A/N: Now for the winner from WATA's Birthday Giveaway. It's...

LeenaBlue. Congratulations! Tell me which of the three prizes (a chapter dedication, naming someone/a pack after you, a Wattpad shout-out) do you want ^_^

And speaking of prizes: the lovely Malice_Authors girls are organizing a Story Fair!

It's an online event, held this Sept. 17 and 18 on facebook and which features Wattpad stories. I'll be featuring WATA and I've prepared another giveaway, especially for the occasion; the winner gets a chapter dedication, a Wattpad shout-out and a review of the first chapter from their book.

The links to the event and the one to Alec Trivia & Mini Interview are in the first comment.

*****

"I'll call you a cab." I said quietly, my voice sounding foreign to my ears. "With a human driver, to take you home. We won't stop you." My eyes burned and I sniffed. "And you never have to see me again."

That promise was the only comfort I could offer him now.

I took a step away from him.

Away from the person I'd waited for all my life, away from my happiness... But not away from my despair. It tagged along with me, clinging tight, wrapping around my chest like a snake crushing its pray, squeezing the air out of my lungs...

It tagged along and it would follow me forever.

"Wait."

I paused, my body tensing up.

Riley's voice had been so quiet... Had I imagined it?

Was my mind playing tricks on me, giving me what my heart most craved?

Was I starting to lose my sanity?

I slowly turned around and took another step, this time towards my mate. He raised his hand up - palm towards me - and I halted once more.

"Wait," Riley repeated. "Don't go, but stay over there."

I nodded and chewed my lips.

He wasn't ready for me to come near him, but at least he wasn't sending me away.

Dare I hope...?

His arm dropped and he hugged his knees, pulling them to his chest again, his body rocking to and fro.

What was going through his head right now?

Riley closed his eyes and dropped his knees, his hands reaching up to massage his forehead. His fingers moved in quick circles over his skin while I waited for my verdict.

I didn't want it, but hope had crept up inside my heart. Hope that no, it might not be today, but one day... One day Riley would come to accept me, would love me despite of what I was... Hope that we would be together.

A dangerous thing that was.

To hope.

If what you hoped for came to pass, all was well; but if it didn't...

It hurt even more once hope had settled in your chest, warming you from the inside out, only to be extinguished by a cold, cruel reality.

My mate sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes opening and finding mine.

"What now?" His voice was still quiet. "What are my options?"

"You can leave," I rasped out, "or you could accept me and things would go to the way they were. There would be some little changes..."

"Little?" He half laughed, half cried out. "Little. You are a... something."

"Shifter. A werewolf some call it. But we are compatible with humans. A lot of shifters mate humans."

"Mate." Riley sighed and let his head drop back and hit the wall behind him with a low thud. "Are there any humans in the Silver Bullets then?"

"No. We are a relatively new pack. You will be the first, if you agree to stay with me."

"Am I expected to move in with you?"

"You are not expected to do anything, Riley. I only want for you to be happy..."

But what if that meant for Riley to be without me?

My voice cracked and I covered my mouth with my palm, to stifle a sob. Tears rolled down my cheeks, but I wiped them away and went on:

"I was hoping that you'd want to move here with me. That this would be our home." I waved at the almost empty room - a space I wished we could furnish together, as a family. "We have the ability to recognize a mate, you see. When we see him or her, we just... It's hard to explain the feeling, but we just know we are meant to be with that person. I recognized you as my mate, Riley, that very night I saw you on the parking lot in front of our pub. I planned to court you longer and give you a chance to get used to us, but the killings pressed me on time."

"The killings? What does that have to do with us?"

"It's another wolf, Riley." It pained me to admit it. The shame that I shared a species with that heinous individual - whoever they were - was now mixed with the dread that my mate would see me as one such creature as well. "That is why we are helping the police."

Riley sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and I raised my hand in what I prayed he'd perceive as a reassuring gesture.

