Humans Don't Get Mates

The Other Packs Don't Know

"Hey Monya, what do you wanna do for your birthday?" Mom asked me as I came down for breakfast, my two best friends following behind me. They had spent the night at my place in celebration of school ending and summer officially beginning. One more year of high school and then we'd be free.

"Sulk," I deadpanned.

"But it's your eighteenth! You've gotta do something exciting!" Carly pulled out a chair at the kitchen bar and gratefully took the plate of food my mom handed her.

"I'm not like you all, ya know. I'm a normal bean. A basic bitch. No wolf in this body." I poked my forehead.

"But eighteenth birthdays are still important, even for regular humans! It's a big deal, right Luna?" Alex brought my mom back into the conversation.

"Yes, it is a big deal, Monya. I only have one daughter, and she only has one eighteenth birthday."

"You've said that about every single one of my birthdays. I won't fall for that anymore."

"Monya, why do you hate celebrations for yourself but love celebrating others?"

"Agh, don't start in on the deep stuff this early in the morning!" I groaned and covered my face with my hands.

"It's because she doesn't think she's special," Carly spoke through a mouth of scrambled eggs.

"That is classified information, Carly!" I pinched her nose so that she couldn't breathe for a few seconds, letting go right before she opened her mouth to drop the food out.

"Honestly though, it just feels awkward when the focus is on me. I mean, I don't mind the focus on me as long as it isn't, like, officially on me, you know?" I looked around at the faces watching me. It seemed that they did not know. What a pity.

"Fine," I sighed, "as long as you don't invite the whole pack."

My friends squealed in delight just as Roger walked in. My older brother had heard the last bit that I said—and probably the conversation before it, too, knowing his fine-tuned senses.

"Hey, Roggie-Doggie," I greeted him as Mom handed him a much larger, fuller plate than she had given me.

"Hey bitch," he didn't miss a beat.

"Roger!" It seemed that his response had incited our mother's fury, "Do not address your sister like that!"

"It's okay, Mom! It's our sibling wolf-talk," I grinned my I'm-so-happy-to-be-a-part-of-an-inside-joke grin, ensuring that any further protest on her part would be an attempt to deny me what fragile sense of belonging I had amongst my werewolf family.

Truthfully, this sense of belonging wasn't fragile at all. It had taken years of loving devotion and reassurance, but the life of being adopted by the alpha and luna of the Silver wolf pack was something that I had grown accustomed to. The rest of the pack had gotten used to it, too, and the issue of me being a human was ancient news. I got along with (mostly) everyone, and (mostly) everyone got along with me.

No one could afford to be openly hostile, anyway, because my parents did not hesitate to defend their adopted daughter at even the slightest hint of animosity towards me.

"Anyway," I continued, changing the direction of the conversation for Roger's sake, "when do you plan on doing this birthday thing? I know I said you couldn't invite the whole pack, but I get it if you need to. I'm sure you'll have to invite the higher-ups from the neighboring packs too, right?" I looked at my mom and laughed when I noticed her guilt-ridden expression.

"It's alright, you know. That's part of being a leader, right? We've just gotta roll with the punches." I winked at my mom, glad that my lightheartedness was able to ease her tension a bit.

"Are you inviting everyone from our pack?" Alex groaned.

"An omega like you shouldn't be complaining," Roger replied. "You're lucky to even be friends with the daughter of the alpha, you know."

"Shut up, asshat," I yelled at him.

"Monya! Language!" Luna Grace was not happy with my manners (or lack thereof).

"Sorry, Mom," I bowed my head in penitence, simultaneously flipping off my brother so that she couldn't see. Carly snorted.

"Since she's the daughter of the alpha of the Silver wolf pack, does that mean we're inviting packs further than we did last time?" Roger looked concerned.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"There's a rule that when an alpha's daughter turns eighteen, all alphas and betas without a mate have to be invited. It's suggested for the daughters of betas, too, but not mandatory."

"But I'm not a werewolf. I won't be anyone's mate."

"But they don't know that. It'll look like we're trying to spite them if we don't invite them, but if we do invite them, they'll realize you're not a real wolf."

"So what?"

"So they'll be pissed about the fact that they traveled all this way just to go to a human's birthday party, that's what."

"Why don't we just tell them that I'm a normal human in the invitation, then? It's not like it's a secret or anything, right?"

When no one responded, I looked at each person and realized that I must be terribly wrong. Maybe it was a secret.

I suddenly remembered how Mom always doused me in perfume when we had events where we would meet with other packs' leaders. I realized now—it was so they wouldn't notice my lack of a wolf's scent. As the daughter of the alpha, I'd be expected to have an even stronger scent than others. That was why Mom made sure to cover it up—the scent that wasn't there.

This was going to be a problem. The alphas in neighboring packs were older and weren't as sharp as they used to be, but if we invited packs with younger alphas and betas from further out, they would definitely notice that something was up. And then what?

Why had we been hiding the fact that I wasn't a wolf from all the other packs? The Silver wolf pack seemed perfectly fine with it. What was the problem with others finding out? I looked into my mom's eyes and saw, for the first time in my life, that she was afraid.

I made her afraid.

I had to solve this. And I only had two and a half months to do it.