Chapter 7 Oh, Shush

• "You are completely insane," I looked around for something to throw at him but came up empty-handed.
• "The wolves are dicks, but they do understand the human world. If he bites you, you'll become one of us. Or die, but that's not likely."
• "You're talking about them like they're separate from you.”
• I'd deal with the death thing afterward.
• "They are separate from us."
• My eyebrows lifted.
• "I know it sounds crazy." Ford jumped up on the counter, his gigantic legs dangling off the edge.
• Damn, he was gorgeous.
• Jesse growled at him, and he slid back to his feet.
• "A werewolf is like this." He grabbed the salt and pepper shakers off the counter and held them toward me. "This is the human." He shook the salt around. "This is the wolf." He shook the pepper. "Two completely separate living beings. A long time ago, a wolf and a human became friends. They pissed off a witch coven a damn powerful one and the witches combined their magic to trap the wolf and human in one body."
• Ford plopped the saltshaker on top of the peppershaker. "They created the first werewolf and assumed he wouldn't be able to reproduce, which added another level to the punishment. But nature has rules, and not even witches can go against those rules. His wolf found a human mate and hunted her, then when he bit her, she became like him. They popped out a couple of babies, and the babies found human mates and popped out more babies, and so on." He dropped the saltshakers.
• "You're two beings in one body; that doesn't make you two separate beings," I countered.
• "Well, actually," he grabbed the salt and pepper again, stacking them on top of each other like he had before. "Imagine it like this. The wolf and the human share one form, but two entire bodies and souls and minds. No magic makes it possible for us to communicate, so we're stuck. The wolves are stuck with humans, watching the world through the human's eyes without a way to interact with the person they're pretty much riding inside, and the humans are stuck with animals they have no way to control or communicate with."
• Well, that did make more sense.
• "Then why do you call the wolf Jesse?"
• "That was the name his parents gave him." Ford shrugged. "We're trapped in one form; it makes sense to go by one name."
• "So when you say the wolf is hunting me..."
• "Jesse the wolf is hunting you. He'll have complete control of their body until he bites you," Ford confirmed. "But he wants you to want to be bitten because history has proved that if you're okay with it, you've got a better chance at surviving."
• "And what's going to happen when Jesse the man takes over for Jesse the wolf?" I checked.
• Ford dropped the salt and pepper again and scratched the back of his neck.
• Was he blushing?
• "The mating call works on werewolves both in wolf and human form. For wolves, it's the hunting. For humans, it's lust."
• "Lust?" My voice raised an octave.
• Ford nodded.
• I waited for more of an explanation, but it didn't come.
• "You're telling me that after this wolf bites me, I'm going to have an ultra-horny guy trying to rape me?!" I demanded.
• "No, no, no." Ford held his hands out in front of himself, telling me to stop. "The wolves inside us are focused on one thing: family. It's the center of our society, and why we work in packs. Me and the other guys you met, we're all Jesse's pack."
• He explained, "There's this human idea about alphas being assholes who charm the pants off everything with a vagina and take what they want no matter what, but that's not how wolves are. In the wild, an alpha wolf is the dad of the pack. His mate and his kids make up the rest of the pack, and he protects them above all else. That's why Jesse the wolf was growling at us when you hit your head in the van; his priority is protecting you, his mate. He could never rape you or anyone else, because he could never hurt you."
• "He's going to bite me.” I folded my arms. "I'd call that hurting me."
• "That's not something he can control. Nature forces it on him. His hunt is his attempt to ready you for the bite... and werewolf venom numbs pain, so it doesn't hurt you. The numbing venom even makes your first shift painless, unlike every other one will be."
• Yeah, that made me want to be a werewolf.
• "So Jesse the man has no way to communicate with his wolf right now?" I checked.
• "Right.”
• "And the wolf is just a really intelligent animal."
• "Yep." He popped the "p" with his mouth.
• "Basically, like a dog," I added.
• "Basically."
• "This is a lot," I groaned.
• I would still try to escape, but it was looking like the wolf might outlast me when it came to my escape attempts.
• "If all of this is definite, and there's nothing I can do to stop it, why can't I just bring the wolf back to my place with me?" I asked.
• Ford paused.
• Ha.
• Looked like I'd caught him.
• "This is Jesse's territory. He's comfortable here, and for a wolf, comfort means patience. If you stay here with him, you'll buy yourself some more time before nature forces him to bite you. And the longer the hunt goes on, the longer you stay human," he explained.
• Why couldn't they have told me all that shit before kidnapping me?
• I mean, I probably wouldn't have listened. Even though I was now listening, I wasn't taking every detail in at the moment.
• But if they’d told me, it would've gone a long way toward making me less terrified.
• "If that's the case, I don't see why I can't keep going to school. I could take Jesse with me, and come back here to do my homework afterward," I explained.
• The conversation was starting to feel a bit too Stockholm Syndrome-ish.
• The wolf growled.
• Ford chuckled. "If you were working with a human, you probably could. But a wolf would have to believe you were going to come back, and that would take time."
• "What if I take a human with me too?" I looked at Jesse. "Ford could come along in the car. Attendance isn't mandatory in a couple of my classes, but there are two that I can't miss if I want A's. And I don't want A's; I need A's."
• The wolf growled.
• That would be a no.
• "She's just going to keep trying to escape if you don't let her go, buddy." Ford gestured to Jesse.
• Jesse growled again, this time at Ford. And this time, much more menacingly.
• Ford headed for the door. "Alright, I'll get out of your hair. Dinner's going to be ready in twenty minutes, so come over or we'll come get you," he called over his shoulder as he left.
• The door shut behind him, and I turned to Jesse.
• "I won't ever give you a chance if you cost me my scholarship," I told him, my voice low. "I have to be in class at 8 AM on Friday, and you can either take me or I can try to get there myself."
• The wolf huffed.
• I left him at the foot of the couch, carefully heading back to the kitchen to check out the clothes Ford had left in the kitchen for me.
• Plain black leggings and a faded concert t-shirt waited with a simple thong and sports bra. It felt weird to accept underwear from the mom of the wolf who'd abducted me, but I had to wear something. And the bra and underwear had tags, reassuring me that the stuff hadn't been worn before.
• I had a fairly eclectic style and wore some of everything when it came to underwear and clothes since I'd always shopped at thrift stores for everything but bras and panties. I would pretty much wear anything, so an old band T-shirt and leggings were great.
• I walked slowly to the laundry machines and checked my clothes clean, but still wet. After switching them to the dryer, I carried the new clothes to the bathroom.
• Quickly, I tried to close the bathroom door behind me. Jesse snarled and shoved his way in, forcing through the door and brushing past my hip to make space for himself.
• "Seriously?" I groaned, scrubbing my hand over my face. "Can you not fight me for just one minute?"
• He gestured with his nose and I looked at what he was pointing to.
• The window.
• A skinny blip of a thing, above the shower/tub combo.
• "Really? My thigh couldn't even fit through that window, let alone this monstrosity I call a head," I pointed to my head, which I admittedly found too large for my body. Though I'd heard from other girls that they felt the same way, and from others that they felt the opposite too, so I only felt slightly crazy because of it.
• He growled at me, standing up on his back paws. His front paws met my shoulders, and he licked up my face.
• "You have got to stop doing that," I grumbled. "I get it; you like me. But you kidnapped me, so the liking is not mutual."
• He whined.
• "Oh, shush." I pushed him toward the door. "Regardless of whether my head is oversized or normal sized, it's not fitting through that window. So scram."