Seeing my mom with my dad, aunts with my uncles, and the list goes on...well, I wasn't in a rush to settle down with a werebitch yet either. Besides, I knew my fate like everyone else in the Pack knew theirs. I knew it would come soon enough. So, I spent my freedom chasing after Normie tail.
Pack unions were for life. And some guys chose to get into one at that young age. Because we knew what it meant. On the one hand, the quicker you got into a union, the better your freedom to choose was. Because the longer you waited, the less choice you'd have before eventually you'd be forced into one.
It was law. A thing we all knew as pairing. And it could happen naturally or forced. But put simply, pairing is the way Weres bond and have procreation.
I can't explain how it happens other than as a Were, we are bound by this psychic force that governs us. And in that psychic force, it also governs our mating. As long as you stayed Pack, the stronger the force was.
Which was why I understood why Jay was so hellbent on trying to convince Tara to be with him. Because she was a loner. And loners rarely stayed Pack.
Jay must have definitely had Alpha in him to set his sights on a loner. Loners are harder to tame due to the whole isolation thing. But also, they aren't known to pick Pack as a mate. Usually if a Were has loner traits, it is because they want to get away from being Pack. Those are the types that usually end up leaving and starting a new life free from our laws and connection. The only thing is, when you break with the force...so does your connection to being a Were. A process known as Dispersing.
Which is why most of us stay. Because to disperse is to lose everything that you are. Who you are.
Dispersing is rare. Most of us choose to stay in Pack. And to stay Were, marry Were, work for Were, and die Were. But sometimes it does happen. Some Weres disperse and become Normies. And usually the ones who want to Disperse show signs of loner in them. Tara was the first, however, in a long time that our Pack had seen of a loner. But we all knew eventually she'd cut the cord. Which made us treat her like she was already not a member of the pack in a way. And that's how she liked it.
She didn't want to be Were anymore. But if she got with Jay, it would seal her fate. She'd be stuck forever being part of the Pack. She would be his bitch. She would have his pups. She would be the Alpha female to our future Alpha. Which was probably why, even though I could tell she loved him, she denied his advances.
It nearly broke Jay. He spent the majority of his time back then, heartbroken over Tara's rebuffs. Even though he had finally earned his place among the Pack, he was focused on getting the mate he wanted for the rest of his life before we graduated and she chose to leave it all behind for good. I tried to help him through his sadness as much as I could.
And a lot of Normie girls and other werebitches were throwing themselves at him to take Tara's place if she didn't want to be with him. But I guess Jay had his mind made up. And looking back I couldn't blame him.
Tara is a beautiful bitch. Thick, dark curly hair past her shoulders. Brown eyes with long lashes. A gorgeous face. Healthy. Sturdy.
It would have been a waste to see her genes go to some Normie life. No, she was meant to bare someone's pups. And at the time we all thought it was Jayson. Despite how hard she tried to fight her love for him.
They came close. I remember Graduation night. We had a big bonfire. And it was one of the only Pack parties that Tara attended. She'd shown up dressed in cut off shorts and a light jacket to keep her warm as the temperature dropped at the beach. I remember how pissed some of the Pack girls were when she came and took Jay's attention.
I had been having a good time in my own world. I had just graduated and had a few underage drinks here and there. So, I wasn't really paying any attention to Tara or Jay. But the next day when I saw him, he admitted that he thought he was getting closer to convincing Tara to stay with the Pack.
And in so many words I thought it meant that he'd finally gotten laid. Because that was the only way for pairing to be sealed. It is archaic and misogynistic, but the only way to claim a mate for life is to essentially obliterate the hell out of the bitch you wanted. Not only would it be the only way, for the force that kept us all Weres, to recognize the union. But it also told all the other male Weres that this was your bitch. And she was finally claimed.
I can't count how many fights happened between males who had a thing going with a Pack girl but it ended because another guy just so happened to crack the egg 1st. And those types of union fights were only second to when you'd literally have two Pack males squaring off to decide which one would be the 1st. Those fights usually happened in the privacy between the two guys without the girl ever hearing about it. Because it seemed more civilized than doing it in front of her.
Lucky for Jay, he didn't have to worry about anyone squaring off against him for the right to Tara. No one wanted her other than him. So, I had assumed that she had finally given in and was his.
But then he told me that she still hadn't fully given herself to him yet. That they had just kissed on graduation night and did some other stuff. It was the first physical touch they'd done their entire time being in love with each other.
He said that she told him she needed more time to decide what she was going to do. That she would know by the end of the year whether she would stay Pack or Disperse for good now that we had all graduated and were eighteen.
But for now, they would just see each other casually.
I was happy for him.
Back then I thought there was no way Tara would actually turn Jay down. I knew she loved him and would choose to stay Pack for him. I felt like she was just giving him a hard time because she didn't want to give up her freedom to essentially become like all the other werewomen before her: married Were and raising Were pups.
I felt like everything was going great in life at the time.
For me and Jay.
Jay had got accepted to the local College with some of the other Packmembers. And I, like the rest of the Pack who didn't want to continue school, got hired at a Were owned company. And there were usually two places to go: construction or one of the many wholesale stores.
I got hired to work under my dad at Jay's father's company. And I settled into my new life.
My dad helped me get a trailer of my own and I was able to move out.
Jay came over a lot with the rest of the guys to hang. It was like a little bachelor pad despite being a dump. We'd sit, talk shit, and laugh.
My family would come over and we'd all have a good time together, too. And I got a taste of the life I would be living that was much like my dad and uncles before me.
I had as much Normie sexual relationships as I could now that I lived alone. Which aggravated my mother to no end. She wanted me to hurry and pick a good werebitch to have pups with.
Most of my older sisters were already married and I was the only single one without any kids. And because I was the male and baby of the family, my mom put a lot of pressure on me to settle down.
Most of the Were girls had already gotten with guys that I worked with. And a lot of my Packmembers were expecting their first kids not even long after we graduated.
And that meant there weren't many weregirls my age left to pick from.
But I knew I'd end up with one eventually, regardless. Seeing as though that was how the law worked. And despite it sounding bad out loud, I was perfectly ok with having my fun until I was forced into a pairing.
A natural pairing was by choice.
A forced pairing was...well. By force.
Unless you were gay, then if you didn't pick a mate for yourself, you'd be relegated to a forced pairing. Which was why we didn't treat homosexuality like the Normies did. Because it was a natural part of our nature in our world where Weres who liked the same sex were free to not produce offspring. So, there was no point in hiding being gay or lesbian when we'd find out soon enough if you were never forced into a pair or you tried to mate into a pair and the bond didn't work. We didn't shame homosexuality since it just meant that your nature was different.
Two of my sisters, three of my female cousins, and four of my male cousins were gay. And those of us who were still single and straight often joked about how lucky they were that they got to escape being forced into a pairing.
I would try to avoid seeing ethe weregirls who were left. But sometimes I would see them accidentally and they would outright be suggestive that we'd make a pairing already. But like I said, I wasn't ready to be locked down just yet. So, I would just laugh it off and high tale it out of there before they could tempt me anymore. Because Werewomen who want a mate can become some of the most dominant, frightening creatures alive. Not even the strongest men could turn them down when they set their sights on mating. And I was weak after all, but not weak enough to ignore the temptation that meant a lifetime if it happened.
I was going to wait as long as I could before suddenly I found myself bound to whatever weregirl. But it wasn't like I was playing Russian roulette. I was perfectly fine with the selection of who I could possibly end up having as a mate. And me and some of the other bachelors who were left would joke about who'd we would end up with often. I just wasn't ready to quickly bounce into the whole world of wife and kids just yet.
