Under A Paper Moon

XIII

It took a couple of days for Elias to calm down his nerves. Even though he and Micah talked about them being mates and taking it slow, he was still extremely confused by it. He told Micah he needed a little space, to which Micah agreed. Elias could see that it affected Micah, but the werewolf kept it quiet.

Elias' thoughts were interrupted when the doorbell rung. He went downstairs and was surprised to see Raphael at the door. He moved aside, asking if Raph wanted to come in.

"Uh, no thanks," Raphael replied, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, before he took out a book from his bag, "I just came to give you this. It's a book on werewolves and mates. It'll help you learn more about us. If you're interested, of course."

"Wow," Elias' face lit up, as he took the book with the black leather cover, "That's actually really cool of you. Thank you."

"No problem," Raphael smiled, "I also wanted to tell you that uh, Micah really cares for you. And it's been hard on him too, a human mate is very rare, and him being the next Alpha he doesn't know how to go on about it. I get that you need space but please don't reject him without giving this a shot."

"I wasn't going to reject him. I know what happens when a werewolf gets rejected and I don't want him to go through that." Elias replied.

"Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. I'll leave now. Bye." Raphael awkwardly replied before turning on his heels and jogging back to his car. Elias chuckled at Raphael's uneasiness begore shutting the door and going back to his room to do some reading.

The more Elias read, the more fascinated he got. Elias has always had commitment issues, he never stuck around at one place for long enough to form any sort of lasting relationships. Friends came and went. And slowly he became detached from people.

Kyle was his longest boyfriend and friend. And that was only because his mum was tired of moving after his other mum passed away. Though they did end up moving to Los Angeles, but that was after two years of staying at the same place. The longest ever.

From what Elias gathered, the mate bond was the most sacred aspect of being a werewolf. Mates loved each other for life, never leaving or cheating on the other. Mates were constant, and the more Elias thought about it, the more he realized how amazing the idea of Micah being in his life forever sounded.

~~~~

"Okay, so we're going to talk about this calmly, yeah?" Jensen said, "No tearing anybody's head off."

"No promises," Micah growled, looking at Jared that sat opposite him, who immediately growled in return.

"Micah! You know how much Elias hates violence!" Jensen reminded Micah, and he finally stopped growling, Jensen turned towards his brother, giving him a stern look, "And you have a baby on the way! Jesus, Jar, you need to leave the past behind!"

"That son of a fucker ruined my life!" Jared said.

"You ruined his life!" Micah replied, "He hates werewolves because of you."

"Look, we can either butt heads like dumb animals, or we can talk about this and sort it like rational humans!" Jensen said.

All the boys paused for a minute when they heard a knock on the front door. Micah didn't even take a second to recognize the scent, he looked at Jensen with a murderous glare, to which he raised his hands in defense.

"I may or may not have tricked your mate into coming over. But it's for the best. You won't kill Jared while he's here." Jensen said.

"And what about Jared hurting him?" Micah growled.