Twizzlers (MxMxM)

Chapter 4 - Pancakes Are Good

  "So about this mate situation, what will happen next?" Evander asked.

And to be honest? I had no clue.

"Right..." I started, not sure where to go with this now. "Well, I'm a beta, like I said. I have to be with my pack and help my alpha lead."

"I see. I work at a brewery company, but I wouldn't mind giving that up to do something else to be within your pack," Evander said.

I looked up at him in slight shock. "So, you're willing to be our mate?"

"Of course. I wouldn't reject either of you unless I absolutely had to, and you've done nothing wrong," he said. "Besides, I've lived in the city for long enough and worked at the same company since I was practically newly-turned. A change in scenery is more than welcome."

His words reminded me of something else. "What about your immortality? Aubrey and I aren't immortal."

Though, to be fair, Aubrey would probably outlive me anyway. He was a spirit of nature. Even if he wasn't immortal, he could easily live a few centuries before dying peacefully. Ugh, so then I'd be the one left out of things. That wasn't something I wanted to think about. Stupid human lifespan.

Evander hummed, rubbing his chin. "We can cross that bridge when we get there. For now, let's focus on the issue at hand: who were those people? What was that group doing selling people like that?"

It made me immensely relieved to know that Evander had nothing to do with the Eye. If he was truly clueless, then he must've been innocent like he claimed to be when I first met him in the theater.

"They were a cult called the Eye. They've been attacking the werewolf packs in our state for some reason. We don't quite know why yet. The place we were in was one of the houses they own for illegal trading of all sorts, but they specialized in..." I glanced over at Aubrey so he could continue if he wanted.

"They would take us away from our families and bring us to the house. Sometimes, they'd sell us within a few weeks. Sometimes, they'd send us off to a different house for other purposes. But the special ones they kept around to work until they found a good reason to use us. I took care of the landscaping for years before they decided to..." he paused to look away from us. "Sell me."

Evander slowly leaned back into his chair, his face closed off. I wish I could tell what he was thinking, but his mask was firmly in place. There was at least little doubt that his mind was going a hundred miles per hour. "I see. Well, I can assure you I had nothing to do with them. This is disturbing, though. And tonight was...?"

Aubrey slowly slid off my lap to rest his head against my shoulder. I would never tell any of my packmates this - especially Erin or anyone else in our friend group - but I was really liking the physical contact between Aubrey and me. Erin and I are usually touching in some way or another when we're alone - it brought me comfort for some odd reason. I didn't do it around anyone else, or with anyone else, because I had an image to uphold. Aubrey and Evander, however, didn't know about my image, so I could create a new one with them; a real one.

"Tonight, we began our attacks. The packs convened a little while ago to discuss the Eye and decided to take matters into our own hands. For now, they haven't begun any out-of-state attacks or aggravated other species, so we figured we could silently destroy them. Or at least, as silently as possible. Other non-human groups will no doubt hear about it at some point," I answered Evander's unfinished question.

"And why my particular Home?" Aubrey asked, and I was reminded of how Kit called his prison a "Home," too.

"The Eye took someone from us that had just escaped his Home, so we figured now was as good a time as any to do something."