Gabriel laid on the bed as Tanya stepped out of the shower. She glanced at him as he laid on the bed with only a towel that covered his hips. “You haven’t been right since yesterday. What happened to your unfinished business?” she asked.

Gabriel looked at her and thought. It would only be a matter of time before she found out the truth. How could he hide the fact that he was now human and had; overnight, been denounced from alpha to zero, standing in the small pack of followers?

Fucking A to Z in one stupid move. You dick, why did you have to eat that meat?

“Tanya, I’ve got something to tell you,” Gabriel said. Tanya walked to the bed and pulled the towel away from his body.

Gabriel closed his eyes and sighed as he laid naked on the bed. “I know the very thing that’ll make you feel better,” she said as she dropped her towel to the floor and straddled his body.

Come on Gabriel, don’t spill your guts right at this moment. This might be your last chance to have Tanya…

Tanya leaned her body forward and rubbed her thighs against Gabriel. She put her hands at the side of his head and locked her plum and full lips on his. Her tongue pushed itself into his mouth. Gabriel responded as he felt her breasts rubbing against his muscled chest and the moist folds of her womanhood rubbing up against his shaft. It was like being in heaven.

Tanya pulled her head away and swirled her tongue around Gabriel's pert nipples, her damp hair dragged over his body as her tongue ran a line over his rock-hard stomach. Then, her mouth met the tip of his cock. Tanya pushed Gabriel’s large shaft against his belly and tickled the full length from the tip to his balls and then back again. Gabriel sucked in a large breath as he enjoyed her touch. Her tongue teased him to full hardness as she sat back on his thighs and stroked his shaft while she licked her lips.

Gabriel looked down and saw her raised hips inch forward. Tanya bowed her head as she pushed the hard head of his shaft between her legs. Her head flew back, and her breasts pushed forward as her back arched in response to Gabriel’s hard tip, that now rubbed against her opening. Tanya dropped her hips as her arousal swallowed the full length of Gabriel's shaft. He could feel her hot wet walls as they clenched against his manhood.

Tanya dug her fingers into his hard, chiseled chest. She clawed at him as he grabbed her hips and lifted her. Gabriel pushed his hips up to meet each thrust that Tanya made. Their bodies moved together in perfect synchronicity as they crashed together in the height of their passion. Gabriel pressed into Tanya’s sweetness as her body enveloped him and drove him closer to his final moment. Gabriel reached up to cup a breast, and her nipple hardened as his other fingers caressed and fumbled over her wetness.

Tanya tossed her head back as damp strands of hair clashed against the small of her back. She looked down into Gabriel's eyes. She could see something was on his mind and that the power of his lovemaking differed from before. The pumping caress of his manhood filled her quickly, and Tanya sucked in panting breaths. Short, shallow —and highly erotic. Gabriel and Tanya’s bodies slid together. Their final moment easily arrived. Tanya whimpered as her climax built up inside of her. She screamed with delight as wild eruptions of pleasure filled her body as she came on him.

Gabriel’s body bucked and convulsed as he pushed deep into the hot depths of Tanya’s wanting. He thrust his hips harder as his body slapped against her hot wetness. Gabriel made a cry of deliverance as he exploded inside her. He thrust one last time as a frenzy of simultaneous convulsions flooded from his hips. Tanya yelped with delight as wave after wave of rapture filled her wetness. Her body teetered on the edge of exhaustion and fulfillment as the final waves washed over her. She slumped over Gabriel's spent body.

They gasped in unison as perspiration poured from their bodies. Gabriel tilted his head toward Tanya’s. “You know, I always thought you’d be my female alpha,” he said.

“That’s what I thought, but I sensed something was off, even then. What do you want to tell me?” Tanya asked.

Gabriel rolled to face away from Tanya. He wanted to avoid the issue, but he knew she wouldn’t let it rest. Tanya put her hand onto his shoulder and pulled him back to face her.

“Gab, something’s wrong. What is it?” she asked.

“I’m not sure how to tell you,” Gabriel replied. “And, before you ask, no, I’m not seeing anyone else.”

