Chapter 15: Chapter 14 - Nat

Thursday 3 December

~*Nat’s POV*~

Several hours later, we were all huddled in a booth at a little café called Benji’s Diner.

I had to give it to Cody; she really did know where to source the most delicious food. The wraps that she had mentioned on the drive over were just as good as she had hinted them to be.

“Thanks, Zelda, for giving such great feedback in the store.” I lifted my chicken Caesar wrap to my mouth in anticipation of taking another bite. “I wouldn’t have even considered half of what you picked until you pointed them out, but everything fits perfectly and they’re all so comfy.” Although I had declined several items that she had suggested as they were a bit too skimpy for my tastes, I couldn’t deny that everything that Zelda had suggested was gorgeous.

“You’re very welcome, hon.” Zelda beamed at my words. “But to be honest, you could wear a potato sack and make it look good.” I shook my head in disagreement, but it felt nice to get the compliment. Especially from someone as stylish as her.

“We’ve only got to get you some decent shoes now,” Cody said. She turned to Zelda. “You think a pair of sneakers and a pair of heels should be enough for now?”

Zelda nodded. “Sneakers for everyday use, plus a pair of multi-purpose black heels for any special occasion that pops up. The Uggs she already has are good for comfort use.”

I chewed through my mouthful as I listened. Even though I was very glad that they were helping me so much, it felt like we were buying way too much, especially as Auden was paying for it all. I looked down at the floor, at the many bags at our feet. I now understood why Tatum had been invited along on this shopping trip — Zelda and Cody relied on him to carry everything they purchased.

I glanced over at the man in question. The poor guy looked like he’d had enough. I couldn’t help but feel that I wore a similar expression on my face, but for a different reason. After walking around for so long, my feet were arguing loudly that they were ready to be put up and left alone. Thank God we only had shoes left to get. Hopefully, that meant just one more store.

“Can I ask you all a question?” I asked once my mouth was clear of food.

They all looked at me expectantly. “Yesterday, Cody and Auden told me about fated mates and chosen mates.” I paused, thinking about what exactly I wanted to ask.

“Hmm?” Zelda asked with her mouth full.

“The marks that Auden has…” I began hesitantly. “They’re so intricate. How are they created?”

Cody turned bright red. “Yeah, this is a conversation I don’t want to be a part of if we’re talking about my parents.” She started to grab her food and things.

Tatum and Zelda both let out huge belly laughs before Tatum grabbed Cody’s arm. “Oh no, missy, you definitely need to be here for this.” He forced her back to her seat. She groaned, but begrudgingly gave in and sat down.

“Let’s ease Cody into this conversation,” Zelda said, still giggling. Cody rolled her eyes and took a huge bite of her food. “The marks reflect both wolves’ spirits. If you look closely at Auden’s marks, you’ll see that about half of each mark is identical to the other mark.”

I nodded. I hadn’t studied them in any great detail, but I remembered noticing that they were quite similar.

“The parts of her marks that are identical reflect her own wolf,” Cody supplied, seemingly relieved at this particular portion of discussion. “The other half of each mark reflects the wolf that gave it to her.”

“Ah, okay,” I said. “That makes sense.”

“And now for the part that Cody doesn’t want to hear,” Zelda’s grin widened. Cody groaned and sunk down into her chair. She knew what was coming, even if I didn’t.

“The full marking process is a multi-step process,” Zelda started.

Cody groaned again, louder this time. She shoved more of her lunch into her mouth as her face went beetroot red. Zelda roared with laughter.

Although incredibly amused, Tatum wasn’t laughing nearly as hard as Zelda, so he picked up the conversational baton. “Fated mates differ slightly from chosen mates for this. For fated mates, their wolf spirits will kind of take over their human for a moment, enough for them to utter the word ‘mate’ when they both first meet after the age of nineteen. A physical touch starts the next step, even if it’s only a brush of the hand against the other. Their bond will strengthen enough to take it to the next step. After that, though, fated mates and chosen mates follow the same procedure.”

