-Emmerson-

I sat in my living room on a well used brown couch, going through the pictures I had taken for work. I frowned, they were beautiful pictures of the Oregon forest, but they weren't what I wanted to print for the gallery on Tuesday. As I was looking through the pictures I found the ones I had taken of the waterfalls near my house. I slowed my scrolling until I found the one I was looking for. A beautiful waterfall spilling over giant boulders into a pristine lake. Greenery surrounded it and the light fog that fell over the lake showed how close it was to the winter months. Its was perfect, exactly what I wanted. No one else would have a picture like it. I played with the lighting to make the picture stand out just that much more.

My father walked into the living room followed closely by Henry. My father was the Alpha and Henry his beta of the pack so if they were coming into the house it was probably important pack business.

"Hey Emmy. What are you working on?" My father asked as he and Henry took the two chairs across from the coffee table in front of me.

"Just some last minute photos for the gallery on Tuesday. What do you think about this one?" I asked turning my laptop so they could see.

"You took that?" Henry's surprise was written all over his face.

I nodded, my pride swelling at the impressed looks on my father's and Henry's faces. I knew it was going to turn a lot of heads on Tuesday. I turned my computer back to me so I could go through more photos. It took a moment for me to realize that the two men had stopped talking and were looking at me with odd expressions.

"Is something wrong? Do you need me to leave?" I was starting to get up because of the look on their faces.

My father glanced at Henry, before looking down to avoid making eye contact with me. Uh-oh, that means this is serious for the Alpha not to make eye contact. I braced myself for whatever bad news he may be giving. "Henry and I have been talking, Emmy. We think it would be in your best interest to find a husband. Our pack has a lot of single males to choose from. One of them will make a suitable husband. I know you feel like you don't need a man to take care of you but it is dangerous for you to be unmarried and around other male wolves. Male wolves fear going feral and having a spouse helps for a while longer, I don't want to see you get hurt in a battle between two wolves for you." I felt heated anger boil up as my wolf tensed within me irritated that he would try to tell me I wasn't strong enough to protect myself. I shut my laptop and set it down on the coffee table slowly, trying to calm myself and my inner wolf. It was no use I could feel her growing agitated as my father was waiting for me to answer him.

"I can protect myself dad. I'm not a child, and I am pretty sure most of the wolves in our pack are scared of me. I don't want or need a husband right now. I have a good job and a plan for my future. Besides I have you dad. No one would dare cross the Alpha."

Henry ran his fingers through his hair sighing almost in embarrassment, he wasn't looking directly at me. Were they thinking I'd marry him? He was at least seventeen years older than me. Not to mention he was a widower with a six year old son. My father grimaced at me before standing up and pulling me to his private office off the side of the living room.

"Emmy, you need a husband to take care of you. Henry needs a woman in his life not to mention Ben has never had a mom and I know you would be a good one to him. You would all benefit from it and he would be good to you."

I had to stop myself from snapping at him. It wasn't like I didn't care about Henry, but it would never be in a romantic way. I had always thought of him as an uncle. I cringed at the thought of marrying a man that I had looked up to as a child. It felt like I was more of a convenience to Henry than them being truly concerned about me having a husband.

"Dad, I can't. I won't. He is like an uncle to me. I don't want to marry someone because it is convenient. I know that the right person is out there for me and they will come into my life when I'm ready."

I moved away from my father towards the small window that was letting a small beam of light through as the sun was setting. I don't know how to make my stance on marriage more clear than I already have.

"You are young and stubborn Emmy, you need a husband whether you want one or not. As wolves we can't live without a mate and it is our way to find a spouse at a young age. Our pack is built on our prosperity."

I turned back to him noticing how tired he seemed. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was graying at such a young age for a werewolf. I started to wonder if he wanted me to have a husband because he didn't think he would be around very much longer. Shaking my head I knew that couldn't be it, at least I tried to tell myself there was no way that could be it.

"Don't wait too long Emmy, Love doesn't wait until you are ready. I'll give you some time but if you take too long I will make a decision for you. It doesn't have to be Henry, though he is a good option, but I will decide if I have to."

He turned and left me in his office. He was a stubborn old man. I couldn't seem to get my mind off of the way he acted though. Now that I think about it he was starting to get agitated more quickly about simple things. I figured it was just stress but now I wasn't so sure. Could it be because my mother wasn't his true mate? That seemed impossible, true mates haven't been around in so long. But still, wolves were going feral at a young age these days, finding a spouse seemed to keep the darkness at bay for a while but not for long. Something was definitely off with my father and the rest of the pack though. I made a mental note to start searching the packs archives for similar behavior.

Later that evening when my parents left for their usual evening run after dinner. I went into my father's study to see what I could find in the archives. Knowing that it wasn't aloud for just any pack member to look at the archives, I had to hurry before my father got back. I slipped into his personal office and shut the door quietly behind me in case Sam was still awake. I swiftly went to the chair behind my father's desk. Tall bookshelves lined the wall with books on our ancestry and history.

Finding first the pack ledger I pulled it off the shelf and sat in my father's huge leather chair behind his desk. I carefully looked through the pages of the ledger to see if anything would jump out at me catching my attention. I almost gave up on the ledger before I notice the numbers. I hurriedly flipped to the beginning of the ledger it was dated over three hundred years ago. Looking through the names and numbers of pack wolves I realized there was a significant amount more pack members back then.

Leaving the ledger there I turned back the bookshelves looking to see if I could find an older pack ledger. Noticing a few more fragile looking books that seemed fatter I pulled them out and put them on the desk flipping to the front pages. The oldest one was from the 1400's and seemed more likely to give me more answers. I gently turned the page to find hundreds upon hundreds of names. There was the pack hierarchy first and next to them it showed spouse names, except it said true mate instead of wife like our latest ledger did. Next to the their true mates it showed children, I gasped there were no less than five or six children per couple.

Flipping through the rest of the ledger and the next two ledgers that led to our most recent one, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. When there were true mates, pack numbers were exponentially higher, werewolves lived longer and had higher prosperity rates. Today true mates were non existent, the largest packs had maybe fifty wolves and were lucky to produce two children at the very most. Werewolves were going extinct. The lack of true mates was causing wolves to die early and reproduce little. Werewolves would have one child and if lucky two, as my parents did, it was extremely hard for werewolves to get pregnant with someone that wasn't their true mate.

I sat back trying to figure out how this could have happened. How come we weren't finding our true mates anymore? What happened in the past couple centuries that could have changed our way of life so drastically? I was concerned, if we didn't figure out how to fix this and bring true mates back we were going to be completely wiped from existence and sooner rather than later.