Mate - 11

Jerzy’s only question is, “Are you sure?”

He shakes his head, because no, of course he isn’t.

“I hope I’m wrong about her.”

“And if you aren’t?” Karolina asks.

It changes nothing.

Present day

I N THE AFTERNOON, I HOBBLE DOWNSTAIRS WEARING A THICK sweater and rolled- up sweats that belong to someone much more vertically gifted than me. My headache pounds through the roof of my mouth. I feel thoroughly banged up. Whether it’s from playing hide-and-seek with Bob the Vamp, from sleeping in a bed of ceramic, or from the simple curse of living in my unpredictable sack of meat, I have no clue.

Look at me. Spoiled for choice.

“What is your preferred morning upper?” Amanda asks with a wide smile when I find the kitchen after some wandering. “Coffee? Tea? Methamphetamine?”

I lift my eyebrows. “Is that a common breakfast option in Were B and Bs?”

“I could synthesize some real quick.”

She’s joking, I think. Not sure. Faced with proof of the existence of stuff like biologically mandated mates, and hybrids, and the legality of child beauty pageants, it’s hard to discount . . . anything. I’m a single internet rabbit hole away from becoming a Hollow Earther. “I’m good, thanks. Trying to avoid stimulants. Where did Koen go?” I woke up deeply aware that he wasn’t around— not in the house, not roaming the woods outside, not anywhere nearby. I’d say GPS tracking is a Were superpower, but mine doesn’t extend to anyone but him.

“Off having a chat with a few of the huddle leaders.”

“Aren’t you a huddle leader?”

“Me? Oh, because I’m a second? Nope. But that’s how it works in Lowe’s pack, right?”

“I think so, yeah.” I take a seat and hug my legs to my chest. The temperature is chilly, though one wouldn’t be able to guess from Amanda’s shorts and tank top. Clearly one of us is a real Were. World’s easiest find the intruder . “How do you guys do things?” I ask, then rush to add, “If you’re allowed to tell me.”

“Of course I am. You’re one of us.” She reaches across the table, briefly covering my hand with hers. Her flesh against mine feels so intensely wrong , it’s all I can do not to free myself in repulsion— a totally appropriate reaction to a kind gesture. I’ve never been particularly physical, but this hormonal stuff is making me as avoidant as Misery. “Our pack is divided into geography-based huddles, just like the Southwest. But being a huddle leader doesn’t translate to becoming one of Koen’s seconds.”

“Then, are the seconds elected separately?”

“Elected. Ha.” She slaps the table. “We’re seconds because Koen wants us to be, period. We do things a bit differently here. Less democracy, and more . . . despotism?” Her grin is unapologetic. “The Northwest is made up of five peripheral huddles and a core. The five huddle leaders make up the Assembly, which is a council of sorts. They bring their territories’ needs to the Alpha, advise him. Keep him in check. That kind of stuff.”

“If you have the assembly, why do you still put up with an Alpha?”

She chuckles. “We’re not Human, Serena. We are biologically hardwired to coalesce around a worthy figure.” She tilts her head at me. “You’re a Were. Not a full one, maybe, but you feel it, too, don’t you? The importance Koen has as a symbol. Unity. Strength. Safety. I guess it’s like faith, in a way, but also not at all, and . . .” She lets out a small laugh. “I don’t know how to explain it, but you understand, right?” I don’t know if I do. Not the way she’d like me to, at least. I nod anyway, and she seems pleased. “Koen will be back soon. He just needed to discuss a . . . situation.”

I bury my hands inside my sleeves. “Am I the situation?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.” Heat creeps up my cheeks. “I promise I don’t go about my life believing that I’m the center of the universe.”

“You kinda are, at the moment. Honestly, if I were kidnapped and man-hunted at the rate you are, I’d assume, too. But this is something else— hopefully nothing to worry about.”

Like the vast majority of Humans, I grew up suspecting that if I ever met a Were, I’d be skewered into a kebab before I could politely inquire about their customs and traditions. Most information publicly available on them was speculation, often contradictory, always incomplete. I get it, Weres not wanting other species to know their business— sworn enemies and all that. Still, it was very inconvenient for me. When I realized that I was one of them, their secrecy made it impossible to predict what their reaction to a hybrid would be, and that’s what prevented me from reaching out and asking for help. But even in my hardest days, when my body clawed at me with needs that I couldn’t decipher and I contemplated walking into a pack’s territory, waving a white flag, and letting the chips fall where they may, I never, not once , considered approaching the Northwest.

