Mary, Dexter’s mom, stepped up to speak to Claire for us. She’d brokered the issue with Dexter.
“Claire, some of the neighbouring packs wanted to meet you. I hope you don’t mind.”
Claire looked us up and down from the safety of her mens’ arms and said, “Considering the lack of women in this town, I can understand the interest.” She looked straight at me this time. “Hi, I’m Claire.”
I was the one who needed to step up and talk, obviously. “I’m Grayson.”
Claire extended her hand. “An Alpha, I presume?” she asked with a raise of one dainty eyebrow.
I grinned and heard Dex inhale sharply. What were they worried about?
“How’d you know?” I reached out and shook her hand.
There was a collective sigh of relief from Dex and Jay.
Claire shrugged and withdrew her hand, “You’re big.”
I fought the heat that flashed up my face and glanced down at the huge body my Alpha genes guaranteed. “Ah… you’re learning our ways, I see. It’s nice to meet you. May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again, hesitating instead of plunging forward. How did I ask Claire what we needed to know? She represented a new solution to our problem.
For fifty years, not a single female had been born to our pack. The elders had believed that it meant our fated mates were non-existent for our generation. A romantic myth that had ended with our parents’ matings.
But Dexter had found his mate in the human population. And even more unusually, he’d found one female for his whole pack of three wolves.
Was that really the future for all of us? To share a woman in such a way?
“Go on, ask me whatever you want,” Claire repeated.
I sighed and just went with what was in my head. “Can you give us a hint on what to look for with our mate? Since it appears we all need to be on the hunt for a human now.”
Claire smiled, then tilted her head. “Well, for one thing, I wouldn’t use the word hunt when you’re talking to her.” She grinned at me and I smiled back.
This one had a cheeky streak. Dex and his pack needed to stay on their toes.
Claire continued. “To be honest, though, I’m not sure what to say. Did Dexter tell you about the fainting thing?”
He had… and that explained why they were so hesitant to have me touch her.
“Yes. But I was wondering if you had an idea before that? When you first saw them, maybe? I need something that I can look for in my mate, because I’ve met human women before and no one has ever fainted at my touch...”
Claire looked me up and down like I was a piece of meat in a butcher’s case, assessing me in two seconds. “Maybe that’s because your mate has a brain, like me, and you’ve been picking up tiny blondes with more boobs than anything else?”
A grin stretched across my face. I couldn’t help it. So, what if I liked them easy? We only had one night each visit in town to get them into bed, and then we had to kick them straight back out again.
There was no point trying to pick up any of the decent chicks. We literally didn’t have the time, nor the desire before now, to connect with humans in a long-term manner.
I grinned at her, unable to resist rising to the bait. “They weren’t all blonde.”
Aaron laughed beside me and the tension in the whole group began to relax.
Claire shr
ugged. “Look, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. I’m a doctor who’s barely dated in a decade. Maybe your mates are the same? Women who work too much and never get out—not to the places you’d go, anyway.”
Why didn’t she just ask me to find a needle in a haystack?