Dom's POV
My mind starts waking up before my body. Thinking back on the night before how Willow scared the crap out of me by throwing open her door. My instincts kicked in before my brain because by the time I recognized my surroundings I had her pinned to the ground and was growling at her. She look terrified but she didn't scream. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was, that I didn't mean to scare her but if I shifted back to being human that would have made the situation so much worse than it already was. So I had to try to say it as my wolf. She seemed to understand. In fact I couldn't believe how chill she was with everything. I now know that the Moon Goddess sent her that dream as a way to prepare her for the truth because she recognized Tavan and in fact "named" me that. Tav got a huge kick out of it. However I never thought when I laid down in front of her door last night that I would wake up with her in my arms.
WAIT WHAT?!?
Oh shit, I'm human again and completely naked on top of the covers, limbs totally tangled up with hers and she could wake up at any moment.
Willow's POV
Last thing I remember was falling asleep wrapped in a warm furry blanket listening to the deep rumbles of Tavan's breathing. Instead of feeling fur I am feeling tingles, lots and lots of tingles like electric currents are running through my veins and over my skin. It's not painful in fact it is quite enjoyable. I crack open one eye expecting to see furry limbs still wrapped around me but instead I see an arm and a very naked leg. I do what any self respecting woman would do in this situation. I scream my freaking head off while throwing the offending limbs off of me and scrambling off the bed. I hit the floor hard and look to my right where I see the baseball bat that I had dropped the night before. I pick it up and jump to my feet turning to the intruder holding the bat in front of me like it's a sword. I don't know who I was expecting to see standing naked on the other side of my bed but I guaran-damn-tee you that I wasn't expecting Dominic!
Dom's POV
I feel her start to stir and then she tenses up. FUCK this isn't going to end well. I don't know what happened first all I know is that my ears are ringing from her shrieking, she fell off the bed and now as I am standing up on the opposite side from her, she is holding a baseball bat.
"Willow, I can explain. Please just give me a minute." I am holding my hands up like she is pointing a gun at me and not a bat.
"Explain what exactly? How you got into my room? Why are you naked? Why were you in bed with me? How are you going to explain any of that?" I can hear her disbelief, I can feel her anger.
"Last night you fell asleep cuddled up with Tavan, right?" It's now or never either she accepts us or she doesn't.
"How do you know that? What did you do to him? I swear if you hurt Tavan I will gut you." She is practically seething at this point
"See Mate loves me." Tav can't help but put in his two cents.
"You are supposed to stay quiet."
"That was for 'the rest of the night' well as you can see it's daytime so I can talk again. Be nice or Mate will hurt you" I swear that mutt was laughing at me.
"I didn't do anything to him, I can't because he is a part of me." I don't know what I am saying. I am just speaking from the heart and praying the Goddess will help me out here.
"What do you mean he is a part of you? Don't even try to tell me you're a werewolf. That is such Bull Shit! Where is he?" Her skepticism is understandable.
"I can only tell you the truth Willow. I am a werewolf." I reach out for her hand but she starts taking steps backwards. That is when it hits me. She is moving towards the door.
"Do you think I'm an idiot? There are no such thing as werewolves! Tell me the truth, What did you do with Tavan?" She screams at me.
"No, I don't think you're an idiot. There are werewolves, and more, much more than you can imagine and Tavan is right here!" I said that last part as I jumped over the bed, shifting mid flight and landed between her and the door.
She screamed and jumped back tripping over who knows what and is about to hit her head on the table but I saw the path she was falling so I jumped on the table crushing it beneath me and instead of hitting it she landed on me. She quickly crawls away from me and is heading back to the door but I jump in front of it again. The room isn't very big so I don't know if jump is the right word, regardless, I get between her and the door blocking her escape again. Just like I did last night I laid down and flattened my ears showing her remorse. She backs away slowly and sits on the edge of the bed near the top.
"Holy Shit! You just turned into a giant ass wolf. You're Tavan. Tavan is you. What the hell is going on here? Wait, the wolves the other night were they werewolves too? How many are in this town? If you're one does that mean Lia is one also?" She is firing off questions so fast it would make Lani proud.
I sit up and raise one paw in what I hope is a sign of wait. I shift back into my human form and sit on the edge near the foot of the bed. "Now do you believe that I was telling you the truth?"
