

"Uhhh...no?"

"Come on, we've done enough parties here to know what old alcohol stolen from our parent's stashes looks like. Those were tell-tale signs that the drink had gone off in some way."

Now, he was talking above my head, but not over it. We've been somewhat together since somewhere in March and are now staring down the beginning of July, and there's never been a party that I've seen. I've never been asked, not once. That bothered me, and it stripped me of wanting to be around people so I could figure out exactly why I was hurt, alone.

Nathaniel's arm tightened around my ribs. Not right now. Unified front, I promise you can flay me for anything you wish after we get through this.

That got a rather fake grimace of a grin plastered on my face. I did relax against him, tuning out the worst of the conversation. I had something to mull over.

I didn't come back to reality until he practically forced me into my seat for dinner, and shoved a bite of lasagna in my face. I kind of reared back at having food pushed up my nose.

Please take a bite.

I sighed—and complied. It's a pretty universal cultural practice on a werewolf male's part to feed his female. It pops up at different points in time depending on what's common to their pack.

In this case, I helped with this meal, wasn't even touching it, in front of a pack with recurring caste issues that they just laid to rest. Having the potential Luna not eat the meal she prepared would be seen as the Alpha deciding his mate was worthless. Perhaps the Omega caste was being dismantled for me to become the pack slave...or worse. I'm just a human who is supposed to be the flavor of the family. Some packs were rotten, and their damage to the heart of them was evidence of their evil ways.

It's not enough that I'm in his bed. He has to practically belly up to me to keep me on a pedestal—in moments like this. Thankfully, this is rare.

In humans, sexuality is self-respect, all too often. In previous eras, abstinence or permanent contract was self-respect. Today, orientation and interest is now Queen. Both are to the detriment of every other self-defining characteristic. Who gives a shit that you make the very world a better place, the world needs what's in your pants!

Self-respect in wolves is a mate is everything. That's shifted over just a hair from human fights so that no one gives a crap if you're with a man or woman, on the surface. You must fulfill the reason for matehood—you're for breeding or stability. And believe me, a world full of hate can be spewed at everyone from that angle when you do not fulfill your purpose.

Spartans are an example. A society of bisexuals, half wolves: as long as they had another generation, no one cared who men poked or who women chased. But the awkwardness of the society didn't allow mates to be together, or much education—a rigid and forced culture. No wonder they fell, in the end.

In this instance I understood it—and I don't always. I gave in although I wasn't in the mood to eat. I soldiered through half the plate placed in front of me before I realized that I was actually starving. It was obscured by emotions.

By the time I looked around to interact with my people, I noticed that most of the excess food storage had moved out of the room and half of those eating had already followed behind. It wouldn't be long before I was alone with my thoughts.

Nate wasn't in his seat, either. I've got to quit being so in my own world.

thunk

I swear, that's the sound a thick porcelain bowl filled to the brim with fruits and ice cream sounds when it's placed in front of you by a masculine hand. I looked up into eyes that transported me to the 80s—fully, 2 generations ago. I wondered if I loved his irises because I felt so disconnected from the here and now. That was quickly dismissed in favor of dessert. "I can't finish all of this, Nathan."

"I intended to share it with you, my love."

I know my nose crinkled as I smirked. "Who said I would share?"

"The fact that this is 6 servings or more and a full dinner didn't clue you in?"

That got a snort out of me.

And his grin as he sat down next to me, signaling for everyone else to hurry up and leave us alone. "Glad to see you're coming out of whatever that was. Care to tell me why you wanted to run away so bad that you weren't present for 2 hours?"

I was just about to dig into the bowl, too. My spoon went back on the table abruptly. "This shit again..."

"Well, I've not been privy to this shit..."

That time I lost it. Cracked up so bad I thought I sounded like a howler monkey and lost my breath at the same time. It wasn't pretty. I eventually found my voice again "Damn, Nate, warn a girl before you get all snarky."

His face held a look of gentle confusion. "What did I do now?"

"A privy is an outhouse, love." I smiled. "You're already unintentionally dad joking."

"Goddess, help me..." Ah, that's the crossed eyes that I enjoy so much..."Do you have to be a walking dictionary all the time?"

My smile turned a bit sharp. "First, when do I do that? Second, that's not how you're going to get me to talk."

He just stared at me for a moment before speaking. "I'm not going to try to force anything with you. You either tell me, or you don't. I'm going to worry about whatever the hell is going on in your head until you do."

I ran my hand through my hair. A good chunk of it had escaped from the bun at this point, forcing me to put it back up at the dinner table of all places. "Look, I don't even know what I was feeling. Something felt off, I felt lost, and I wanted to think about it, but I was forced to stay so I kind of zoned out. Not that big a deal."

"What over?"

"You mentioned throwing enough parties to know what dead booze looks like."

"Ah..." He gestured at my spoon with his before digging in. "Those stopped as soon as Stephen shifted. He didn't think that would work out so well with everything that was about to happen. Saved me a shit ton of grief. I never made good decisions while drunk—which is why I've been sober for quite some time, now. I promise I had other thoughts on my mind when I left school. Girls have always been a distraction."

"So, I'm a distraction." I timed this question to a bite, for both of us, forcing him to hastily swallow too much ice cream at once. Serves him right for shoveling.

"My favorite one. But you're also the end goal."

Not an end goal, the end...

Well, that quelled any lingering anxiety about him having even more girls on his tab while I was being stupid and blind.

But hard on the heels of that, I was wondering if going to a party would have gotten us together sooner. Would I have liked partying?

I feared entirely too much in my young life.

I didn't think too much about what struggling for sobriety would mean to our relationship. I was too young, in some ways.