Tanya giggled. “Mister fucking ego, or what? Gab, didn’t you notice there weren't that many girls who were queuing up to become your mate,” she said.

“Well, you know how it is when you get a little too cocky about yourself, you miss the little things that are important,” he replied.

“What are you missing Gab, what’s the thing you're missing now?”

“My inner wolf, that’s what I’m missing.”

“Well we can solve that, let’s go to the forest and have a hunt,” Tanya remarked.

Gabriel shook his head. Tanya had totally lost the point of his meaning. If a quick hunt was all it took, he’d be in the forest right now.

“Tanya, when I said I’m missing my inner wolf, I meant it’s not there for me to call on,” he remarked.

He stared into Tanya's eyes as things churned away in her mind. Tanya had graduated with honors. Yet someone trying to explain they weren’t a werewolf any longer, well, that couldn’t be found in any human book.

“Gab, it sounds as if you're trying to tell me you're human,” she replied. “Is that what you're trying to tell me?” Gabriel nodded and tightened his lips. He waited for her response. “Well, that’s fucked everything thing up, good and proper. I’ve got no chance to be an alpha mate,” she snapped. “I now see why you’ve just told me and not thirty minutes ago. One last go with my body, is that what you thought?”

Gabriel didn’t have an answer. That’s precisely what he'd thought. One last sex session before she’d found out the truth that he was human. “What do you think the others will say?” he asked, sheepishly.

“I don’t give two hoots what they think. I’m thinking of myself, here. Should I stay with you even if you're human, or should I pack up and go back to the pack?” She barked out the words as she slithered from the bed. “I’m gonna take a shower and mull it over. I wish you’d had the freakin’ decency to tell me.”

“I’m sorry, but I was scared of losing you.”

“Gab, you're a dumb ass sometimes, you might’ve lost me by worrying you were gonna lose me. It’s not always what you say, you know? Sometimes, it’s what you don’t say.”

Tanya closed the bathroom door. Gabriel heard the water run. He slammed his head into the pillow a few times.

Fuck —Fuck —Fuck —FUCK!

Gabriel thought of what could happen. He had to tell the others. They might stick around, which he doubted, and he guessed that Declan wouldn’t entertain the idea of them going back to the Towers. There’s nothing worse than a werewolf. Apart from a cowardly, lying werewolf. That was exactly how he'd felt at that moment. Or, that was how he felt, until Tanya stepped out from the bathroom.

“Gab, I’ve had a good think about the whole scenario. I can’t go back to Declan. That bridge is well and truly burned. I guess the other pack members are gonna freak and run when you tell them…” she started to say. She gave a trying smile. “So, really, that leaves you all on your lonesome, and Gab, I know you're pretty fucking useless on your own.”

“I don’t know what you're saying?” he replied as he sat up and rested his body on his elbows.

“I’m gonna stick around for a while and see how things go. It’s not a commitment or anything like that,” she said plainly.

Gabriel smiled for once —in nearly two days. “Thanks.”

Tanya grinned. “Let’s call it ‘werewolves with benefits.’”

“But I’m human.”

“You really are, aren’t you?”

* * *

Declan stopped the car at the head of the driveway. He stepped from the driver’s seat and looked down the fields toward the large house that sat alone in the middle of nowhere.

“You never mentioned you came from a wealthy family,” he surmised. Noelle giggled and leaned on the opposite side of the vehicle.

“It was a thing you never asked, and I’m a little surprised you never guessed, you saw this house, before. How could we, as a family, sustain a regular life while hunting werewolves? It’s not the sort of thing you talk about on a break time at work, is it?

Declan pulled his face up into a scrunched ball. “If you look at it that way, I suppose you're right. Running around a forest all night and then doing a full shift flipping burgers doesn’t seem ideal.”

“Let’s go and get this over with,” Noelle said as she pulled the car door open.

“Will you relax for a moment? I want to be at one with nature and take in this wonderful view,” Declan replied. “I’d forgotten how peaceful it was out here.” Declan climbed onto the hood of his car and looked at all that was laid out before him.

