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months
later, looking at the reality of that indecision. He panted and put
his head down on his paws, staring out over the ravine with a glum
expression.
    Eli knew Vivvie struggled every day
with what she was; saw it in her expression as he watched their
young frolic on the beach. She was missing her human life. He had
no doubt she loved him and their young, but he knew she longed to
be human again too.
    It was one of the things he had been
attracted to when she first arrived to the compound with Ty. Her
human ways fascinated him. For the first time in four hundred years
he catered to a female’s feelings; really listened to one. While he
found human women just as annoying and complex; he knew his mate
had an internal struggle within herself.
    While she embraced some facets of her
new nature; she rejected the others. Her ability to breed every
eight weeks was a fact of her nature. She went into heat every six
weeks. It was all he could do to stay away from her then. She had
to know it was as instinctual for him to want her then as it was
for her to conceive.
    They abstained but it grew to be
pointless and today was an example. Her very nature wanted what her
human one recoiled from. Jericho warned him to practice using
protection. He growled when he recalled the elder trying to show
him how to wear a human condom. Where Jericho came by such
knowledge was anyone’s guess.
    He refused to wear one. In fact; he ate
the box of condoms in outrage. The stomach upset was worth the
point he made. He was a damn animal! He wasn’t wearing the
ridiculously small rubber shields on his manhood. They constricted
him and inhibited his own pleasure. It was too late to feel regret.
His mate was breeding again.
    Jericho told him this would happen. The
elder was Vivvie’s closest friend and confidant; knew much of her
emotional upheaval. He tried to help her now. Eli thought it best
if Vivvie learned the rest of what she needed to know on her
own.
    His mate must realize there was no
going back to who she was or what she was. Her human family thought
her dead. He avoided telling her that her human parents ordered a
tombstone in a cemetery with her name on it.
    They wanted to put all
behind them when she remained missing six months later. Ty went to
the gravesite; confirmed that Vivian Leigh Collins, born June
7 th 1988, died April 16 th 2011. There was no going back
for her. Her human people found peace in laying her to
rest.
    Their former daughter would never find
peace unless she surrendered to the beast that she was; the
instincts that grew in her daily. He saw the indecision in her eyes
and knew the cause. They didn’t speak of it because Eli refused to
allow it to invade their life. Vivvie was his mate. It was time she
put the past behind her.
    “I should have known I’d find you
here,” a feminine voice intruded from behind him. “Some things
never change.”
    Eli turned his head and growled as he
saw the woman approaching. His blue eyes glowed to see who it was.
He shifted back and got up and stared at her in shock. The woman
wore a loose flowing lavender nightgown and robe set. Her full
breasts spilled dangerously at the neckline.
    “Tania?” he asked incredulously as he
approached her, sniffing unconsciously. “Is that really you? You’re
awake?”
    Tania smiled as her eyes devoured him
from head to toe. “It appears I seem to have overslept.”
    Eli looked sad at that. “Much happened
in that time. Jericho has told you?”
    She nodded sadly and passed him to
stand at the ledge, folding her arms across her chest. Her long
lustrous dark hair fell over her shoulder, hanging in fragrant
waves to her hips. “Jericho told me you took a mate.”
    Eli heard the pain in her tone; saw it
in the stiffness of her slender shoulders. He was annoyed to feel
guilt. She would try and make him feel bad for falling in love with
someone else. Not once had he ever felt he was number one in her
affections. For two hundred years he ate his