Her eyes did a slow ascent of my body starting with my feet up my legs but when they reached my member, her eyes got really big. All of a sudden she covers her eyes with one hand as she blindly reaches behind her and grabs a pillow that she throws at me. "I can't think with you sitting there like that. All exposed and.. well... It's distracting so cover up if you want to talk other wise do your magic switch-a-roo thing and leave."
I can't help but chuckle as I settle the pillow on my lap. Before I give her the all clear I mind-link Graden, I was not in the mood to hear about it from Jasper.
D: Gray are you up?
G: Damn Dom you know we don't have to get up early any more right, leave that to the young pups.
D: It's an emergency
G: I'm up, what do you need
D: Go to my room and grab me a set of clothes then bring it to me at The Doghouse, room 15
G: Got it, anything else
D: Yeah, can you pickup coffee and food for Willow and me?
"Okay Willow, you can open your eyes now." I had turned to sit crosslegged on the foot of the bed with the pillow firmly placed in my lap. She first peaked through her fingers and seeing I was in fact covered, she removed her hands from her face all together. "You can ask me anything that you want."
Willow's POV
WHAT THE FUCK!!! Seriously, what in the actual fuck just happened? I feel like I woke up in an alternate universe. Werewolves are real, I slept cuddled up with one all night. In fact I spent all day yesterday with one. Now I am sitting here across from a practically perfect specimen of a man who also happens to be the wolf I dreamed about. Now I get to ask anything and everything that I want to and I have no idea where to start. He is patiently waiting for me to do something, to say something. I take a deep steadying breath. This was a lot to process with zero caffeine in my system.
"I can ask anything that I want and you will answer me truthfully?" I figure if there are exceptions than I want to know them now.
"Absolutely. Anything that you want to know. If I know the answer I will tell you." He smiles at me and I feel my anger ebb a little bit. Actually if I was perfectly honest, I was no longer angry but I was definitely apprehensive, this is brand new territory for me and I have no idea how to proceed.
"Is Lia a werewolf too?" it makes sense with them being related.
"Yes she is" He answered with zero hesitation.
"Who else in the town is a werewolf?" I want to know how surrounded I am.
"The shorter list would be who in the town isn't a werewolf." He answered. Is he avoiding my question?
"Okay, Who in this town isn't a werewolf than?" I ask folding my arms across my chest.
"You" He answered
It took me a little bit to process that simple answer. The weight of the one word came crashing down on me. Everyone I had met, I had seen, I had talked to here was a werewolf. I thought about the kids I saw playing at the park. The people I passed while shopping at the grocers. Everyone in the pub, in the diner. Evan, Deloris, Lisa, even trolling Vicky. They were all werewolves. Just then there was a knock on the door. Without warning Dom stood up and the pillow fell to the floor.
"DAMNIT Dom! Warn a person, Shit! Like I need to see your package flying in the breeze first thing in the morning!" I all but shouted at him while covering my face again. I hear him open the door and say Thanks to someone before I hear the door close again. For a second I though the left so I sneak a peek between my fingers only to be greeted with the sight of him bending over his perfect ass pointed right at me as he put on a pair of pants. I gasp and quickly close my fingers again.
He chuckles "If you wanted to see something all you had to do was ask. I would gladly give you anything you desire."
"Oh God." I groan and flop my face down on the bed only it wasn't the bed my face hit, it was a pillow and not any pillow but the pillow he had in his lap, his naked lap. I just got a face full of fabric that was touching his junk. I jerk backwards as fast as I could but wasn't paying attention and ended up flipping entirely off the bed landing on my back on the floor and knocking the wind right out of myself.
As I struggle to fill my lungs with air Dom's face appears right above me, "Are you Okay? Did you hurt yourself?" He asks and he offers his hand to help me stand up.
"Only my pride" I reply as my lungs finally fill with air and start functioning properly again. Thankfully Dom is now wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a gray t-shirt so I don't have the added distraction of seeing way too much of his exposed skin, but I'll admit I kinda miss the view.
I sit back down on the bed as Dom grabs a piece of the broken table top and lays it across the bed. He sets out some take out containers, juice cartons, and 2 very large coffees with cream and sugar packets."Graden brought us breakfast and some clothes for me." He said as a way of explanation.
"How did he know what to bring and where?" I asked as I popped the top off of my coffee and started fixing it the way I like it. Yeah, liquid sanity is exactly what I need right now.
