“This proves that compulsory wolf mating program does not work for our girls, and it should have been stopped a long time ago,” Tara’s mother declared, speaking in the St. Ailbie pack’s highly bastardized version of High German as she and Tara’s twenty-three-year-old sister, Naomi, put together supper at the wood cook stove. “If anything, the problem has become worse since you left, Tara. I can no longer recall the last time one of our young she-wolves went into heat.”

“I cannot even recall how a she-wolf in heat smells, so it must have been a very long time ago,” Naomi commented while stirring the company cabbage. “In my opinion, no she-wolf could desire these entitled few St. Ailbe boys who are treated as so precious by the adults only for the reason that they are boys.”

Naomi sniffed the pot, using her wolf senses rather than her taste buds to see if the sautéed cabbage, carrots, and green onion dish was done. “I cannot imagine ever going into heat,” she said, taking the pot off the stove.

“About that, we will see,” both Else and Tara said at the same time and in the same knowing tone.

Tara laughed, hardly able to believe the thirteen-year-old sister she’d left behind was now a twenty-three-year-old young woman. Nearly an old maid so far as unmated wolves in their pack town were concerned, but still more naïve than most she-wolves her age. According to their mother, Naomi had been punished by the old alpha for what Tara had done to Jacob—which had not only been a bad look for their pacifist pack, but also ended St. Ailbe’s alliance with Jacob’s Prince Edward Island pack.

No wonder Leora had never answered any of the letters Tara sent after what happened with her mate’s brother. Leora had sent monthly check-ins to their mother to let Else know she and the granddaughter her side of the family had never met was fine. But there had to be some bitterness where Tara was concern. Tara had given up on writing to her older sister years ago, but now wondered if she shouldn’t take a leaf from Valentina’s book and keep trying, even if she didn’t get a response.

And as for Naomi… “You did put your name on the exchange list,” Tara reminded her.

“That matters not,” her sister said as she emptied the saucepan into a plain serving bowl. “I go to Scotland only to see you wed. I care not for this exchange otherwise.”

Yeah, Tara had noted her sister was one of the few who’d abstained from the vote. Maybe Naomi really didn’t want to be mated. Or maybe after being so aggressively not matched by the pack alpha and then his son-in-law for so long, she’d fully accepted her role as St. Ailbe’s youngest spinster. Either way, Naomi seemed much less excited at the prospect of going to Scotland than nearly every other young woman between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six in St. Ailbe.

“Are those peas done?” she asked, obviously wanting to change the subject.

“Yes, the super hard job you gave me is finished,” Tara answered with a sigh. Just as when she’d been a teenager, she and the females of her family had easily fallen into conversation, stating their opinions to each other in ways they never would in the company of males. And just like when she was a teenager, Tara had been given the overly simple task of shelling peas—an action she must have committed to muscle memory because she’d been able to shell enough for everyone in a under fifteen minutes.

“What are you making? A pea salad? I can do that,” she offered.

“Oh no, we would not want you to burn down the house,” Naomi answered, taking the bowl of fresh peas away from Tara. “Again.”

“You almost burned down the house one time,” Tara grumbled. “And pea salad doesn’t require a stove.”

“But the counter is close to the stove,” Naomi pointed out, her voice mean with sweetness. “I would not feel safe giving you this assignment.”

“Naomi…” her mother warned. But Tara could tell she was working hard to suppress a laugh even as she told her prodigal daughter that it mattered not. This was the very last item to be prepared and Naomi could make the salad much easier and faster since she already knew where everything was stored.

Else turned to her middle daughter. “Tara, could you please for me wake Valentina from her nap? She will probably wish to wash up before supper.”

In the end, Tara decided not to protest since truth be told, her cooking skills hadn’t advanced much past the days when she’d been forbidden to go near the wood stove again after…wait for it…trying to heat up a simple pot of soup for a sick Else.

Also, she could see Magnus, Lachlan, and her father returning from the pack leader’s house after having spent the entire afternoon discussing how to get Tara’s plan off the ground.

“I will get her,” she said.

And though waking Valentina was something that needed doing, her heart pounded with relief because it meant she could put off talking to Magnus for a little while longer.

