Jared's POV

We are sitting in Scarlett (Eden's) living room waiting for her to return from the kitchen with the cookies she was making when we first arrived here and some lemonade. We told her we were fine but she insisted on feeding us. Nice gestures and all but we really need to start taking. Scarlett sits down across from us after bringing the treats in and I don't waste any time as I begin questioning her.

"So I am sure you want to know why my mother Karina would send us here to you after all these years. "I begin.

"Yes. I am very intrigued." She says.

"Well, she told us that you had once experienced a similar situation that we are experiencing now. We really need your help and any information you can provide us would be greatly appreciated." I say as politely as possible.

"Well I figured that it must be important and that it was something that my daughter shouldn't hear so that's why I had to get her to leave." She says.

"Right, well I wasn't sure if she knew about our kind or not." I reply.

"She doesn't. The only one that did was my late husband." She responds.

"Ok. So you know my parents were werewolves and so am I. But what you don't realize is that Samira over here is not a werewolf but she is my destined mate." I say bluntly.

Might as well get everything out in the open. Her eyes widen a bit.

"What?" She asks.

"She is a human. And she is my mate. My mother told us you had the same situation, but that you had more than one mate. Is that true?" I ask.

She stays silent for a minute or so. You can tell she is trying to figure out how to explain her situation to us. Then she finally begins.

"I met my late husband, Charles, when I was 17 years old in high school. It was love at first site and we hit it off very quickly. It wasn't long before we became a serious couple. When we graduated from high school, we both wanted to go to college. We both sent applications in so we would get accepted at the same university and we did. We planned to finish school, start our careers, get married and have a family. We knew we wanted to be together forever. We moved into an apartment together and started school in the fall. We made friends with other couples, your parents included, and we use to hang out and go to parties together. When we first met, I had no idea they were werewolves or that there was such a thing. I know it's not something you tell humans very often. One Saturday night, we had gone to a party together. We were all dancing and having a great time when all of the sudden it felt like the air was being taken from my lungs. I got the most wonderful sensation and feeling when another young man bumped into me on the dance floor and had to catch me before I fell backwards and onto the ground. His eyes widened and his breath hitched like mine as he stared at me intensely. He smelled so wonderful and was beautiful to look at. I felt a strange magnetic connection with him and I knew he did too from that moment on. We went on to introduce our significant others to one another and we all became friends and would hang out together. The more we hung out together though, the more that attraction became stronger. We both knew something strange was happening. Him more than me obviously because he was a werewolf. I was just feeling very confused with my emotions. His name was Rayson and I will never forget how absolutely stunningly handsome he was. One night he had had a fight with his girlfriend and I was fighting with Charlie. We ended up meeting up and talking and then before we knew it we were in the backseat of his car doing about everything we could together just short of actually making love to another. It was a night filled with passion and desire amongst the levels of which I had never seen before. If we had gone all the way, I am pretty sure my life would have turned out much differently. But our consciences kicked in and reminded us that this wasn't the right thing to do. Every time we were around each other afterwards though we kept feeling that pull towards one another. We did kiss and mess around with each other a few more times after that. It was like we couldn't control ourselves around one another. One night Rayson couldn't take it anymore and he explained all about the werewolf world and about mates and how confused he was because the girlfriend he had was supposed to be his mate but he felt the mate attraction 10x stronger with me. He was very confused and so was I. So we sought the help of a witch that knew a lot about supernatural beings. She told us that we were mates but that we also had our other mates mine of course being Charlie that was human like me and his being his girlfriend Maria that was a werewolf like him. Neither Charlie nor Maria ever knew about our unique situation. We decided to keep it to ourselves until we decided how we were going to handle it. Then the witch told us that we had to choose which mate we wanted to be with and that we had to reject the other so we could move on with our lives. We had to make a decision. Even though we both loved our other mates, we just had a much more intense connection to one another. We were going to choose each other and reject the others. That was until we found out the next day that Maria was pregnant with Rayson's baby. Another werewolf. Rayson couldn't stand the thought of not being there to raise his baby so he had to choose Maria. It broke my heart. But I knew he did the right thing. So did he. We rejected one another and Rayson marked Maria. The only reason he hadn't before that time was back then the older generation of werewolves frowned upon marking/mating before marriage. I stayed with Charlie and we ended up getting married and I had my daughter a few years later. We moved away and didn't look back. It was better for Rayson and I to be apart so we didn't cross paths anymore. Neither one of our mates knew about our connection and it was better that way. To the best of my knowledge they never found out either." She finishes telling her story.

Holy shit. That's wild. But that doesn't give me answers about our dilemma. Will Samira get hurt if I mark her?

"That's an amazing story. It truly is." Samira responds to her.

"I agree." I say simply. "But I have one more question that you may or may not know the answer to.." I begin.

She nods her head to let me know to go ahead.

"Did the witch tell you if there were any risks if Rayson would have marked you? Was there a chance something bad could happen to you? Would you have been able to carry pups as a human?" I question her.

Samira gives me a look of shock on her face. Not quite sure why though but I look back to Scarlett.

"Well first of all that was more than one question." She says with a chuckle. "But actually yes she told us it would be fine if we were to mate. That Rayson would turn me into a werewolf with his mark and that I could carry any of his babies without issue." She answers.

I can't contain my excitement. I beam from ear to ear.

"Thank you so much!! This is exactly what we wanted to hear." I say grabbing Samira and hugging her close to me.

I give her a chaste kiss and she returns the kiss.

"We can just choose each other, mate and I can mark you and we can live together happily ever after." I say.

We stand there in a state of bliss before Scarlett speaks again, this time dropping the bomb that absolutely makes me feel sick to my stomach.

"So my guess is that neither one of you have met your other mates yet correct?" She asks.

"No we haven't, but that's good right? That means we can make our choice before we even have to." I say still smiling at this point.

"Well that's not exactly how it works. The witch told me we were fortunate because we had already met our other mates and then met each other so we could make our choice without any other thought. But if we had met each other first and not met our other mates and Rayson had marked me...I would have died. You have to meet your other mate and reject them before you and Samira can fully mate and be together." She says.

We are so screwed.