The Refugee's Mate (Werewolf Story)

Chapter 2: Heart to Break

George

I know about the heartbreak.

For people living in secrecy, werewolves are surprisingly oversharers. On family nights with their friends and former high school mates, my parents start reminiscing about the good old days.

As you hear them talking, you'd think about people in their golden years, but my parents, aunt and uncle and their friends are all under 40.

Though their high school days are long gone, it's not something to be missed. Or is it?

I don't really know, what I do know is: my dad used to date my aunt, my other dad used to date my best friend's mom and none of them thought they'd be mated to each other.

Yes, there were pools on who's being mated to whom, but uncle Tony had a lucky guess. Anyway, it's a mess!

It'd be awkward if we weren't werewolves, people who know practically since birth that we DON'T get to pick the people we're spending the rest of our lives with.

My dad certainly didn't choose my other dad. In fact, he was so shocked by it threw him in a loop and messed everything up for them.

My parents started as enemies, competing for the Alpha position, and ended up mates. Because the person in charge of pairing - the deity known as Moon Goddess - doesn't really care about petty human rivalries. She barely cares about gender, let alone other stuff.

But she never gets it wrong.

My dads are exquisitely happy with each other, though they argue a lot. But they complete themselves in a way only a Goddess given mate can. My aunt and uncle are the same, the happiest couple I know.

Though Junior would say the same about his parents. Jason Westbrook Jr. is my best friend. His parents had him BEFORE they were mated, which was a scandal at the time.

Well, still is. Nothing frightens my parents more than one of their boys showing up with an unmated pregnant girl. Especially me.

I think I had to suffer through more uncomfortable safe sex practice lessons than any other teenager I know, apart from my little brother. He's 16, so he had to endure it as well.

Fortunately, Junior's parents got mated to each other and the family was complete. But that was a freak case, one nobody should expect it to repeat. And a cautionary tale my dad banged several times on my head.

I get it dad, move on! It's not like any of you got mated a virgin... I mean, uncle Tony did but I suspect it wasn't completely his choice.😳

But when I said especially me, it's because I am under an specific scrutiny being the son of who I am.

My name is George Burke Stonehold, oldest son of Alpha Jack Stonehold and Luna Tyler Burke. Therefore, I'm poised to succeed my dad as Alpha of the Stonehold pack, the largest werewolf pack in the country with more than 20 thousand members.

It's a daunting responsibility, but my dads have been preparing me for the last 17 years. Still, there's so much to cover.

I go to school, then train with the Delta of our pack. I need to be well versed in fighting skills if I am to command our warriors, the largest standing wolf army of any pack.

And my dad had it worse than me, he was forced to intern under my grandpa, the former Alpha. But he teaches me gradually, without making it look like a job. However he started with me way earlier than he did with grandpa.

Still, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's my calling, what I was born for. My destiny.

Though apparently if I don't cut it, dad has a backup plan: Charlie, my younger brother. He's been taught at Alpha level same as me. And though he doesn't need to train with the Delta, he does practice at school with the wrestling team, just like me.