Ashton takes my hand again and lifts it to his lips. He brushes a kiss across my knuckles and says, “because they don’t understand who we are, what we are. Now that you’ve seen what their lives are like, is it what you truly want?”
Do I truly want a life where I get to pick my own mate? To decide when to have children or if I even want them? In a world where people are free to love whomever they choose, regardless of breeding potential?
“Within the pack, we have stability.” He leans in just slightly, his eye contact becoming more intense. “You will never be without a home, without food. They don’t protect each other out there. I know you’ve seen it.”
“I have,” I admit reluctantly. I saw the consequences of simple mistakes, the uncontrollable havoc wreaked on long chains of human lives. The human world, even with all its flaws, showed me freedom that I couldn’t have as part of the pack. But I don’t know what it actually means to be human; I always had the option of going home.
I was ju
