"So what'd he do this time?" Mrs. Ramon (who had told me to either call her Merida or nonetheless Mom) asked. A fabulous dinner was already ready and we had served ourselves. She sipped at her glass of wine, but I stuck to my glass of water.

"What do you mean?" I asked her. She raised her glass as a gesture.

"They aren't really the father-son duo known to talk things out," she giggled. "I'm surprised Ryder's even attempting to confide in him."

It was odd to me how a family of werewolves could be so strained. I had read the journal of my father's adolescent memories; none of them were as tense as the Ramons' relationships in this house. I would've thought that a supernatural gene would've held them at a closer bond. But I knew why Ryder was trying to trust his dad—he wanted to be around me and the only person in town that could help him was...well, his dad.

"Merida," I named and she acknowledged me. "When you met your husband, did you picture that this is how your life would be?"

At first, her face twisted. "Actually," she began. "I had always been a person to plan out my career and life and...once I met Marc, he..."

"Changed that?"

"Fit into it," she countered with a slight narrow of her eyes. "I mean, we had our own drama like any relationship, but even then, our lives together were smooth sailing."

"What about the werewolf thing?" I asked. She didn't have the ability to shift like I did, but still, she had to know about the werewolf thing at some point. "How did you take it?"

"Well...he didn't really give me a choice," she shrugged, causing me to frown. "By then, we had already fallen in love and we were going through a rough patch since I thought he'd be better off with one of the girls he had originally been going out with for years..." The girl made me think of Stella for Ryder. "...but on the night he proposed, he sat me down and explained to me that it didn't matter who he could've loved or who loved him as long as I was still around and I accepted him, because it was me he needed to be with. He explained the imprinting thing and the werewolf information—though it was rather a warning—I didn't even really believe it until one day your dad walked in on us and told Marc he had to come back here and take over the pack. Nothing really mattered as long as we were together."

"Oh," was all I could say as I played with my food and became only slightly alarmed. Though I had enough confidence on the Stella issue, I found it interesting that Merida had the same situation. But I didn't want to be like Merida and Marc. I didn't want Ryder to just fit into my life like how Marc did. I wanted us to make a new life for each other with each other. And I didn't want to believe that in twenty years, we would be like how Ryder's parents were. I wanted to know how the two adults could give each other space in this beautiful house. At this point, Ryder was in my future, and I wanted it to be a constant spontaneous love story instead of the typical stagnant romance. I didn't even really want Ryder to be upstairs right now. I wanted me and him to be in his room learning about how much I missed him, to be honest.

"You and Ryder are different though," she added and I wondered what she meant by that, though I hoped it was true. "I haven't been around you two as a couple obviously, but there's a certain...balance and gravitation between you two. He's changing back into the man I thought he'd always be...because of you."

I didn't know what to say to that; thank you for me being your son's mate? I just blushed and ate the last of my food. I asked for her plate as I got up, but she refused to give it to me and we ended up retreating to the kitchen together, putting the dishes in the sink. For her, she began to rinse off the plate.

"I hope we do this again," she suddenly said. I looked at her in question. "I like having a potential daughter around here." It made me smile until her eyes widened. "—not that I'm trying to be disrespectful to your parents or insult your mom—"

"It's okay," I assured with a light smile and she returned it apologetically. "My parents have both passed so I'm sure they would be appreciative. No worries."

She lightly pulled me into a hug, like the first one she had given me when we met and I finally understood her draw to me. She was meant to be a mother figure for me and it was destined so. I couldn't be less than grateful, but it made me wonder about the strain between me and her husband.

Go to my room, I heard like a whisper in my ear from Ryder as I pulled away from the hug with his mom.

"I'm sorry to hear about that," Merida told me, gazing at me with beautiful green eyes. "I didn't know about your mother, but Ryder had mentioned your father's passing...he was a great man—Marc's best friend whether he wants to deny it or not."

"Why would he deny it?"

Ashlynn— Ryder beckoned as if more abruptly and then I heard the door from upstairs slam which made my ears hurt. I wanted to turn my head and snap up a look to him for interrupting my bonding time with his mom, but I was already hearing two sets of feet galloping down the stairs one after another. Soon after, Mr. Ramon and his son both entered the kitchen area; they grabbed two plates and served themselves of the luke-warm dinner while conversing about the upcoming football season or something. It was too good to be true in my eyes, but Merida just sort of leaned into the sink's counter and smirked at her men. Mr. Ramon ate as he walked towards the smaller dining room and paused while he chewed. He met a gaze with his wife.

"This tastes amazing," he said, still with some food in his mouth.

"I had some help," she smiled and nudged me. Mr. Ramon didn't praise my credentials, but he just nodded, kissed his wife's cheek after emptying his mouth and then sat down at the table. "And you?" Merida asked, tossing the dish towel at her son's back as he ate on the counter, hunched over. "What do you think?"

