I swear my intentions were to write this quickly. I don't know what's taking me so damn long. I'll work on my timing, shall I? But thanks if you're reading, anyway!

This was happening. There was no other choice. This was the only option. It sucked, yeah, but not as much as the other way would have sucked.

Cora knocked on the door in front of her, then looked down the hall to make sure no one was around. Who would be around, she didn't know. Couldn't hurt to be suspicious, though.

Thirty seconds after she knocked, the door opened. Her never-so-unfamiliar uncle stood before her, frowning. "If there's a crisis, I'm really the last person you should have come to."

Cora rolled her eyes. If she could act laid back and pissed off about all of this, maybe it wouldn't be so awkward. "I need to talk to you about werewolf business."

"What kind of werewolf business?"

"Werewolf business," she returned, giving no further clues. However, he didn't seem to need any more. He held a serious face for a long moment, then it broke into a laugh. Cora glared. "Why are you laughing?"

Peter leaned his arm against the door frame. "Are you coming to me for boy advice?" His upper hand was no secret to either of them.

She sneered. "I just came to make sure I have all the facts straight."

"What kind of facts?" He chuckled, frowning. "What is there to be confused about?"

"There's mates, right?" She pushed past him straight into the apartment. "How do you know who yours is?"

She heard the door close from behind her as she made her way for the couch. Peter walked in after her, grabbed an orange on his way past the kitchen, then tossed it carelessly from hand to hand as he drew out her time. "You know who your mate is if you feel a strong connection to them."

"Like love?" she tried to hit home.

"No," he disappointed. "Any strong connection. It could be hate, or jealousy, or even annoyance."

Cora dropped her head back on the couch. "That's maddeningly unhelpful."

Peter smirked to himself and sat down in the chair opposite her. "Yeah, the whole thing is maddening. That's why a bunch of young werewolves skip it and end up committing massacres."

"That's great," Cora rushed, "now tell me what I do to make sure I know who my actual mate is."

Peter started to peel his orange, finding something to do with his hands. Cora only wished she had such a distraction. "You have to test it out. Test people out."

Cora frowned. "What does that mean? Screw everyone I get annoyed at?"

Peter shrugged. "Or have any emotional connection towards, yeah."

"Until what?"

"Until you slowly start to feel a different connection towards them." He tossed a peel onto the table between them. "At first, it can be any emotion, like I said, but after you start mating around-"

"Oh, my God-"

"You'll find someone that you can't shake. You'll go from any emotional connection to a very distinct, werewolf connection."

Cora shook her head. She couldn't just be human like everyone else... "Is that it? Or is there something else I should know?"

Peter studied his orange with mild interest, holding it up in the light. "No, that's about it. Find your mate. Mate. Be careful not to kill your mate."

Cora tensed up. "Hold on, what? How do you kill your mate? Why would I need to be careful about that?"

Peter ate a piece of his fruit. "If you don't time everything correctly you could easily turn into a werewolf at some point during the process and maul your mate to death, and then you have a load of problems on your hands."

"You turn into a werewolf while you're mating? That happens?"

Peter frowned and threw a piece of peel at her face, bouncing it off her nose. "Of course it happens; use your head."

Little piece of shit was right. "How do you prevent that? When is the 'right time'?"

"It's pretty easy. If you feel like killing them at any point, you're probably about to kill them."

"What if I always want to kill him?"

Peter stopped mid-thought and tilted his head. "Do you already know who your mate is?"

Cora's stomach did a back flip, and not the good kind she used to get in middle school. "No. I'm just assuming, since I hate the human race."

Peter backed off, but not before eyeing her suspiciously. "I think this urge to kill him would be a little more... alarming."

"Is that it, then? Nothing else hidden in the rules?"

He crossed his legs and looked back to his fascinating orange. "Yeah, there is one more thing." He looked at her with an annoyed expression. "Don't go to your uncle with these questions."

Cora rolled her eyes, stood up, and left as fast as she could.