If she’d been asked at that point—death or lycanthropy—would she have chosen this?
No. She knew what lay on the other side. Or at least she’d thought she knew.
Until she’d come here.
“You’re telling me no one chooses this life unless their other one sucks so badly they can’t wait to leave it?”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“But…you like being a werewolf, don’t you?”
“I do.” He straightened his tie, adjusted his hat.
“Then why wouldn’t someone prefer to be one without the motivation of death or a really shitty life?”
He smiled at her as if she were a foolish child. To him, she probably was. “Humanity isn’t something to toss off lightly, Alex, there are things you give up that you can never get back. I hope Julian made that clear.”
Not so much, she thought.
“What things?” she asked.
Daniel contemplated Alex for several seconds, and she feared he might press her on the issue of what Julian had made clear and what he had not. She really didn’t want to lie to Daniel anymore, but she couldn’t exactly tell him that Julian had not only neglected to give her instructions, he’d neglected to give her a choice.
Eventually Daniel glanced away with a sigh. “Pets.”
Alex blinked. “Did you say pets?”
“Dogs are afraid of us. Cats hate us.”
“Cats hate everyone,” she said.
“Not the
person with the can opener,” he muttered. “Unless he isn’t a person.”
Huh. Alex never would have taken Daniel for a cat lover.
“I think I can live without pets.” She’d done just fine so far.
“Children.”
What on earth would she do with one of those?
“Next,” she said.
Daniel turned to her and frowned. “I have to believe that whatever you left behind was sufficiently horrible that you chose to forfeit any chance of having a child in order to escape it.”
“Okay,” Alex said agreeably. So far she hadn’t heard anything she’d given up on this side of furry that she’d wanted in the first place.
“Peace of mind,” he said. “A pristine soul.”
Except, maybe, for that.
“You better explain, Daniel.”
“You killed someone after you changed, yes?”
Alex didn’t think so, but still she nodded.