The Mating Revolution

Chapter Four

We woke early the next morning. I was kicked out of mom and dad’s room so they could spend their morning connecting. Yuck. I hopped into the shower and packed a small bag with my valuables and clothes for the week. The council always recommended packing anything you wasn’t willing to leave behind. I didn’t have much just some pictures and some of mom’s jewelry. I also packed some books. The nice thing about this week is that we could stay in hotels and swim. The Mating event only ran from 8am to 5pm every day. The event officially started on Tuesday. We had to leave our house on Sunday afternoon to get there by Monday evening. Dad always drove. Mom and I both had a set of keys to the car and the house as well just in case. We left the house by 11am and drove all night. We each took turns driving so we didn’t have to stop. We made it to Kansas City, MO around Monday at 8pm. We arrived at the hotel we were assigned, and dad checked in. We made it to our room. I snagged one of the queen beds while mom and dad put their bags on the other. We didn’t bother unpacking. We would have to drag our bags to the convention center every day. A shuttle would pick us up at 7am. The Mating information packets were already in our hotel rooms. We each grabbed a folder and read through it. I looked at the seat assignments. “Mom we are by each other again.” I grinned, thankful that I had mom to keep me company all week. She grinned back. Dad was on the other side of the big room that housed The Mating. Men and women were separated so human mates couldn’t cling to one another. In the closet of the hotel was the outfits we had to wear. They were one-piece jumpers that had no features to it. Our names were embroidered on the front of them as well as our seat assignment on the back. The jumpers were reused every year. I rolled my eyes at the sight of them and hopped in the shower before I went to bed.

The alarm was blaring at 6am. I wanted to hit it with a hammer. I forced myself to sit up and saw mom and dad crawling out of bed. Why did we have to wake up so early? I cleared the sleep out of my head with a shake and got up. “Katie, put on some slippers and let’s go eat breakfast in the lobby.” I made a noise to show my mom I heard her while I slipped on my slippers. I went pee before heading out with them. Mom and dad walked in front of me holding hands. I knew The Mating always made them nervous. They didn’t want to have to go back home without each other. They didn’t want to leave me either, but I would be leaving the nest at some point either for a mate or for independence. This damn event made me want to wring every werewolf’s neck. I saw others teeming about while we piled food on our plates. I spotted one face in particular that I knew. “Gary!” He looked at me and smiled. “Katie, Tom, Mary! Join me!” He gestured to the empty chairs around him. Mom and dad made their way to him while I finished filling my plate. “Gary, I didn’t know this was your hotel assignment.” Mom said while buttering her toast. Gary shrugged. “I didn’t think I would see you all until we were across from each other at the center.” I smiled. “Guess you thought wrong mate.” I winked at Gary and the table laughed. It almost felt like a normal breakfast until a hard voice came over the loudspeaker. “The shuttle to escort you to The Mating will be leaving in 30 minutes.” I frowned and finished eating. Mom and dad stood up and waved at Gary. I let them go ahead of me while I stayed back. Gary and I looked at each other. “Remember.” I told him. He nodded once and placed a kiss on my forehead. “Katie, I have a bad feeling about this.” I nodded, knowing what he was talking about. I didn’t think I would be going home this year. “I’ll see you tonight Gary. We can hang out at the pool together.” He gave me a tight smile and I walked back to my room. I wasn’t surprised that Gary was here without his folks. His dad died when he was young, and he told me that his mom finally went through menopause. It was his first year attending without her.  I was glad I had my parents with me, even though that meant they could be mated. I couldn’t imagine going through this alone. When I got back to the room I put on the jumper and ran a brush through my hair. I refused to get dolled up. I threw on my wolf issued sandals and headed to the shuttle pick up with mom and dad, our bags in hand. Words weren’t said as the nervousness ran through me. Mom grabbed my hand and squeezed it. We loaded onto the shuttle and after a quick 20-minute ride the huge center came into view. It had been built just for The Mating. It could hold the entire human population plus about 4,000 wolves. The wolves couldn’t pile in at once. That is why the event was several days. They started off with the foreign wolves then the packs came starting with the smallest to the biggest pack. The biggest pack was always the last day. All of the pack Alphas had a reputation for being ruthless, but the biggest pack had the worst Alpha. The horror stories I had heard about the Alpha of The Silver Moon pack made me shiver even though I didn’t even know his name. Humans weren’t good enough to know names of pack members. I didn’t even know the smaller pack names. Only if there were stories to share in school did we know the names of the packs. The Silver Moon had been the reason for the enslavement of humans. I hated them the most. We walked in the building, my hand in moms. Mom and dad had said a long goodbye when we got off the shuttle and he went to the male opening. Mom and I had to go in through the female opening. Anything they could do to separate us from our human mates. Granted that didn’t keep the lesbians or gay mates from each other but if the wolves knew about them, they separated them by hundreds of chairs. We were checked in and then we found our seats. After everyone was settled a horn blared over the overhead speaker. “It is 8am. Let The Mating begin.” The doors opened and I watched as wolves piled in.