She started leading me down the hall from which she’d entered. After a few steps, she stumbled and freed my arm. With relief, the lights in my mind extinguished and I concentrated on her words.
“I asked Sam to bring you so you and I can talk. As I said, there is no one else like us that we’ve found. I came here when I was younger than you… long story… and met Thomas, the pack’s leader. It was a very hard adjustment with a huge learning curve on both our sides. I don’t want you to have to face any of that on your own.” She led us down a second hallway and stopped in front of another closed door. “We’ll introduce you slowly to this new world you’re now a part of. If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask them.”
She opened the door to a small studio apartment saying it was a work in progress. It definitely qualified as rustic, but I didn’t mind. It had a separate bedroom, which Sam insisted I take. He took the foldout couch.
The small windowless bedroom just barely fit a twin-sized bed and nightstand with lamp. I wondered if it had once been a walk-in closet converted for extra privacy. Not that I complained. I guessed sleeping in a small room on a real bed ranked higher than Sam’s pullout bed.
An even smaller bathroom right off the main living area completed the suite.
Sam woke me after a few hours of sleep.
Despite Charlene’s assurances that my stay didn’t include finding a boyfriend, I still felt leery that Sam hadn’t told me about the compatibility thing. I’d thought I could trust him and his omission stung a little.
I wanted to excuse it - maybe it’d slipped his mind - but it’d taken eight hours to get here. Granted, most of that time we’d talked about the progress they’d made in the last thirty years and the customs that they no longer followed, like pack hunts. Still, he could have mentioned that doozy. By the way, Gabby, werewolves will want you as their mate. I paused then shook my head at the thought. Yeah, I would have reached for the door handle and tried to jump from the moving truck. Maybe, he’d made an okay call. Only time would tell.
I got out of bed and got dressed knowing Sam would hear me moving around.
That day, I met Paul and Henry. Charlene tried talking me into going out into the woods with them to learn more about the werewolf way of life, but comprised by letting us lounge in the common room to talk instead. The common room served as a cafeteria and an entertainment room with sitting arrangements scattered around the room. It even had a pool table set in the back corner.
Paul and Henry didn’t treat me like human boys. As curious about me as I them, they asked a myriad of questions.
“What’s school like?” Paul, the boy with dark hair and a carefree smile asked while sitting on a padded dish chair close to me.
“You don’t go to school?” I couldn’t believe it.
“Nah,” said Henry, a short stocky kid with bright blue eyes reclining in the old leather chair across from us, “we get home schooled here. It’s way quicker to graduate since we can study at an accelerated pace because we don’t have to break for holidays or anything.”
“That actually sounds pretty great… what school should be, minus the no breaks part,” I cringed inwardly at the thought of school year round. “The majority of the teachers spend their time hating their jobs and finding ways to be as disagreeable as possible while the students look at it as a popularity contest and spend more time worrying about who’s dating who than studying,” I explained.
“Date?” Paul glanced at Henry who wore an equally puzzled expression. “I heard Charlene talking about that once. Sounds weird.”
“Really? You guys don’t date?” I didn’t ask what they did to get to know a girl instead of dating.
As if reading my mind, Paul explained, “No, we get invited to Introductions.”
“What’s that?” Sam hadn’t mentioned anything like that to me and I wondered if I should add this to his list of omissions.
“When a female comes of age, they’re brought to the Introduction room where they can meet other werewolves they’ve never met before. The Elders are there to make sure the girl is safe and to give the guys a few minutes to talk. You know, to really get her scent. When there’s a connection, you just know and you claim her. If not, the next group comes in for their chance.”
Sitting in the upholstered chair, I started to sweat. First, what did he mean by claim? Second, they kept a girl in a room while guys came in to look her over and smell her? I reached for my water sitting on the coffee table in the center of our little sitting arrangement and tried really hard to calm down and not let my imagination run away. My hand shook a little.
I knew I failed when Henry asked, “Hey, Gabby, you okay? Did Paul say something wrong? Charlene said we could ask any questions we wanted…”