"I asked him to bring it." Dom answered while diving into a container of scrambled eggs with a bunch of stuff mixed into it.
"When did you ask him to do that? Did you plan to stay the night with me and if so why didn't you pack an over night bag? Or better yet why didn't you ask me in the first place?" I was starting to feel my anger rising again. It felt almost like a betrayal if this was preplanned for him to be naked beside me all night.
"No I didn't plan to stay with you all night, well yes I did, but not like how we ended up." He sounds almost worried
"What do you mean you did but you didn't? You aren't making any sense." I need clear answers and this was anything but clear.
"What I mean is this, I was planning on spending the whole night in front of your door. I was going to leave before you got up but then you opened the door and startled me out of my sleep. Speaking of which, I am so sorry I reacted the way that I did. I wasn't all the way awake when I jumped on you I was acting purely on instincts of being suddenly woken up. As soon as I realized what I had done I felt terrible for scaring you that way. I hope you understand that I would never purposefully do anything that scares you, hurts you, or puts you in danger." His eyes shine with sincerity and I can't help but believe him.
"I understand, it wasn't my smartest move to throw my door open to an unknown animal so your reaction was understandable. But you still didn't answer my question. When did you tell Graden to bring this stuff? Cause I'm pretty sure you didn't have a cell phone hidden in your fur." I asked as I started eating some waffles.
"You're right, no cell phone. Werewolves have an ability to communicate through a mental connection that we call a mind-link. So while I was getting situated on the bed with that pillow" He nodded his head towards the pillow I had face planted on not too long ago "I sent a quick link to Graden asking for clothes and food. I had a feeling we were going to be spending quite some time here with me answering your questions and I didn't want you to get hungry or to get a headache from lack of caffeine."
"So is it like telepathy? Can any werewolf talk to any other werewolf this way? Can you read minds like Professor Xhavier? Can you read or talk to my mind?" I hope he can't just read my mind that would be so embarrassing seen as how the more time I spend with him the more I am picturing us in compromising positions, all the compromising positions.
His chuckles bring me back to the topic at hand "Yes I guess it is a form of telepathy. Werewolves can only link with the wolves of their pack and only after establishing the link, kind of like exchanging phone numbers. The exception is the Alpha and Luna, they can link with every pack member automatically. The Alpha alone can link to Alphas from other packs but only after establishing links. Also No, I can't read minds. However I am really good at reading facial expressions, body language and other cues so it can seem like I can read your mind." He said with a wink that had my heart rate picking up. "Such as, I can tell you like it when I wink at you." And there goes that stupid blush again.
"What's an Alpha and Luna?" I asked trying to get as many answers as I could before I succumb to his charms or my brain melts from information overload.
"Well the Alpha is the male leader of the pack. The Luna is his mate and the female leader of the pack. Think of it as the Alpha is the pack's father and the Luna is the pack's mother. Just like a father and mother split the responsibilities of running a home, providing for the needs of the family, and raising the pups. The Alpha and Luna do that but on a much bigger scale. When a family in the pack has needs that aren't being met they can come to the Alpha or Luna. If a pack member feels that someone in the pack is being mistreated wether it be a mate or a pup they can bring their concerns to the Alpha or Luna and the matter will be looked into. I would love to say that abuse doesn't happen in a good pack but unfortunately it does on occasion."I am grateful that Dom is giving me more than one word answers. It's like he is anticipating follow up questions and answering them before I ask them.
"What do you mean by mates and pups?" I have so many questions so I'm just asking the ones that pop in my head.
"Pups are what we call the children. Mates are our spouses. But a true mate is something more, they are a gift from the Moon Goddess." He gets a dreamy look in his eyes like he is remembering something blissful.
"How do you know the difference between a mate and a true mate?" I am now nibbling on the food in front of me not because I am hungry but because it is there and it gives my hands something to do.
"Well you can choose your mate and that is just like humans do it. You find someone that you like, you get to know them, and if feelings develop you end up getting mated and what not and you hope that love lasts. However a true mate is a gift from the Moon Goddess. She can see the hearts of everyone and she knows who is most compatible with whom like they are each 2 parts of a whole. Then she gives them what is called a mate bond. So that when they meet they will recognize the each other as their true mate, their other half." He says with an intensity like he wants me to see beyond his words.
"How do the recognize the other? What does the mate bond feel like?" I feel like I am getting closer to something but I don't know what.