After convincing the older woman not to reapply her makeup since it wasn’t the St. Ailbe pack’s way, Tara lingered with Valentina, standing in the doorway of the small upstairs bathroom as the older woman washed her hands.

“I suppose I should be grateful for the running water. I read some of the humans who live a lifestyle similar to your pack don’t even have that.”

Valentina seemed much less baffled by the St. Ailbe pack than she had previously. She told Tara while waiting for Magnus and her ex-husband at the airport, she’d looked up and read a bunch of articles about the Amish and Mennonites, the two human groups their pack were descended from—or, some would say, culled from.

Packs like St. Ailbe’s were what happened back in the day when Amish and Mennonite communities needed a place to put newly-made shifters. Their gender imbalance used to lean in the opposite direction since accidentally getting bitten by a shifter tended to happen disproportionately to males. However, after the introduction of cage changing for most Ontario werewolves, more girls were born within the St. Ailbe pack and fewer males returned from rumspringa.

The problem of male attrition became especially pronounced after the introduction of smart phones and social media. Which was why Tara found Faoltiarn so hard to believe when she’d first visited last summer with Milly. It was incredible to her that there was a village very similar to her own, but with an overabundance of males, located thousands of miles away in the Scottish Highlands.

But despite a trip down the research rabbit hole, Valentina still had quite a few questions which Tara was more than happy to answer…and continue answering all the way downstairs.

They ended up being the last ones to the handcrafted oak dining table, made by her father after her mother’s second heat pregnancy increased the size of their family from four to five. It had ten leaves and was extended out to accommodate tonight’s larger number of guests, with two chairs left empty between Magnus and Lachlan.

The outsiders side, she thought to herself as she dutifully sat next to her husband and bowed her head for a prayer led by her father.

Perhaps Valentina was also in an avoidant mood. After they passed around plates of homemade bread, meatloaf, pickled beets, company cabbage, and of course, the pea salad, Magnus’s mother avoided conversation with Lachlan and addressed Danso, “If I am understanding what Tara has told me, you grew up as a non-wolf human in Africa, but somehow ended up here?”

“Yes, I am Ghanaian,” Danso answered. “My family sent me to Ontario for university.”

“That is a very long way to send a young man for schooling. Was your family well off, then?” Valentina asked in her blunt fashion.

Naomi’s eyes cut to their father, obviously curious to hear his reply. As was Tara. Growing up, their father rarely talked about the time before he was baptized into the St. Ailbe pack, and much less about his previous life in Ghana. In fact, Tara hadn’t realized Danso must be in Canada on a long-expired student visa until she went to apply for her own birth certificate with the human’s Office of the Registrar General.

“Yes, they were well off. Perhaps they still are. But that has nothing to do with my life now,” Danso answered with a humble smile. “In many ways, it feels as if my life did not truly begin until the night I became a wolf.”

“And how did that happen?” Valentina asked, leaning forward.

“I was on a camping trip with the Toronto University’s Christian Students group. I woke in the middle of the night with the urge to use the toilet. I can still remember admiring the beautiful full moon as I wandered a distance from the tents to do my business in private. However, on the way back to the camp, I must have taken a wrong turn because I came upon a wolf tied to a tree. I thought a cruel human had done this to the magnificent creature and I quickly attempted to release him but…” Danso shrugged his shoulders and let the listeners put two and two together.

“But it was a werewolf, wasn’t it?” Magnus said. “He was using the old native trick to tie himself down in order to keep from wandering amongst the humans.”

“Yes, exactly,” Danso said, with a nod toward Magnus. “I found this out the hard way during the next full moon. I thank God I was inside my own apartment attending to my bible study when my first change came upon me. I destroyed much of the furniture, but I did not hurt another soul. Because I knew nothing of what I had become, I had no knowledge of the existence of the Ontario pack and I attempted to remain in the human world by hiding what I had become. Ironically, I used the same trick as that of the wolf who bit me and tied myself to a tree during each change. I thought myself all alone and worse, an abomination against God. But then I stumbled across Else at an Amish crafts fair. She was the first shifter I ever scented, and though I had no knowledge of mates, I immediately knew she was meant to be mine.”

Across the table, Tara noticed her mother blush like the seventeen-year-old she’d been when she met her mate. Just as she always did when Danso reached this part of his story.

