4

"Believe me or not, as a mother she was a really nice person." Tyler said quite monotonously: "But I can doubt that you two will become friends. But I can also understand. That right now it was a bit too hard."

I rubbed my jaw. The woman had had a really strong grip. Well, after all she was probably a werewolf and therefore strong, but that I and his mother would probably not understand each other in the future is pretty obvious in my eyes.

"Did she hurt you?" Tyler asked me worried and probably wanted to come towards me, but I couldn't use any more closeness from a werewolf today. I stood up quickly and backed away from him a bit. He understood and stopped.

We stayed like that for about two minutes.

"Well, if that's okay with you." Tyler started to speak, "Then I could explain a few things to you, if you want to?". He looked at me questioningly. I thought for a moment. It couldn't do any harm and I might be able to understand one or the other afterwards. I might also be able to find out what was in store for me now.

I nodded. "Okay, would you like to sit back down? It can take a while until I'm done."

I looked at him skeptically. Tyler grinned slightly and sat on the edge of the bed. "If you want, you can sit next to me. I won't bite you, or at least not now."

His words repeated in my head.

Wait what!

He's going to bite me? I looked at him in horror. "Oh wait, you don't know that? You humans really don't know anything about us, do you?" he exclaimed, horrified at first, but quickly calmed down again. Although I thought to myself what we should know about werewolves as humans. One was actually very happy when one encountered one as seldom as possible and if it did happen, the latter ignored one.

"Okay, that makes it a bit more complicated," he said. "Then I'd best start by explaining what this all means for you. Wouldn't you like to sit down after all? You You can also move the chair further away from me if you want." Tyler said to me, but when I didn't do anything like that, he probably just decided to start with his explanations.

"So, as you've probably already noticed, you're my mate. A few werewolves also use terms like soulmate or just mate. But all this only expresses one and the same thing: We are soul mates. Your soul and mine are like two halves that fit together perfectly. For a werewolf there is only one love. The human part can have or have had other relationships, but that's out of the question for a werewolf." He paused for a moment, looking at me intently.

"Once a werewolf finds his mate, he will never leave her. After a ritual, this bond cannot even be broken by death. All companions go through this ritual. It takes place in two steps. The first is on a full moon night and the second some time after that on the night before the full moon. After that, you are also a recognized member of the pack.

In this case a blood bond is created between the companions and in the second case a less strong one to the pack."

I held my breath in horror. Tyler wanted to perform some bloody ritual on me?

I'm guaranteed not to let that happen to me that easily.

I was already looking for an escape route with my eyes. I had to leave here.

"Believe me, running away won't do you any good here. The building is huge and a single maze. Also, there are other werewolves running around everywhere. And before I leave this room with you, there are a few things you should know." Tyler interrupted my escape thoughts. Was it

that obvious what I was planning? But if he was right and there really were werewolves everywhere, he wanted to I'm definitely not out of there again. I looked back at Tyler uncertainly.

"You look at me as if I wanted to kill you." He murmured to himself and turned back to me: "I'm well aware that people can't really understand our rituals and that you still can because of your past much less, but I promise you that everything will be fine if you just trust me. But now you have to listen to me carefully so that you don't get into trouble. As a human you have special rules here."

What I heard only confused me even more. Apparently people were worth almost nothing here except as 'mate'. I wasn't allowed to talk to any other werewolves, not look at them, and best avoid everyone except my mate, in my case Tyler. Otherwise it could end badly for me.

Tyler probably meant well, wanting to warn me and not let me walk in the open knife, but it all just sounded more ominous to me. I felt helpless and alone among the werewolves, although I had only met very few of them before.

For me it had actually seemed impossible from an early age to have anything to do with werewolves at all. I didn't like them, and werewolves were mostly disdainful of humans, especially those who were disabled in some way. I also never had to appear at any events where werewolves were supposed to find their partners. No one ever expected that I of all people would be the right fit for a werewolf.

As if he knew I'd like to be alone now, Tyler left the room but smiled at me again before closing the door. Now I was alone in the room with my confused thoughts.

It stayed that way for the next few days. Actually, Tyler only came to bring me food or to sleep on the sofa that was also in the room. I was the only one sleeping in the bed. Clothes and the like that I needed were usually just there in the morning. I assumed with a fair degree of certainty that Tyler organized this. I honestly found it quite enjoyable. It might sound a bit strange, but it gave me the opportunity to sort my thoughts. I didn't even mind being in the same four walls all the time.

But I knew that things couldn't always go on like this.

As if on command, the room door slammed open. Tyler's mother burst into the room. I sat on the bed and actually waited for Tyler, since he used to bring me something to eat around this time. His mother didn't seem to be in a good mood. Well, that was probably the understatement of the century. She looked at me as if she wanted to skin me alive.

I remembered Tyler's words so I quickly looked away from her and stopped staring, but that didn't seem to help. She grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room. She had a pace that I couldn't keep up with the best will in the world. I would have fallen several times if she hadn't kept holding me. So it went along a few corridors and down a flight of stairs until she formally kicked in a door again.