Resilience

Vane brushed his fingers through her hair. "Shhh. Baby it's okay. I know it hurts. I know." He kept trying to shush her but it was as if she couldn't hear him at all.

It wasn't long before Jay pulled away from Bride's neck and wiped his mouth on a cloth Christine handed him. "She'll be alright. It only hurts for about an hour and then it stops."

Vane winced. An hour. An hour of having to hear her screams of pain and not being able to do anything about it. He picked her up in his arms and carried her away to the other side of the lake. The other wolves did not need to suffer along with him by watching her struggle with the change.

--

"Vane?" her voice was hoarse. Her throat felt raw. Had she been yelling in her sleep? She could feel Vane jump beside her as if he had been just starting to doze off.

"Bride?" Vane's face appeared in her field of vision. "How are you feeling? Are you alright?"

Bride tried to sit up but her vision spun and her head ached. She slowly laid it back down. "What happened?"

Uh oh. "You were shot by the woman. You were dying. So my father changed you into one of us. To save your life."

"One of you?" She was a wolf now? A werewolf? She blinked a few times in confusion. How could she not remember any of this? She turned her head to see the lake and the pack that was moving about it's normal business on the other side. Then she suddenly realized that she could now see them much more clearly than she could before. Her hearing seemed better too. She could hear Vane's heartbeat and a bird scoop up a mouse in it's talons a mile away. And Vane's scent...was even better than before. Okay this was kind of creepy and kind of cool at the same time.

"Bride?"

Vane sounded worried. She looked back up at him. He was waiting on an answer from her. "Can I...change?"

Vane slowly nodded. He seemed to be holding his breath.

Wow. Bride wondered what color of fur she would have. "Cool."

"Cool?" That was not the reaction he had been expecting at all. He knew Bride was resilient but 'cool'?

Bride slowly sat up with Vane's help. "Yeah. I mean it's not every day you learn you can change into a wolf."

"So your...your not mad?"

"Mad? Why would I be mad? Of course I'm not mad." She pulled herself up onto his lap and put a hand on each side of his face. She made him look her in the eyes. "How could I be mad at you for loving me enough to do whatever it took to keep me alive?"

Vane smiled a little and kissed her softly. "I do love you, Bride. I really do."

Bride smiled and kissed his cheek. "I know. I love you, too."

"But will you stay here? With me?"

Bride sighed. Stay here? With Vane? Be a wolf? Mate? Have...puppies? She looked across the lake at the pack. They seemed so peaceful and at home in their lives. Everyone knew what their purpose in life was. Bride... Bride wasn't really sure. "I want to learn more before I decide. If you don't mind."

Vane smiled. "Not at all." He leaned his back against a tree trunk and Bride turned around in his lap so that she sat between his legs with her back against his chest. "What would you like to know first?"

Bride thought for a moment. "Do I look any different? Cause I sure do feel different. I feel...stronger...more confident."

Vane smiled. "The confidence is just the wolf in you. Your wolf is almost like another being. It will want things that your human side is not so sure of. But to give you a heads up...your wolf is usually right. You only feel stronger because you are."

"Is changing...difficult? I mean...does it hurt?"

"Well what you went through was very painful. But shifting from one form to another is not painful at all. It's like breathing. When you want it to happen...it happens."

Hmm. She'd definitely have to try that soon. Bride blushed at her next question. "So if we were to have...kids...would they be puppies or babies?"

Vane grinned. He liked where her line of thought was going. "You want to skip the mating and go right on to having the pups, huh? I can live with that."

Bride blushed even more. "Shut up."

Vane rubbed her belly as he answered her question. "You would give birth to them in your wolf form, making them puppies. They have to be raised as puppies because they can't shift into their human form until they hit puberty."

"Oh." She laced her fingers with Vane's as they came to a stop on her belly. "So how does the whole mating thing work?"

Vane smiled. "I was hoping you'd ask that question. Werewolves take sex very seriously. Because that is our mating bond. You have to be positive that you want your partner for a mate because once it is done it can never be undone. You have sex with another to make them your mate. From that point on the male can only get an erection in response to his female and the female can only get pregnant from her male. Other wolves will always be able to smell the other mate on them almost as if they had joined blood as well as souls."

"Wait a minute back up. You said that sex is your mating bond. So that means that you've never...?"

Vane shook his head, unembarrassed.

Bride was stunned. "Wow. And the male can't get an erection from any other female?"

"Nope."

"Well that must make his mate feel good." She giggled.

Vane smiled and kissed her cheek.

It was a few more minutes before she asked her next question. They had both begun to drift off to sleep but she wanted to ask this one last question first. "Vane?"

"Hm?"

"What about my father?"

Vane tightened his arms around her. "It's hard to say. We could try to convince my father to change him if of course your father agreed. Or we could come back and say you're going to live with me, if that's what you choose of course, and we'll still visit him frequently but never tell him the truth."

Bride sighed. Hard choices. But she could deal with them later. Right now she just wanted to take a nice short nap in Vane's arms.

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