"We don't do that." I spoke quickly. "Shifters don't kill people. I mean..."

But we did.

Not everyone, obviously, but some of us did.

I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair, from front to back, grasping and pulling at the strands in my frustration.

I had to find a way to explain this without losing my cool.

"We are sentient creatures, Riley, and just like humans we can be good or bad. This person - we think they are a rogue, a runaway from their pack - they are obviously bad news. But we don't do that, Riley. No one from the Bullets would do such a thing and that is why we offered to help Callum. When the first murder took place, we didn't know they were targeting us; we just wanted to help."

"And now you think they are here because of you?" He asked slowly.

Damn!

It had come to this.

But he had to know... Riley had to know everything before he made his decision.

"Too many victims have piled in our town. You see, packs respect each other's territory. When we came to Woodbury, we claimed it as ours. A sole murder by a lone wolf is hardly a proclamation of war, especially when the victim isn't one of us; it could be a one-time thing. But they kept coming back. Last time they even left us a message on the wall at the victim's house."

"What kind of message?" Riley's voice trembled.

"'Are we having fun yet?'" My jaw clenched in disgust, my hands turning into fists.

What kind of messed up you had to be to have fun with murder?

"How do you know it is a message to you?" My mate posed another question.

"The way those people died - as if attacked by an animal - was a message in itself, a reference to us. This must be too."

"But you don't know that for sure. It could be to the police," he blurted out. "They are the ones handling the case..."

"Riley." I took a few steps towards him. He didn't stop me this time and I took that as a good sign... I even dared to crouch near him.

My mate didn't recoil.

"It is to us. I don't want it to be, but it is. We don't know why they are doing this to us, we don't know who it is that is doing this to us... Maybe they are trying to expose us - it would explain their M.O. - or maybe they are trying to get to us, but they can't because we have patrols around the neighbourhood and they are taking their frustration out on the humans in Woodbury. The bottom line is that it has to do with the Bullets. That was why I had to hurry and tell you. It is getting harder to send people after you when we have to protect the pack..."

"You've send people after me?"

Embarrassment hit me. But not guilt. I did it to protect my mate; I would not apologize for that.

"To protect you. I asked them to follow you on your way back from work or when you are hanging out with Winnie. I sometimes do it myself, but I have to take care of my people so I couldn't always do it."

"You sent people after me," he repeated as if he still couldn't fully grasp what that meant.

"Yes, I think we've already cleared that point. I think you noticed dad once. You were at a diner with Winnie, Tim, another couple and their child."

"That was your father?" His voice rose. "I thought there was a knife-wielding psychopath on my trail!"

I'd been wrong: I could feel guilty about this. Not because I've sent someone to keep an eye on my mate, but because I'd done so in secret and caused him distress.

"I'm sorry about that, Riley; the last thing we want is to scare you. I needed to know you were safe and dad volunteered to keep an eye on you even though that put him at risk."

"It did?"

He was finally speaking at a normal volume. Maybe he would get used to our world sooner than I'd thought.

"With that werewolf on the loose, it is dangerous for a Bullet to be out on their own during the night. That is why I usually followed you myself; I didn't want anyone else to take the risk. But as I said, I couldn't always be there so some friends volunteered to help out."

His lips parted and he stared at me with wide eyes. But it wasn't fear I saw in his gaze; there was confusion, there was gratitude...

And then there was embarrassment, and tears rolled out of his reddened eyes and down his face; tears that I wanted to wipe away with my fingers, to eradicate with a tight embrace and gentle kisses.

His hand found mine and I stared at him, stunned at the contact.

Riley was touching me.

I'd frightened him, I'd turned his world upside down, but his hand was on mine.

No fear.

I intertwined our fingers and he smiled - a small smile, but enough to make me dizzy as my heart pounded in my chest, hope spreading its wings inside me, overtaking every particle of my being.

"Thank you," Riley whispered.

