Once Bitten by Olivia Hutchinson

realizing he was behind
her.
    She
looked over her shoulder. He was standing only a few feet away, hands in his
pockets. He looked so good, she knew no amount of food she made was going to
satisfy her craving.
    He doesn’t want you. Don’t fool yourself into
thinking otherwise, she warned herself.
    “No. I’ll
take care of it.”
    He went
back to his spot on the couch and she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t
need him to be in such close proximity to her.
    It didn’t
take her long to get their meal together. It didn’t take a skilled chef to make
spaghetti and Lila could throw together a pretty mean spaghetti.
    When
she set the plates out on the table, Gabriel got off the couch to join her. He
grabbed two glasses from the cabinet and filled them with water before joining
her at the table.
    “It
smells good,” he said, his stomach growling loud enough for her to hear across
the table.
    Lila
picked up her fork and twirled the noodles so they’d stay on. “Thanks.
Hopefully it tastes as good as it smells.”
    “It
does,” he said after he scarfed down a bite.
    She
watched him tear into the meal for a second before eating herself. He wasn’t
kidding when he had said he was hungry. His food was gone before Lila was even
half way done with her much smaller portion.
    He sat
at the table with her while she finished eating. It was obvious that he was
only waiting for her to finish so that he could resume the conversation he had
tried to have with her earlier, but she hoped she was wrong.
    When
she finished her water, Gabriel spoke up. “There’s something you should know.”
    “And
that would be?”
    “If we
have a relationship, a physical relationship, it would be the same as me
putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger.”
    She
didn’t miss a beat. “That’s a bit graphic and perhaps a little over the top,
don’t you think?”
    “Not
really. A one-night stand with a human is one thing, it happens all the time.
But an ongoing physical relationship with a human is off limits to anyone who
is a part of the Netherworld, not just werewolves. Having a relationship with a
human is dangerous to everyone. It risks more lives than you could know.”
    “I
already know what you are.”
    “Yes,
but I don’t think the council would be sympathetic with me if I was also in
your bed. No Netherworld creature has ever mated with a human. On top of that,
there’s a fear that if someone had a relationship with a human either the human
would either accidentally reveal our secret or, well, if the relationship ended
badly…well, you know.”
    “Mating
with a human? You mean dating, right?” She didn’t understand what the
difference was between them or even if that’s what he had meant to say instead.
    “No.
Mating is different. It’s instinctual. For example, when two werewolves mate,
it’s for life. They become inseparable to the point if one dies, so does the
other. It works basically the same way with all the factions. No one knows if
it’s even possible for a human to feel the mating bond in the same way and
there’s a fear of what could happen if someone mated with a human because of
that.”
    Now she
was curious. “What could happen?”
    “Well,
one theory is that the mating would happen the same way as it would if it were
between two people belonging to the same faction. There’s another theory that
humans are incapable of mating in the same capacity we are, leaving the
werewolf mated but not the human. Not in the same way. That wouldn’t be a good
place to be. The last theory I’ve heard is that the mating would kill the
human.”
    “And
what do you believe?” she asked, leaning back in her chair.
    “I have
no idea.” He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s never been done before.”
    “But
you can have sex without mating.” It was a statement, not a question. He had
said as much before.
    He
sighed and pushed his hand through his brown hair in frustration. “Yes, I can.
The problem is my