Out of all the packs on the North American continent, they are the least conflict prone, mostly because their territory doesn’t abut the Vampyres’. They are, however, surrounded by various Human settlements, and while they don’t exactly cohost monthly block parties, I could find no indication that their borders have historically been as contentious as the ones between the Southwest and the Humans. The Northwest pack has perfected the art of, as Koen would put it, minding their goddamn business.

And yet any mention of them induces brick-shitting. In Humans, and in their own kind.

It’s the zero strike policy , Alex told me while I was staying at Misery’s. She and Lowe would frequently disappear to do newlywed things that, in my humble experience, should have taken no longer than fifteen minutes. Alex noticed me listlessly wandering around the garden and graciously took me under his wing for a couple of remedial history lessons. They don’t tolerate any invasion.

Isn’t that true of every pack?

Most packs will kill the intruders and call it a day. They won’t line their perimeters with vertically impaled corpses.

A long pause. Impaled on . . . ?

Oh, you know. Just your regular, um, stakes?

Why would they do that?

To remind their neighbors of the exact location of their borders. He looked as nauseous as I felt. You have to admit, Koen’s logic is solid.

I don’t think I have to, actually.

Anyway, they’re equal opportunity haters. They’ve done this with Humans, but also with the Canada and Midwest packs. So no one messes with them anymore.

So nice, to discover that the dude who’d told me I was his mate was impalement happy. Koen and Lowe are allies, though , I said. To soothe myself.

Yup. The North- and Southwest were never enemies, but they became close allies because Koen’s aunt was the mate of Roscoe, our former Alpha. When Lowe turned twelve and started feeling a bit too Alpha for Roscoe, Roscoe sent him to the Northwest. An exile- in- everything-but-name type of deal.

And Koen took him in?

Yeah. Basically raised him. Rumor has it that Koen didn’t want to play nanny, but it was obvious that Lowe would one day be Alpha, and he couldn’t let him become too fucked up. Alex laughed, but I wasn’t so certain that Koen had been joking.

They’re different, though , I mused. Lowe is much more about diplomacy, and less about . . . impalement.

They are. But I was in the Northwest for several months a couple of summers ago, doing some IT work. I get why Koen’s considered a great Alpha.

By whom? I asked skeptically. Himself? It was important to me that Koen Alexander was a mediocre . . . man, Were, Alpha. My pride and self-respect were at stake.

Everyone, really. He reunited the Northwest after the pack had splintered into different factions. All of a sudden, I could see the faint green undertones of Alex’s skin. He smelled warm and nervous and . . . scared? By the way, I heard about the mate thing.

Ah. Yeah. What an unfortunate direction for this chat.

And . . . you know how the first week you were here, I kind of asked you out?

I do. In my dreams, I violently slammed my skull against the wall.

You said no. And it’s totally fine. But would it be possible for you to . . . A deep breath. Never, ever, ever mention it to Koen?

Oh. Alex, Koen and I are not . . .

And if you do mention it to him, could you maybe give me a heads- up? So then I can, you know, burn my fingerprints with my sister’s curling iron and go underground and maybe buy some fake documents—

I could have an orgy on Koen’s yard, and he wouldn’t give a shit. And . . . I liked Alex. He was, most days, the smartest person in the room. He reminded me of the kind of guys I used to date— friendly, kind, cute. And the idea of touching him made my stomach roll and my insides putrefy. I’m sorry I said no, but you do not want to hook up with someone who doesn’t even know what species box to tick on the census form.

“Is there any strife?” I ask Amanda now. “Between Koen and the huddle leaders?”

“No. Or, no more so than usual. Koen does thrive on pissing people off— it’s his main pastime.”

“Is it okay to say that about your Alpha?”

“If it’s true. Which it totally is.” She grins and rotates her shoulders, arching up in a stretch. I can’t quite swallow a gasp when my eyes stumble on her nails, elongated into sharp, lethal weapons. When she yawns, her canines are no longer blunt. “Oh, shit.” She laughs and immediately backtracks her shift. “It’s been months since I last was in human form for over a day. Not used to it, I guess.”

