17 Bullets: becoming the Werewolf Queen

Chapter 38: Choice

Exactly one year later.

We sat in our thrones looking down into the village square. It was filled with vendors and families like never before. The city had thrived since we took over. Thann held my hand as we watched our children. The two were playing with the now many other littles, a simple game like soccer.

Qala looked at his sister and then up at us. He signed play ball with a laughing grin and Thann signed back a loving gesture. We could communicate easily now that I had my own ring back, but signing was still part of our days.

Qala and Kami seemed nearly six years old by Earth years, but I was told that the quick aging was normal for werewolf children. They'd age rapidly to look about twenty-five and then stop for a century.

A century.

Three centuries.

What would it be like to live for three hundred years?

Thann squeezed my hand, and I smiled up to him.

It will be wonderful. He spoke to my mind.

Ever since he marked me as full mates we could communicate in our minds in human form as well as wolf form. It was one more thing to bring us together.

As if six children wouldn't be enough.

I placed a hand on my very pregnant belly and looked over to the napping three year olds, cuddling into each other.

We came to find out that every wolf-human pregnancy was about forty days and always boy girl twins. If the act was wanted by the woman, it ended in a pregnancy, birth control or not. As I already knew. And a body wouldn't get too many weeks rest before pregnancy occurred again. King Matzaball did try to use some of the girls as well as roaming rogues, but apparently if the act was unwanted the men could not perform.

It made me giggle to think back to my near assault. I wasn't worried about how he was acting, only to get away. But he probably was having a problem coming to attention that discouraged him. Oh well, he didn't have to be worried about his disfunction for too long.

Thann says that Moon Goddess would not have brought us all here just to be assaulted. So Goddess actually did care about individual choice. The women had to choose to allow the mateship to occur.

After our inauguration, we found over a hundred other Earth females around the planet, bringing the total close to a hundred fifty. Some were gravely injured that we did our best to help, but a sorrowful total of thirty passed away in one way or another. Others followed me and became werewolves themselves. Though not all of the hundred plus chose to be mates, all women were loved, cared for, and well protected.

Thann and his new council deliberated for days and he finally came out to give his one and only alpha command to the greater people.

It was for them to have their own free agency, and no longer controlled by alpha commands. He set up a similar set of rules and consequences, letting the council and people vote as much of Earth's governments act. Each pack had their own continued alpha, but now the reign was more benign like a mayor. They couldn't use the alpha command but were in charge of rules. I was proud of Thann, and his people had a new respect and love for their Alpha King.

"Alpha King! Alpha Queen!" Beta Cane called out, running through the square in fear.

Thann stood, nerves flaring. "Yes?"

Cane bowed at the steps. "Thann, the unmated women. They are all gone."

"Rouges," Thann flushed. "Send your team. Find them!"

But a small voice whispered to me, like real words on the wind.

"No," I told them, through their continued planning.

Both turned to me, and I looked out over the women tending to business around the square. "They've been sent back to Earth."

"What?" Cane asked baffled.

I smiled a greeting to a waving woman hanging laundry up on a rope, a baby tied to her back another nestled in the laundry basket. The words came out like I was reading a book. "We were supposed to be here for a year to repopulate. Those that chose not to stay were sent back home."

"They're back on Earth?" Thann asked.

"Yes," I nodded serenely.

I was still there.

That meant that my choice, conscious or not, was to stay on the werewolf planet.

I grinned up at Thann and he brought me out of my chair and clear into his arms. "Then you will always be mine, my Darling Mate." He kissed me with so much adoration it could have filled a thousand planets.

"And you will always be mine."

He glanced over our children and put his hand on my belly to calm the new ones. "Eleanor, you and our children are the richest blessing any alpha could ever have. The stories were true. You have made me the richest most powerful man alive."

THE END