To Love His Mate

To Love His Mate By J.D. Walker Seven-year-old boys were the bane of my existence. Especially when they liked to leave dead critters for me to find. Weren’t they supposed to be doing the reading and writing assignments I’d given them earlier? “Benjy!” I yelled. “How many times do I have to tell you not to leave mice on the deck?” I knew it was Benjy because his brother preferred birds. Naturally, there was no response, because the boy was nowhere to be found and was likely hiding with his twin, Arnie, in their cat form. The fact that they were adorable was beside the point. Why did I ever convince Felix that we wanted to keep the little terrors when they’d turned up on our doorstep four years ago? Well, the answer to that was, how could I not? After all that Felix and I had gone through in our lives, having a home and someone to love you unconditionally was beyond precious. Still, Benjy needed a swat on his little butt, or better yet, no playtime in the woods near the house. Ooh, I liked that. The boys loved spending time in the forest—supervised, of course. It was perfect! Arnie probably needed a time out, too, since they both aided and abetted each other constantly. In fact, I checked the back deck—yup, there was, indeed, a dead bird staring back at me with lifeless eyes. The kitchen table had books and pencils and sheets of paper, but no mischievous brats. I checked the usual hiding places for the boys—including the washing machine and dryer—but they weren’t there. Their bedroom was neat as a pin, and my keen sense of smell couldn’t pick up anything but a faint echo of their scent. So, they were outside somewhere, and they’d likely conned their “Poppa” into helping with their shenanigans. Someone wasn’t getting s*x tonight. I worked hard to teach the boys about what it meant to be human, and how important it was not to let anyone know that they were shifters. I wanted them to be as comfortable as possible in the real world and keep the danger of discovery to a minimum. I didn’t want them to be hurt or have problems because some asshole didn’t like the way they ate or walked or talked. Perhaps I was going overboard, but it meant a lot to me that they had the best that life had to offer and weren’t treated badly because they were different. Or hunted down like my family had been. Or abandoned, like Felix, my lover. Felix thought I should chill out a little, but how could I? And the kids defied me at every turn lately, it seemed. Two weeks ago, Mrs. Crabtree, a widow who oversaw the library in town and had grown boys herself, had stopped by to visit and check up on the twins. At the time, however, Benjy and Arnie had been in their cat form, and I couldn’t get them to change back for nothing. I’d had to lie and say the boys weren’t feeling well and were asleep. Meanwhile, two white half-grown cats twined around her legs and mewled softly, begging for attention. “Oh, aren’t they precious!” she’d cooed, and I’d had to field questions about where I’d found the cats and how old they were. I told Felix what had happened later that evening, but he’d thought it was funny. I was not amused. I stepped onto the back porch, the cool of the afternoon making me shiver in my long-sleeved T-shirt. I could use a jacket, but I was more concerned about finding the kids. No real dangers lurked on our land, but the boys were still learning about their world and could hurt themselves by accident. At least the harvest was done, and we’d had our annual pumpkin-picking and “thank you” party last month. This close to Thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but think of the family I’d lost to greedy hunters so many years ago, or about the parents that Felix still couldn’t remember, and the blessing that had been Uncle Ben, who’d raised Felix since he was a little boy, and had died of cancer in his old age. Felix still had bad dreams about his past before Ben Cotter, though he was never able to make much sense of them. Despite it all, we both had a lot to be thankful for, especially with the kids, who I now saw chasing each other around the tractor that Felix was attempting to repair, laughing and screaming at each other as their Poppa egged them on. Yup, all three of them were in big trouble.