He turned and put his elbows on the counter, still chewing, and looked at his mother first and then me.

"I think it's your best yet," he complimented and my bashful blush was ended with the ring of my phone.

"Hello?" I greeted with Ryder struggling to tear his eyes away from me even though his mother had walked over to sit with Mr. Ramon and invited him to sit down to finish eating.

"Um, don't 'Hello?' me, missy," Bailee scolded. "Where was my invite at precisely...two hours ago?"

I saw Ryder smirk, hearing the familiar voice and then he continued to eat while I walked out of the kitchen and lingered in the foyer.

"Am I supposed to know what you're talking about?" I asked her, prepared to be amused.

"Um, the Instagram post from Stella earlier today," she clarified. "I didn't even know you two could be near each other after this weekend! Did you talk to Ryder about that, by the way?"

"We haven't really gotten to it actually," I informed, biting my lip.

Hey, talk in my room and shut the door. I don't want my dad to hear anything he shouldn't, Ryder instructed and on the way upstairs, I decided to grab Ryder's bag that he brought back and left by the door. The real reason I went upstairs was because I didn't want Ryder to hear something he shouldn't.

"Well when are you?" she questioned before I even made it up the stairs.

"I don't know," I told her, sort of irritated. "If it's so important, why don't you just tell me?"

"Because I don't know what's true or not!"

"Then don't worry about it," I laughed, carefree, as I made it to Ryder's room and shut the door. Again, I paced his floor and glanced at each award while speaking to a very insulted Bailee who wasn't invited on my elitist shopping spree. All I could do was playfully laugh at her whining while I finally took a seat on Ryder's bed. "Well I am sorry for not inviting you," I giggled after a while.

"I suppose I'll grow up and get over it," she decided with a sigh. I playfully rolled my eyes. "So what are you up to?"

"Oh, I'm at Ryder's house—" I started to say, but then smacked myself in the forehead for prompting her to squeal through the phone and cause me to hold the phone at an arm's length. But even when I retracted, she was still at an alarming pace of speech.

"What the hell are you doing there, missy? Mhm, doing the nastiness that you couldn't do at camp, I bet!" she accused. I was just going to wait until she was done. "OMG. Are you!? Because—"

"No."

"—Oh," she slowed and then the door was opening for Ryder to walk in. I watched as it took him three strides to get from the door to me. He even held out his hand for the phone, which caused me to look at him in a particular way. "Well then what are you doing there? No one goes to his house. I mean, not anyone but—"

"—anyone but my girlfriend," Ryder interrupted after he had just taken the phone and smiled arrogantly at me. I could hear Bailee stammering. "She'll talk to you later, okay? I promise."

"Uh...sure?" Bailee allowed and then Ryder quickly threw the phone further onto the bed, making it lightly graze the headboard, but before I could throw out a "Hey—" for any damage, he had already put one hand at my neck and the other on the bed beside my waist, told me to shut up and then pressed his lips to mine. He pulled away sooner than I would've liked so before he could stand up, I pulled him back down to me, but he groaned in the kiss and found some kind of way to pull back.

"No," he said. "We're going to settle this before the same thing that happened Saturday happens again."

"Uh, okay..." I began to say and wanted to joke if he was scared of me turning into a wolf or something, but I kept it to myself. I really just wanted him to be clearer about what exactly had happened that was making him so reserved about everything. He sighed once while looking down and then looked back over.

"Screw it," he muttered and when I actually angled to look at him, he was seizing my face to pull it into his and his reservations were replaced with very intense displays of affection.

***

"You scare the shit out of me," Ryder muttered to me while he played with strands of my hair as I laid on his bare chest and also his bicep. I sat up with a hand on his sternum.

"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" I asked, looking down at his handsome self. "I'm pretty sure I have reasons to be afraid of the big bad wolf."

He sighed and sat up while I laughed playfully. He sat on the edge of the bed with his back to me. I put my head on his shoulder. "But then again, if you were big and bad, you would've had sex with me just now and told me to leave just as the asshole-Alpha Preston wants you to be," I added with a laugh before kissing his shoulder to let him know I was just kidding.

"I might as well have done it," he muttered and I frowned.

"What?"

"I've already done it," he suddenly admitted, getting up from the bed and grabbing his shirt. We hadn't slept together due to his reservation ("Not again," he had said) so I was curious as to what he meant. I sat back onto his bed while he paced just a short area and I didn't have to question it for him to know I was waiting for an explanation. "That first night you phased..."

"Yeah?"

