“This is our version of the movies.” Lake laughed, taking a large swig from her pink-colored drink. Betsy had no idea what it was. In fact, she had no clue about what most of the women were consuming. She’d never been to a bar before. She’d ordered her own drink because she’d seen it in a movie once, and at least she had something to order other than the whiskey her father preferred. She hated the smell of that and detested the taste even more.
It was loud, and everyone in the place seemed to be having a good time. Her group had a table in the corner.
“We can’t admit we go to bars.” Lake shrugged. “Or the men send a representative to guard us. What point is it having a ladies’ night out with them watching over us like we need babysitters? We’re female werewolves. We can take care of ourselves.”
“Here. Here.” A redheaded woman on the other side of the table saluted with her beer. Betsy tried to recall the woman’s name. Rachel? Raquel? There were fifteen women with her, and, if she was lucky, she’d remember the names of five of them by the end of the evening. It might be a year before she could remember the name of every wolf in the pack. She sighed, stirring her drink with the little plastic umbrella someone had stuck in it.
“So,” Lake continued, holding her hands over her head as though she was stretching her arms into the sky, “we say we’re going to the movies, and we all meet here. No harm, no foul. For some reason, bars seem more risky to the men.”
Betsy tried to digest her words and found she couldn’t ignore the twinge they gave to her insides. “I don’t think I’m comfortable lying to Cyrus.”
The whole table fell silent. The women seemed to be making eye contact all around her, as if they were silently communicating in a way she couldn’t follow. Wouldn’t anything ever be easy? Couldn’t she just make friends? No. She bit down on her lip. Not if it meant betraying Cyrus. That felt wrong.
“They don’t understand.” One of the women, who had been quiet most of the night, whose name she could actually remember since she’d met her briefly in Cyrus’ office building as Kyra, smiled at her kindly. “They’re not in a true mating. You and I are the only ones here—actually, the only ones in the pack—to find a true mating. The others have mated with men who are not their true mates, which is fine and their decision, or they are still single. They don’t understand what deceit feels like to us.”
Kyra had brown, shoulder-length hair and kind blue eyes. She was slightly on the chubby side, with ten pounds she might not need hugging her hips and breasts. Betsy liked her tremendously, and she’d never exchanged more than hello until that moment.
“Who are you true mated to? I’ve met only a handful of the werewolf pack members.” Actually, she’d spent most of the day closeted away in a room with a man named Luther who was about ninety and who’d given her a history and mysticism lesson about werewolves. By the end of it, her head ached, and she wondered if she’d made a mistake thinking she could get her high school diploma since she obviously could not retain information the way she needed to.
She still couldn’t figure out the difference between all the moon cycles and why they had anything to do with the chemistry inside of her body.
“I think you’ve met him several times actually. And talked to him. His name is Jensen.”
She brightened at that, letting go of the breath she held. Yes, she knew Jensen. He’d come to Brooklyn and thrown himself on the cage today. She could see them together. They fit in the way people seemed to do on television, as though they’d been cast to be together by some authority that knew these things. His dark hair would complement her lighter brown, and he’d gaze into her blue eyes adoringly every morning.
Like Cyrus had looked at her when she’d fed him the eggs. She sighed at the memory. What was she doing in a bar when he was not with her? She was making friends. Or blowing it so the whole pack ended up hating her
Liana, who sat next to her, spoke. “Let’s not make it seem like those of us who fell in love with our partners are somehow slumming it, because we aren’t true mates. We met someone, fell in love, committed, and have families—like the humans do. It’s a commitment, and I won’t have it dismissed because you smelled your mate and it happened to work. Our union s are just as sacred.”
Kyra nodded and bit down on her bottom lip before she spoke. “I would never disparage your relationship or anyone else’s, sister wolf. It’s that while you might choose not to lie to spouse, and I commend you for that, it’s physically painful for me to do it, and I don’t blame Betsy for sensing that she doesn’t wish to give that a try.”