"Does this mean," I gulped; I needed to hear him say it, "that you will stay with me?"

My mate nodded and my body slumped down, exhausted from all the stress and turbulent emotions and finally at peace.

"I thought I'd lost you." My eyes were filling up with salty water again, but this time it was tears of relief and joy that I was about to shed. "I thought I'd only look at you from afar until this matter with the rogue is resolved and that then I'd have to stay away from you for good."

"I'll need some time to get used to all this." He told me. "I have so many questions."

"Ask! Ask me anything," I urged him, squeezing his hand. Now that he knew what we were, there was no need for secrecy. "As long as it is not an Alpha-Beta-only issue, I'll reply."

"Alpha and Beta... How about we start with that?"

"Well," I moved forward, but halted halfway.

Riley still needs time, I silently reminded myself, then asked aloud:

"Is it okay if I come closer?"

"Yes."

Hope was gone. There was no need for it anymore. Now there was only joy.

I sat right in front of him, with my legs crossed.

"You already know about this; we've just used other terms around you. Keri is our Alpha - our leader, and I'm her Beta - her second in command. When an Alpha dies or steps down, a new one is chosen by participating in the Evaluations. These are tests of strength, agility, speed, perceptivity... The ones that present themselves the best are then evaluated by the Council for virtues that don't show up in the tests - things like devotion to the pack, kindness and so on. That is how they picked Keri - her willingness to put the wellbeing of the pack before her own is her greatest strength..."

"... Along with compassion. That is why the Council chose her over her cousin Jasper who did better at the physical tests."

I blinked at my mate in confusion.

"Kennedy already told me about this," he explained.

"Then what else do you want to know?" I asked.

"Why the Silver Bullets? Aren't they deadly to werewolves?"

"Silver being deadly to werewolves is just a legend." I waved my hand as if I could physically push away the silly rumour. "We shift, we are stronger than humans and we heal faster, but the truth is that you can kill us with any kind of bullet if it is aimed properly. A long time ago, when there were conflicts between humans and shifters, a new order arose - the one of the Hunters... Actually, you've met a Hunter - the man in white who came to the Milk & Cream..."

A shiver ran through my mate and my dislike of Ace Darrell turned to loathing.

"They spread the word that all shifters were dangerous," I went on, "and they could only be killed by specially trained people with specially designed weapons. It was a lie, of course, but that way people would pay the Hunters to kill shifters instead of going after them themselves. That's where the legend of the silver bullet came from. My ancestors chose the name as a protest against those superstitions. It also served to prove to the Hunters that we weren't scared of them."

"So any hunter can come and take your life at any time?" His grip on my fingers tightened and my heart fluttered at his concern.

"No. We have rules and laws now. And the Sentinels; they are the enforcers of those rules."

"The Sentinels? Tell me more about them."

"Are you sure you want to know now? You learned a lot tonight, Riley. Maybe we should take a break?" I suggested. He was already overwhelmed; I would understand if he needed to clear his head before I told him even more. "I could take you back to your apartment or we can go to my parents' house..."

"I want to know more," he cut me off. "Come on, Rhys, tell me!"

There was enthusiasm in his eyes and in his voice. He no longer saw my words as a fairytale; he now knew they were very, very real and he was eager to learn more.

"Alright," I conceded. "The Sentinels."

*****

A/N: I guess those of you who haven't read You are the Answer (yet?) can now relax... Or can you?

Riley didn't leave, but will he be able to handle the notion that the world is not what he'd always thought it was?

So, what do you think of the chapter?

Were you relieved like Rhys?

Did you get curious about the supernatural world like Riley?

I hope you enjoyed the chapter; please give it a VOTE if you did!

Don't forget to check out the second post about Alec and enter the new giveaway.

Links in the comments :)

^ That's the banner for my Story Fair post, by the way. I wanted to share it with you even though the giveaway is held on facebook.