Ana told me something similar. When I was in the north, Uncle Koen spent four days in wolf form and never changed back , she said, sounding the same mix of titillated and scandalized as when I’d explained to her that no, Sparkles was not going to have kittens, because his testicles resided somewhere at the bottom of a vet’s composting bin. RIP, Sparkles Jr. and Sparklette. And it was a new moon! Sooo cool!

Here, wolf is the default. Human form is somewhere between an unavoidable hassle and an embarrassing constraint that affects only the least dominant Weres. “Feel free to shift,” I tell Amanda with a smile.

“Why don’t we go on a run together?”

My stomach drops. “I . . .”

“Wait, you have that call, right?”

“What call?”

“The Southwest geneticist. Juno? She has something to share, but Koen wanted me to remind you that you don’t have to talk to her if you prefer not to. Shall we just go frolic in mud?” Amanda asks hopefully, and as little as I want to discuss genetics . . .

I take a big-girl breath. “Actually, I’m dying to catch up with Juno.”

A MEETING WITH JUNO THE GENETICIST— LOVELY ALLITERATION — can mean only one thing: she inserted my DNA sample into a Big Science Machine, and the Big Science Machine spat out information about my blood relatives.

For my entire life, I’ve felt ambivalent about learning anything regarding my parents. Not your average orphan’s attitude— though maybe it is? I’m sure some of us seek to uncover our past to better define our future, and all that therapy stuff, while others are as blasé as I am. Children raised like me develop a unique brand of pragmatism, born of the knowledge that nothing will stand as a shield between us and reality. On my second-grade career day, when I told a teacher that I wanted to become a journalist, and he laughed, saying that I was more likely to be found dead in a ditch by eighteen, no helicopter mother waltzed in to have a stern talking-to with the principal. When the cafeteria served us spoiled chicken and the dormitory looked like a splash pad of projectile vomiting, no loving father made sure we stayed hydrated. When the creepy orderly with the easily discoverable felony convictions insisted on watching us change after PE, no probation officer came to arrest him.

We had to take care of ourselves, so we did. Some pining for our lost families was involved, sure, but holding on to an idea, just like holding a grudge, takes up a significant amount of energy, one that could be used to . . . well, bully other orphans, in my less-than-uncommon experience. If Ruth from the group home had been more in touch with her emotions, maybe she wouldn’t have forced me to drink toilet water for refusing to give up my sandwich.

So I haven’t spent my life searching for my parents, because there’s little room for this to work out in a satisfying way. Either they wanted to get rid of me (tragic, tear-jerking, the stuff where trauma thrives) or they were forced to (tragic, tear-jerking, the stuff where trauma thrives). Neither option comes with a happy ending. Sure, there’s room for variation in the levels of rejection, self-loathing, and generic mal de vivre I’ll experience as my backstory unfolds. But unless Juno’s report comes with a time-travel machine and a redo in which Mommy, Daddy, Fido the goldendoodle, and I picket-fence it in the suburbs— and maybe in which I get to spit in Ruth’s coffee just once— I doubt any good will come of it.

Ignorance, bliss, that kind of stuff.

And yet , about two months ago, after hearing my prognosis from Dr. Henshaw, I decided to not return home to Misery right away. Instead, I stopped by Juno’s place. And told her that, at last, I was ready for her to compare my DNA with the available databases, to see if she could find any relative of mine.

Maybe being reminded of my own mortality made me curious. Maybe I’m afraid to be insubstantial, and that no part of me will be left once I’m gone. Maybe I’m just filling time, sitting at the desk in the bedroom where I slept last night, wrapped in a thick blanket. I’d love for Misery to be present for this, but it’s the middle of day, when Vampyres are at their sleepiest. I don’t want to bother her. So when I accept the call and see her next to Juno, mouth wide open in a huge, fanged yawn, my heart squeezes.

“She does not need to be here,” Juno tells me, pointing at her.

“Eh,” Misery says. “I kinda do.”

Juno ignores her. “I explained the concept of confidentiality to her multiple times.”

“Serena wants me here. Right?”

“She can stay, I guess,” I say with an exaggerated, disaffected tone that has her blowing me a kiss.

Juno is almost pathologically humorless. Nice, though, and the flowchart I use to decide whether to consider someone a friend is made up of a single question: Have they tried to kill me or Misery? No? Fantastic. Let’s have a spa day. Go zip-lining. Overshare about recurring UTIs.

