Perfectly Imperfect

Chapter Eight: Tap Those Sparkly Red Shoes, We're Going Home

Damien's P.O.V
"I'll go home."

My heart plummeted as she whispered those words. What is wrong with me? I prided myself on being relatively fun and upbeat for an Alpha. But since I stepped foot out of that packhouse my wolf had been going crazy and I felt positively dejected. I think it had something to do with the mysteriously frail human sat in my father's office.

What is wrong with you? I asked my wolf for the hundredth time since coming home.
He whined in response and began to pace. I don't know. I feel... irritated. 

You're acting like somebody took your favourite chew toy, behave. 

Could she be our mate? I asked him. I had been toying with the idea on the run home. An Alpha bloodline wouldn't recognise mates until they turned 20, I was 19. The current running theory was to allow for more time, and fewer distractions, to be trained for the role of Alpha. The perfect timeline being them meeting their mates and having a year to mate before taking over the Pack between 21-25, the start of their prime. Normal Werewolves could meet their mates almost at any time, although the average seemed to be 18.

My wolfed hummed gently, he was a scary guy and I was definitely glad I was part of him so I would never have to face him in a fight, because he definitely terrified me at times. But at the mention of mates he always turned all gooey and began purring.
I guess she could be, she is pretty cute. He was still purring like a lovesick puppy.

The thing is, not only is it impossible to have a human as a mate, as in it has never been done in history. But also the mate of an Alpha had to be, and always was, invariably strong in some way. I thought of my mother who often told me and Tom bedtime stories of her old pack when she used to be the Head Warrior. Those were my favourite to listen to.

The reason for this went beyond the continuation of a strong and healthy bloodline by passing down the superior genes, when the Luna is initiated in the pack it becomes noticeably stronger. The science behind it wasn't known. Perhaps it was just pure motivation for the pack, and the Alpha as her mate, to protect and impress her. Maybe there actually was something to the Luna's genes, nobody knew. But it was undisputed, packs with an Alpha and Luna were stronger. And that's why Alpha's tended not to pass the title down until their eldest son or daughter had met their mates. There were even recorded cases of Alpha's passing their title to a middle sibling in the event they found their mate first. 

I had no doubt that the tiny human sat huddled in my fathers large leather chair was strong, moreso for a human. She survived far beyond the odds. From weeks of endless searching, we had learnt people in that pack usually had a shelf life date of around 2 weeks at most, and that's only if they survive the first day. That malnourished little human had surpassed that and survived over 5 years in the hands of the deranged psychopaths. 

I shivered at the prospect of what she probably went through. But it just wouldn't make sense for her to be my mate, even though I had this weird desperation to hope that she was. A human wouldn't strengthen the pack the same way, it was undocumented in history that humans could even have a mate. The title of Alpha would then pass to Tom, even though I had trained so hard my entire life for it. It also meant that even if by some chance she was my mate, she would be unable to communicate with the pack and there would be a giant red cross on her back.

Then there's the fact that I would greatly outlive her, werewolf lifespans are considerably longer than humans, although not immortal. Werewolves often went insane at the loss of a mate, which would then be my inevitable not-so-distant future. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. It was logistically impossible. All because she wasn't part werewolf. She had all the makings of a great Luna. Hell, she even saved my pack members when I couldn't. I shook my head, there was no use thinking about it.