By this point, Zelda had controlled her laughter enough to continue. “Once the mates decide to take the next step, they’ll mate in human form, or to put it more simply, they’ll fuck like rabbits.” Zelda’s toothy, yet remarkably cheeky, grin could have lit up the entire café on a cloudy day it was so wide and bright. She was thoroughly enjoying a chance to cause Cody some embarrassment.

Cody groaned louder and slid further down in her seat, her hands covering her face as it turned a deep beetroot colour. I grinned now, finally understanding why she was so mortified.

“The last step in the process is the marking, which is what you saw yesterday.” Tatum joined in with Zelda’s glee at Cody, who was now basically in a puddle under the table. “Marking can happen either during the last step or in a later sexual encounter. Each mate will feel compelled to mark their mate by plunging their canine teeth into the area you saw on Auden’s neck. There’s some sort of venom that gets emitted by those particular teeth that creates the mark itself, and the venom only appears during the marking process.”

“Not all mates will complete the marking process on both people,” said Zelda. “It’s typically enough to get the ball rolling, so to speak, for one mate to be marked in one session, and the other mate to be marked in a later session, or in rare cases, choose not to be marked at all. The bond is at its strongest when all mates are marked, but it’s still there when only one mark is given.”

“That’s how you can get multiple mates,” Tatum continued. “As long as all corresponding mates mated and marked at least one mate in one session, the other marks can happen in later sessions.” He looked down at Cody with an incredibly wide grin on his face. “With Auden, Zelda and I believe that there were multiple sexual encounters to get all of them eventually marked, but at least the first time would have incorporated the three of them.”

Zelda started to laugh once more, which made me giggle, and for Cody to let out her loudest groan yet. “That’s it. I’m done. No more talking about my parents’ sex lives.” Cody made a cross with her arms in front of her. “I don’t go around talking about either of your parent’s sex lives, or, Goddess forbid, your own. So quit it on me and mine!” She jabbed her index finger at Tatum, then Zelda, glaring at each of them in turn. Tatum simply grinned wickedly at Cody, while Zelda held her hands up in surrender, roaring with laughter.

Thinking about what they had all said, something nagged at me, especially after thinking about Auden and Jackie. I frowned at where my thoughts were taking me after what had essentially been a hilarious opportunity to make Cody uncomfortable.

“I realise that chosen mates are, by very definition, ‘chosen’. But what if a person finds themselves fated mates with someone that is cruel or just plain wrong for you? Is there nothing that you can do?” I asked. “Or do you have no choice but to accept your fated mate?”

“Oh!” Cody responded, seemingly incredibly relieved at the change in topic. “You can reject your fated mate if you want. It’s rare, but it does happen.”

“If you want to reject your fated mate,” said Tatum. “You need to verbally sever the match in front of them. So, you can’t ring them on the phone and tell them. That wouldn’t work. You must be physically present for the rejection to take.”

“But no-one knows how close you have to be,” said Zelda. “All the rejections we’ve been told about have occurred just like a conversation between the people involved. We don’t know if they could reject a fated mate bond if someone shouted it over the length of a football field, for example.”

“Each pack has their own wording for a rejection,” said Tatum. “But in general, you must state your full name, their full name and what packs you’re both from. It’s also incredibly painful to reject your fated mate. The person who begins the rejection must deal with the harshest blow, but the receiver also gets hit with a ton of pain. We had a guest in school who had been rejected by her fated mate, and she described the feeling as ten times worse than childbirth and the feeling lasted for months.”

“And you have to do it before you’re marked,” Cody warned. “Even if you’ve willingly completed every other step of the process, it all comes down to the marking step. Once you’ve been marked, there is no going back, so you need to be absolutely sure about accepting your mate. There is no change of mind afterwards, no divorce option like with humans.”