"I think our wolves had sex," he informed. I just sort of paused. I didn't exactly know what that meant. He walked over quickly and got down on his knees in front of me. "All I know is that as soon as Preston was gone, I was trying to calm you down and then you—you just..."

"Seduced you?" I asked absent-mindedly. I felt a low rumble from my wolf. Like, her getting caught up with Ryder revealed was allowing her to remember how every lick and caress and movement was to see Ryder as a wolf. It was overwhelming. And then suddenly, Ryder let go of a breath and I snapped out of my enlightened attraction to him.

"Yeah, just like that," he agreed, alluding that he had read—or felt the same as my mind and body had. But still, he looked distressed. "Just...please forgive me. I don't know if we did it all the way or not, but my wolf took complete control and I know that I should be able to control it by now, but I don't know what happened for sure because as soon as I recognized what was going on, I was wearing you out and you phased down and I...I just need you to forgive me. Please, Ash."

"I can't forgive you for something that I'm not holding you accountable for, Ryder," I told him, honesty. Truthfully, whatever happened was probably my fault. He sighed and his head in hands dropped into my lap. I tried to produce a reassuring laugh. "It's fine. We're mates and our animal instincts tried to take over and it's fine, it really is, Ryder." He didn't lift his head, even after I shook him. "Hey, it's okay—"

"OH MY GOD," he suddenly exclaimed when he raised his head. He even grabbed my face and my eyes widened as his were. "What if you're pregnant?!"

"I'm not pregnant," I said. How would that even work? Would I have been impregnated by a wolf or a human baby with a lycanthropic gene? I wanted to know the answers, but at the same time I didn't want to be the living proof of said answers for many years.

"But you don't know that," he hissed urgently. I put my hands on his wrists to pull them away from my face.

"Now you're the one scaring the shit out of me," I began, causing his bewilderment to feign in a fit of taking offense because he knew I was mocking him.

"But you don't kn—"

"I got my period the Monday we came back, dude," I said plainly.

"Ew, ew, ew, EW!" he whined while quickly getting up. I smiled triumphantly regardless of the actual embarrassment I felt.

"Now that that's out of the way, do you want to tell me why you've been going crazy the past few days?" I asked him as he tried to regain his maturity. "I doubt it's because you might have gotten laid at camp and that's why you're scared."

He narrowed his eyes as he walked back over to the bed and got close to my face.

"For the record, I would not have gotten laid; I would've made sweet love to you," he told me before climbing back in bed and pulling me to lay next to him. I rolled my eyes and laughed at how cheesy that was. "And all this is scaring me because you're so strong."

I poked his extremely large bicep.

"Strong? Um, have you seen these muscles?" I asked, squeezing his arm. He playfully rolled his eyes.

"Not like that," he said. "Your wolf...she's strong. Probably stronger than I was as a new werewolf."

"Why do I feel like that's somehow a backhanded compliment?"

"Because maybe it is," he admitted and I rolled over to frown at him. "What? You think it's easy for me to admit that?"

"Do you think it's easy to believe that?" I countered. He reached out to grab my hand.

"Look, even though I know I was born to basically tell you you're special everyday—"

"Which you don't—"

"—shut up," he cut-in and I poorly hid my grin. "You are special, Ash. Even if I don't know how."

"What do you mean how?" I questioned.

"Well for starters, you're a female bloodline wolf—"

"I'm from a family of mates so—"

"You aren't very big—"

"Um, I'm a girl; sorry I'm not six feet tall with pythons for arms," I frowned.

"Your first phase was on a night that wasn't a full moon—"

"Coincidence."

"You can also read my mind at will—"

"We're mates, so maybe that isn't a bad thing," I reasoned and he gave me a pressing look.

"If you want to base things off of being mates, then why aren't you part of my pack?" he wondered.

"I am—"

"You're not," he hissed more of a way to shut me up than reveal his betrayal. "When I was trying to pull you away from Stella, it was because in your anger, I saw your rank through your eyes. Your power isn't linked to my pack, so—"

"My rank?" I asked and wondered if that was determined by the battling human eyes that all wolves had. I had seen and identified Andrew's to be bright blue for being an Alpha and at times I saw Preston's change into a grey-silver for being a second-in-command, but Cassandra identified Ryder's red ones for being a True Alpha. So then what were mine? Ryder's humanly brown eyes quivered between mine before I got up and approached the mirror hanging on his wall near his shelves of trophies. I tried to change them, but couldn't. It only served as if it stirred my wolf from her slumber and she wasn't having it. When I spun around to look at Ryder, he had messaged me with a memory of when he had grabbed me and ordered me to look at him before he was trying to pull me back to Great Hall. That's when I was seeing through his eyes (which I had enough of that night) and for a split second right after he yelled "Ash, look at me, goddammit!" I saw my eyes flicker into a purple color.