Declan started with where he sat. His eyes were led down the drive between the paddocks by the white fence, which sat emblazoned against the lush green grass that the horses happily munched away on.

As Declan’s eyes moved from the end of the fence and started to cross the vast, slated parking area, the wind picked up. Declan counted sixteen windows on the front, alone. The large front door stood under a canopy that had cedar shakes which matched the walls of the house. From where Declan sat, this appeared to be real cedar and not imitation, that must’ve cost a pretty penny or two. He never really noticed it all before.

“Is that real stone in the house?” Declan asked Noelle. She told him it was, with a nod. That was another thing that wouldn’t be cheap. Real stone; handcrafted to make all the supporting columns and the stilt bases for the floor, which spread over a lower room window. Declan was impressed, it was a great house by any standard. He’d always had stuff on his mind when he’d been here before.

He switched the direction of his eyes and saw patches of trees dotted around the landscape in the far distance. They wouldn’t be large enough to allow a wolf to hunt, and perhaps that was the way it had been planned. Either that, or the other trees had been cut down and removed.

Declan closed his eyes and breathed deeply as the fresh air filled his lungs. He used to get the same feeling when he was a kid —and as he’d climbed onto the roof of his old house. It was a clean smell, and it was a fresh smell. A very pleasant one that he enjoyed.

Declan pictured himself running wild around these parts, he would have no tree cover, yet he imagined it as if he owned the land, and was safe. Running free was the best thing a human could miss out on. And it was good Noelle had experienced this once, before she'd lost her powers.

“Right, my nature tank’s full, let’s go and see what’s in store for us with the RICH parents,” he said, with a chuckle.

“I can’t help it, it’s been hunter central since it was built,” Noelle replied.

“Same family, of course?” Declan asked.

“Yeah.”

Declan started his car and drove down the driveway. Dust kicked up, and small stones clattered off the white fence that aligned the road either side of them. He hit the gray slate that filled the area in front of the house and parked on the far side of the black Range Rover, and near the black pickup truck that had a large row of chrome spotlights on the full width of the cab roof.

I know what they are for, and it’s not rabbits. Get a wolf in those babies, and they’d freeze like the Antarctic. Then “POW,” another dead werewolf, or werewolves.

The engine of Declan's car died as he turned the key to stop it. He sat to look at Noelle. “They sure had their shit together as hunters, don’t you think?

Noelle smiled but not in a proud manner. She'd seen the other side. The pain and the anguish that the hunters brought with them. Even Edmund had used fear as his tool for changing them back into humans. Two photos of dead people, and Noelle was never sure if they were real or doctored. She'd always known it wasn’t Megan’s story behind the picture. There was much more to it than that.

“Hey, Declan, I can’t remember; it was before Edmund tricked me. Did I ever mention the pictures I saw in the warehouse?” Noelle asked.

“You’ll have to remind me, a lotta shit has happened since then.”

“Well, he showed me two pictures. One was supposed to be of Megan’s parents who were killed by werewolves, and the other was supposed to be your dad,” she said. “There were boxes, but they only contained these two pics. It was all a scam.”

“If you had mentioned it, I've also forgotten. I doubt it was my dad’s picture, anyway. Dustin helped him to meet his end, but he didn’t do it in a werewolf manner. And it looked like an accident as far as I can remember,” Declan answered. “Why are you bringing that up now?”

“Because all this hunter and werewolf stuff is bullshit when you look at it. I admit, a few get turned, but if it was as bad as the hunters make out, there would be dead bodies everywhere, or packs of wolves would be overrunning the country,” Noelle said. “That was how I used to feel, but in the pack —and spending my very brief time as the hybrid wolf, I see things a hell of a lot differently, now.”

Declan patted Noelle on her leg. “I think we should save all the sentimental talk until later. Tonight, we’ll have takeout and have a good chat.”

“Okay, Mister Alpha. Let’s go and see if my parents remember me, or you, for that matter.”

“Ah! Noelle, you have such a way with words.”

“Everything becomes clear when it’s all out in the open.”