“There is one good thing about rejections though,” said Zelda. “If you have been on the receiving end of a rejection, the Moon Goddess allows the possibility of a ‘second chance mate’. If you have done the rejecting, then the possibility is still there, but it takes longer and is much rarer.”

I frowned. “But on the opposite side of the spectrum, couldn’t someone force a marking?” I asked. “So, if you’re held against your will and force marked. There’s no recourse for that?” The thought appalled me. Imagine living with someone who had done that to you for the rest of your life. I shuddered. “Tell me that there are laws around that, please…”

“Ah…” Cody began, tapping her nose with one of her fingers. “You’re right. That’s why the Moon Goddess put in place a failsafe.”

“What?”

“It’s each person’s wolf spirit that determines whether a mark is accepted or denied, not the humans,” said Zelda.

I only felt more confused. I think she saw that because she continued with a smile.

“The ability to sniff out your fated mate comes from your wolf,” she said. “For example, each fated mate’s scent is unique and means something to the one experiencing it. Apparently, your wolf goes crazy from it being so appealing.”

“Oh, okay.” I nodded to show my understanding before popping the last of my lunch into my mouth.

“But if one wolf doesn’t think their mate is worthy,” said Tatum. “They can choose to reject the marking. Our wolves live by a much stricter code than we do.”

“What do you mean?” This was sounding convoluted to me. Wolf spirits had that much control over a person’s destiny?

“If one wolf tries to mark another wolf who is not receptive to it or is too young,” Zelda explained, putting her food down. “The wolf who received the mark could reject it. When that happens, the wolf who has rejected the mark somehow duplicates the mark that was given to them onto the upper back of the wolf who has forced the marking.”

“We don’t know how it happens,” said Tatum. “But we do know that it’s incredibly painful. So painful, in fact, that it knocks them into a coma-like state for a full day, allowing the victim to get away.” He grinned menacingly. “Or enact their revenge…”

My eyes widened. It sounded like wolf spirits took the marking process incredibly seriously.

“Think of it like a built-in lie detector,” said Cody. “The mark on the criminal’s back shows guilt. Just like the mark that they’ve forced onto their victim, the duplicated mark doesn’t go away. Ever. Forced marking is one of the worst criminal acts in the werewolf community around the world. Anyone found to have committed this crime is sentenced to the harshest of penalties.”

“But only if they’re caught,” Tatum explained with the wicked grin still on his face. “Most families of victims find the perp within the first day, and either beat them to death whilst they’re in the coma state, or chain them up and enact their revenge for as long as they want once the criminal regains consciousness.”

“There was one case we read about in history class,” said Zelda, tilting her head to the side as she tried to remember. “About five hundred years ago?” She looked at Tatum, who nodded his confirmation. “A family caught a criminal that had done that to a ten-year-old. He was twenty at the time. Generations of the same family kept him in chains for the next seventy-five years, beating him into unconsciousness every day and only feeding him enough to keep him alive, until he eventually died of old age.”

My jaw dropped. That would certainly make people pause about trying to force a mark on someone.

“Needless to say, these kinds of cases are incredibly rare now,” said Cody. “No criminal wants to take the chance of being caught and ending up like that.”

“But what happens to the one who has been marked? Aren’t they stuck feeling bonded to the person who did that to them?” I asked, shocked.

“Typically, yes,” Tatum replied. “That’s why most victims and their families end up killing the perpetrator. It releases the victim from the link that was forced. With the ten-year-old from five hundred years ago, she was so traumatised by what had happened, she went insane and took her own life.”

“Oh my God…” My hands covered my gaping mouth in absolute horror. That poor little girl.

“Because of that, her family felt they had every right in the world to torture the criminal for however long they could keep him alive afterwards, in any way they saw fit. And considering we typically have long and very healthy lives, as well as being incredibly creative…” Tatum shrugged his shoulders in a ‘what are you going to do’ manner.

He was right. There was no need for him to elaborate any more. My imagination was giving me plenty to work with.