“First, I’d like to say how sorry I am about your experience with the Human genetic counselor. He was being interviewed as an expert and had no right to disclose information about your reproductive health to the public.”

“Oh.” I swallow. “It’s fine. I’m sure they didn’t mean— ”

“It’s unacceptable, and your and Koen’s anger is perfectly justified. He’s been suspended, pending investigation.” When did Juno talk with Koen about my anger? “Secondly, I’m sorry it took me this long to contact you. I’m sure you’ve been anxious about the results— ”

“She absolutely has not,” Misery informs her cheerfully. “Her avoidance is the stuff psychiatrists’ dreams are made of.”

Juno blinks. “Well, Serena, either way, the reason this took months is that I had to run your father’s DNA through several Were databases, and— ”

“My father? You mean . . . my father was a Were?”

“Yes.” She seems taken aback. “I thought you knew. It was widely shared in the Human news. Maddie felt that the public would want to know, and— I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault if I spent the last few months hiding inside a walnut, and . . .” I shake my head and wait for my perception of myself to adjust. I never fully articulated it, but somewhere, in a corner of my mind made up of no words and many, many vibes, I assumed that the Were was my mother. Probably because that’s the case with . . .

“I’m not like her,” I say. The relief is a physical, tangible thing.

“Not like who?”

“Ana.”

Juno nods. “Indeed.”

“Does it mean that . . . Does it mean that we’ll have different outcomes, too?”

“Outcomes? Of what?”

“Just . . . different challenges. Or issues.” She won’t have a terminal diagnosis at twenty-five, will she?

“Presumably. We’re working on a sample of two, but you already manifest in different ways. You are closer to Human— redder blood, lower basal temperature, less acute senses. Ana may not shift, but she couldn’t pass for a Human the way you did at her age. So, yes. We can assume that different genotypes will lead to different phenotypes.”

Misery tilts her head. “You seem happy about it.”

“Oh, no, I’m not.” I notice my grin on the screen. I look on the verge of swing dancing on top of the keyboard. Probably because I am. “Just tired. Go ahead, please.” Juno buys it. Misery is somewhat trickier, but I’ve been hiding shit from her for years now. For her own good , I remind myself, careful not to look at her as I change the topic. “How can you tell that my father was the Were?”

“We took a look at your mitochondrial DNA.”

“Right. And mitochondrial DNA is mostly passed down from mother to child.” Noticing Misery’s thunderstruck expression, I ask, “What?”

“Nothing. Just, look at you. Being all sciency.”

“I had a mandatory biology class in college.”

“And you retained knowledge from that low C?”

“Stay out of my transcripts.”

“But they’re such a riveting bedtime read.”

“ And it was a C- plus.”

“You woman in STEM.”

She deserves being flipped off, and Juno’s throat clearing signals her agreement. “I used DNA comparison to find your genetic relatives, but in the Southwest, there are no individuals with DNA segments identical to yours.”

“Does that mean . . . no relatives?”

“We can be reasonably sure that your father was not Southwest.”

“Bummer.” Misery looks disappointed, like she wanted for the two of us to have this in common. For her home to be my home.

“So I expanded my search to other packs,” Juno continues. “Which complicated things.”

Misery snorts. “The other Alphas giving you access to their precious little data was not on my bingo card.”

“That’s good, because they didn’t. However, once Lowe reached out, most of them did agree. The ones who didn’t . . . they came around later, after Koen had a chat with them.” It’s obvious from her blank face that chat is not the right word for what happened. “This is where things get messy. I wasn’t given direct access to the databases— their geneticists ran Serena’s DNA. We have no choice but to trust that they did their job well and that their databases are accurately maintained.”

“And you do?”

She hesitates. “I think so, yes. Serena is . . . a hot commodity, for many reasons. If a pack had any ground to claim her, they absolutely would. And they did not.”

Misery scratches her head. “Dude, did you spring up from a cabbage patch?”

“Maybe? Could I be from another continent?”

“That’s one explanation. Lowe has contacts in Europe, so we’re exploring that. More likely . . .” Juno pauses. Her eyes meet mine. “There’s one American pack whose structure has gone through several transformations. Most of its records were lost.”

“Okay. And will you tell us which pack that is, or— ”

“No need.” I interrupt Misery, because I already know. “It’s the Northwest, isn’t it?”