How I met my Mate - being a Human

Arrive

Mary

The sun was shining as the car drove up to take me to the pack house.

My things were packed and the lunch was in the oven. The new cook for the orphanage had arrived last week as promised. She was an upbeat, cheerful woman called Jane. She had lived and studied elsewhere. After a few years away from her pack, she wanted to come back. As she was not yet ready to live directly with the pack, the position was ideal for her as she had still some distance to the pack. Why she wanted this distance was not entirely clear to me. I didn't try to understand it either. Not that I didn't like Jane, I just lacked the background knowledge that I didn't have as a human to really understand.

I stepped out of the house after saying goodbye to Ms. Black, Jane and the kids.

The week had gone by so quickly with all the things I had to do. Jane was also completely fascinated by me, she wanted to know everything about my childhood here. What it was like for me to grow up like this, as a human in the world of werewolves. She had studied in a big city and had been surrounded by humans there. But they didn't know that werewolves existed. I wasn't supposed to know either. So my last week had been filled with conversations and so many tasks that I didn't have time to get nervous.

Sunday lunchtime had come all too quickly and now, as I stood there with my suitcase, all the tension returned.

All my things were in a small suitcase, which the driver looked at with disdain.

After one last look back, I got into the car and we drove off.

The pack house was a good hour away by car. I looked out of the window and watched the landscape change.

The orphanage was on the outskirts of a medium-sized city, near a forest. We went to school in the town and it was really in the city center, as were all the stores where I did my weekly shopping. I had always taken Ms. Black's car, so I had 15 minutes each way and didn't have to carry everything.

I liked the hustle and bustle of the orphanage. With 10 children, Ms. Black, a housekeeper and me, the house was always full. I often wondered why there were so many orphans among the werewolves. There were fewer the longer I was there. Nevertheless, 2 more small children had arrived last year.

I was grateful that I had always had a room of my own to retreat to when the turmoil was too much for me.

The countryside passed in front of my window, we had driven into the forest and after a while the trees gave way to large fields. There were hardly any houses on our way to the pack house.

My thoughts wandered from the landscape to my childhood. I couldn't remember a time before the orphanage. I had arrived as a baby and stayed there my whole life. No one who was related to me had ever come forward, to get me. It was rare for Humans to come to the orphanage as there was a system for orphans in the city. However, since I was dumped on the steps, Ms. Black took care of me.

Even though I was always treated differently as a Human, I didn't automatically have a bad childhood. I always tried to see the positive side of everything. Of course I was an outsider both at the orphanage and at school. The children at school were prejudiced against all of us. The werewolves didn't care, they still had the support of each other and later the pack. But I had remained alone. There was only one short time when I didn't feel excluded. That had been the first two years of my education. At the beginning, no one had asked where I came from and I hadn't told them. In the third year it did come up and so everyone knew where I had grown up. Step by step, everyone moved away from me and I was alone again. I had learned to deal with it, but it still hurted me after two years.

The scene outside my window had changed again, into a small town. There were more and more houses and finally we stopped in front of the pack house. I assumed it was the pack house. It was the biggest house of all, certainly 5 storys high.

The house looked inviting with its white front and the large terrace in front of the house. I got out of the car and looked around my new surroundings. There were several parking spots in front of the house, some of which were occupied. I knew that socializing among werewolves was very important and the pack house was a meeting place for them all.

The house was freestanding and I saw a large garden around the house, with several seating areas.

Next to me, the man who had driven me here, cleared his throat and took me out of my thoughts.

I didn't even know his name, we hadn't spoken to me the whole journey.

"Thanks for the ride," I said to him. He looked at me quizzically and nodded.

"What's your name?" I asked when he still didn't speak to me.

"Aaron." he said curtly. I smiled at him.

"I'm Mary." I said, he just nodded again and led the way into the house.

I walked behind Aaron and entered the terrace to the house behind him. The terrace alone was huge and had enough tables and chairs for 30 people. One whole corner was taken up by an outdoor kitchen with a barbecue and pizza oven.

Aaron went through a door into the house. The first floor was even bigger on the inside than it had looked from the outside. We were standing in a large living room with several seating areas and a huge TV. It also had comfortable wing chairs that stood slightly away from the TV. Aaron led me through the living room into a kind of dining room, which was only separated from the living room by a sliding door. There were 4 large tables in it, which could comfortably seat 60 people.

"This is the dining area, you can open it up to the common room," said Aaron. Finally, he led me into the kitchen, which was on the opposite side of the dining room.

The kitchen was bright and smelled very nice. There was a large, free-standing stove in the middle of the kitchen. The kitchen was flooded with light as there were so many windows, one wall was completely taken up by cupboards and ovens. The two fridges were double-doored and bright, like the rest of the interior.

The kitchen units were right next to the window so that you could see outside while working. A glass door was open and led into the garden.

The kitchen was a dream, it had all kinds of appliances and lots of storage space, in contrast to the small, dull kitchen I had had to deal with until now.

A woman came in the kitchen from the garden with a basket full of herbs. When she saw me, the corners of her mouth lifted and she beamed at me.

"Hello, you must be Mary!" She put the basket down on one of the shelves and came towards me.

"Hello, yes that's me."

"I'm Irma. I'm glad you're here." Irma said and immediately hugged me. I was a little surprised by the warmth of her greeting.

Sure Ms. Black had said that the hatred of the home didn't apply to everyone in the pack. But I hadn't expected so much friendliness. Aaron had barely spoken a sentence to me and had been rather cool towards me otherwise.

When Irma released me from her embrace, she looked me up and down.

"You're too thin, I'll make sure you gain some weight. How was your journey? Are you tired?"

"No thanks, everything was fine. What do you want me to do?"

Irma frowned.

"First of all, you're not a slave, you're an employee. Why don't you go to your room first and put your suitcases there?"

I looked at her sheepishly and lifted my suitcase. "This is my suitcase, but I'll take it straight to my room and then come back."

"That's all you've got? Then we'll have to go shopping. I can't do the shopping for me at the moment, but I can give you wonderful advice." She beamed at me when she said that. It was only then that I noticed her belly, she was pregnant.

"Oh, you're pregnant, how wonderful, congratulations."

She dismissed it with a wave of her hand and told Aaron to take me to my room.

We walked through the kitchen and dining area to a staircase. There we went up one floor.

I must have seen 6 doors when we got to the top, Aaron led me to one of them and unlocked it with a key.

He let me in, my breath caught in my throat as I walked into the room. It was just as bright as the kitchen as it had lots of big windows. The room was large and had a king-size bed in the middle, as well as a dressing table and a sofa. There was also a large wardrobe and another door in the room. Aaron explained to me that this led to my bathroom.

I had my own bathroom? Amazing.

He gave me the key to my room and then let me settle in and unpack.

I let myself sink onto the bed and took it all in. The bed was a four-poster bed with pink curtains. Everything was in light tones and looked like something out of a magazine.

The bathroom was bigger than the one I had to share at the orphanage. It had a shower and a bathtub in it, a toilet and a washbasin rounded everything off.

I freshened up briefly and then went back downstairs to Irma in the kitchen. What was I thinking working for werewolves? And to live there too!