Page 61 of Hungry Like the Wolf

Rose shrugged again and rocked her head from side to side. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Nadja crossed her arms tightly over her chest. If she’d learned anything from Magda, it was that if you gave a wise woman enough time, she’d tell you what she intended to, if not what you wanted to hear. Asking questions only prolonged the agony of waiting.

“What have they told you about mating?”

“Aside from your Cliff’s Notes version the first day we got here, nobody’s told me anything,” Nadja said, her chest tight with sudden anxiety.

“Okay, then. What do you know about mating?”

Nadja looked at her, an eyebrow cocked high. “I’ve read a lot of paranormal romance, Rose, but I don’t think any of that applies.”

Rose laughed, a sudden bark that sent the birds careening into the air.

“Probably not. Probably not.”

Rose was silent for an infuriating amount of time when Nadja finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“Well, are you going to tell me?”

Rose grinned, revealing that shining gold tooth again. “I suppose I have to. I can’t have you wandering around like a babe in the woods.”

She leaned back on the big rock, lying on her back and walked her feet up so that her knees were bent. Nadja lifted her own knees and wrapped her arms around them.

“There are mates, and then there are fated mates, or so the lore goes. Any wolf can take a mate. But the fated mate is the one wolf that has been made for you across lifetimes. You might not find them in this lifetime. You might not find them ever. But it’s the fated mate that the soul cries out for. Or so they say,” she added hastily.

“Do you believe that?” Nadja asked.

Rose bit her lips between her teeth. “Honestly? Blasphemously? No.”

Nadja waited her out.

“I think that kind of thinking causes problems. Say you have a mate and they piss you off, well, you start thinking that your fated mate would never. Your fated mate would never annoy you or heckle you or ask you where you’ve been. They would just know. They would never do anything wrong at all. And that sort of thinking starts to ruin things that are perfectly good even if they’re not perfect.”

“That makes sense,” Nadja said.

“Also, I don’t know anything about multiple lifetimes. Maybe we just get this one. Maybe this is it. Maybe there’s not even anything after. I have no idea. But if this is it, if this is the only chance we get at this, I sure as hell don’t want to spend my whole life looking for perfect when someone who could make me happy is right in front of me.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“Exactly,” Rose said, canting her head to look at Nadja. “Nobody’s perfect. And there’s no such thing as a wolf ‘completing you.’ That’s an unfair burden to put on a person. You’re already complete. And if you’re shit, that’s because you’re shit, not because your mate wasn’t good enough to balance the deficit.”

Nadja nodded. She often talked to clients about the difference of language between “complementing” versus “completing.”

“So… Robbie wouldn’t necessarily know if I was his mate,” Nadja said.

Rose tilted her head back and forth again.

“That’s what I believe. But there are plenty of people who believe in fate. And who am I to say they’re wrong? Maybe I’m just cynical. It’s just that I tend to be the one who receives these broken wolves into my arms and has to help them put themselves back together when a random universe masking as fate fucks them over.”

Nadja turned in her seat at that, staring down at Rose, who was looking intently at something overhead as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb within the conversation.

“What does that mean?”

Rose sighed. “Look, I like that man back there a lot. He’s sweet as pie and obviously wouldn’t hurt a fly, but once he bites you, it gets complicated, fate or no.”

“Rose,” Nadja said, her voice tight.

“It’s not my story to tell. None of them are. But plenty of women get pressured into matings that aren’t in their best interests, and it’s damn hard for them to get out of them.”