Fulfillment 17

"Mate? I don't want a mate."

"Happy, then."

There are a couple of minutes of quiet, and she asks, "How did you know?"

"What?"

"How did you know she was the one you wanted?"

Emmett sighed. "I had watched her before I met her. Something about her caught my eye as I ran sweep, her smell, something. I can't exactly tell you what it was."

"I knew she liked meat. I watched her plant, read a book."

"I watched her walk."

"And I watched her screw her boyfriend."

"You, what? And you didn't kill him?"

"It was a hot night, they were sleeping outside and I couldn't. He's a human and so was she. She would have screamed, called the police, and hated me for the rest of her life. The rules are different for them. I couldn't have won her that way."

"But, how did you know?"

"I looked forward to seeing her. I wanted to spend time with her, touch her, smell her.

"Lust," Stephanie says.

"Yes. There was that. But more. I've lusted after females and bedded them but there wasn't more. I didn't want to spend time with them. I could just sit and watch her."

Stephanie thought about that a bit. "How did she know?"

Emmett is quiet for a few moments, thinking of the conversation he had with her about that. "I'm not sure, you'd have to ask her." He sighs. "She didn't. At first. She thought I was an injured animal. She treated my wounds."

"Randall and Ariel came to her house, scared her. I brought her to the den and you know what happened. She hated me, for taking her away from her life, making her a captive."

"You said she called for you when Thomas attacked her."

"She still trusted me."

"Still?"

"Her boyfriend had hurt her and she ordered him out of her house. He came back, mad, attacked her. I protected her. She was glad I was there with her."

"But, even after everything, even after she agreed to be my mate, I'm not sure when she actually fell in love with me. I'm not sure she knows. But she does, and I'm glad."

There was something he wasn't saying. She could hear it in his voice but, before she could ask, he said, "You can trust me, Stephanie." A statement.

Again, before she could open her mouth to reply, "You trust all the males in the pack"

They are in the parking lot now, Emmett puts the car in park. "You trust that we won't touch you, that we'll leave you alone."

"Orders."

"Doesn't mean someone wouldn't try, after all these years. You even went so far as to help a male, at the gathering."

"No one should be abused."

"And you trust Calvin, and most of his pack, or you wouldn't go there."

"But, why?"

"You want something, Stephanie. Need something. More. Just like the rest of us."

She grumbled, "I don't need anything."

Emmett turns in the seat to look at her. "Then why are you here?"

Without waiting for a response from her, he says, "Wait here. He'll want to open the door for you."