Valentina, however, looked slightly horrified. “Did you not tell him of the Ontario king and the other province and city packs, so that he could find more wolves like himself?” she asked Else.

“Oh, she told him all right,” Tara replied, defending her mother with a wry chuckle. “According to Mamm, she encouraged Daed to return to Toronto and find a pack to join and a more appropriate she-wolf to mate with. But Daed refused to see reason and applied to the St. Ailbe’s pack leader for an apprenticeship with a family of carpenters.”

“This was at the beginning of our problem with low male birth rates. Fortunately for me, the village was eager to welcome male converts,” Danso added.

“Daed spent a whole year here learning carpentry and how to farm, not knowing if my mother would accept him as her mate,” Tara said.

“Oh, no, Daughter. I knew your mother would come to feel for me as I do for her,” Danso corrected. And he gazed at her mother with the same gentle love he always did.

Tara felt a sudden burst of consternation flare up over her mate bond, and she looked up just in time to see Magnus shift uncomfortably in his seat. Why had her parents’ meet-cute story bothered him?

Soon after, Magnus firmly steered the dinner conversation towards the subject he’d been discussing with the pack leader. “The one sticking point is the pacifism. Our warrior tradition goes back to the Viking Age and most of our boys are taught from birth to defend our village with sword and rifle…”

Not surprisingly, this topic dominated the remainder of dinner, with the men and Valentina passing opinions back and forth until Magnus suddenly stopped and said, “Tara, what do you think?”

Tara glanced up in surprise. “Oh! Well, I think there are several workarounds in the Ordnung we can use,” she answered carefully, keeping her eyes on her plate as she spoke. “But perhaps we could also increase the age of the training program and make it optional—kind of like we do with the armed forces. If male or female children who grow up in New St. Ailbe decide at sixteen that they want to train as a Highland warrior, they will be permitted to do so for a while and make the decision for themselves.”

“New St. Ailbe?” Magnus asked.

“That’s what we’re calling the village,” she informed him, looking up long enough to smirk. “It’s about time your side of the pond was forced to name itself after a town from our continent. Consider it payback for New Brunswick.”

Naomi’s mouth dropped open and her mother’s eyes widened in shock at Tara’s disrespectful tone. But Magnus, Lachlan, and Valentina just laughed.

For a moment Tara felt like her old self again. Though in truth, this was her new self, wasn’t it? Like many of the native packs, the St. Ailbe shifters were exempt from the Ontario pack laws, so Tara’s name had never been added to the Canadian Registry of Wolves. She also didn’t acquire an official birth certificate or Social Insurance Number until she needed them to attend university. For all intents and purposes, the woman on her human I.D., the one she’d been presenting herself as up until now, had only existed for nine years, give or take.

She’d been Tara, middle daughter of Danso and Else, for far longer. Eighteen years to be exact. Like her father, she’d left everything she knew behind to enter another world. But unlike her father, she’d returned to her former life… this time with her mate.

Tara pondered these things as she helped her mother and sister clear the table. After the post-meal clean-up was done, Danso broke out the updated Life on the Farm board game Tara sent them a couple of Christmases ago and encouraged everyone to play. But as soon as Magnus agreed to join, she made her escape, claiming fatigue after all the travel and activity of the last several days.

Still, even as she rushed upstairs, Tara knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid Magnus forever. She’d felt his eyes on her throughout dinner, and though he’d yet to ask her questions like Valentina did, she doubted that meant he didn’t have any. How could he not? If the entire house wasn’t without mirrors, she’d be as shocked by her appearance as she knew he had been when he first laid eyes on her earlier.

The whole experience made Tara wonder if her situation was at all similar to the strange dichotomy drag queens lived with. The careful balancing act of who they were with makeup and who they were without. Tara could not recall the last time she’d stepped onto a public street without makeup, and her hands were itching even now to put some on…to don her everyday mask and hide her true self from Magnus.

Instead, Tara grabbed the paperback she’d borrowed from Milly before her friend and Iain had left out on their extended babymoon. It was called The Beach, and Milly had said it was one of the novels that had sparked her love of travel. Tara cracked it back open and let herself get lost in the story. Though, as someone who never wanted to live in another super remote location again, Tara found it hard to get on board with the concept of a commune far away from civilization…