“Okay, well, I’m glad this is about the mixer and not some random online flirtation, but you don’t owe me any explanations, Cody,” I said in a clipped tone, trying not to betray the irrational extent of the hurt I felt. “You’ve been upfront with me the whole time. I’m a big girl. I knew what I was getting myself into. Last night . . . I needed that. I needed something to banish the nightmare; and you’re right, I needed to not be alone. So thanks for that.”

He closed his eyes in frustration. “I’m just trying to do what’s right for my clan.”

“I know.” I shoved my hands into the pockets of his bathrobe, balling them into fists. “I get it—I do. I just wasn’t expecting to be slapped in the face with it the first thing this morning. So if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll skip breakfast. Just give me a minute to get my things and I’m out of here.”

Without giving him a chance to respond, I turned and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. I changed into yesterday’s clothes, belted dauda-dagr around my waist, and shoved my pajamas and toothbrush into my overnight bag. My dramatic exit was somewhat spoiled by the fact that I had to hunt around for the hex charm, but I finally found it under the couch in the living room where it had rolled after Cody had hurled it.

Cody stood before the front door; not exactly blocking it, but not making it easy to pass, either. “Daisy, look. We can talk about this.”

“We have talked about it.” I pushed past him, reaching for the doorknob. “There’s nothing left to say.”

Halfway down the walk to his driveway, I changed my mind. Cody looked at me in wary surprise as I reentered the house.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” I said to him. “Jen said something last week that made me think. Maybe you and I can’t have kids, but it’s not like there aren’t thousands of couples struggling with the exact same problem. You don’t just ditch someone because they might have fertility issues. And hell, we don’t even know for sure, do we? Maybe there are medical solutions that didn’t exist years ago. Outside of paranormal romance novels, I’m guessing there aren’t any case studies on hell-spawn/werewolf cross-breeding. What if we could have kids, just not werewolf kids? I’m not even saying I want kids,” I added. “I mean, at least not right now. But interracial couples deal with that kind of thing all the time. Do you think Sinclair would have broken things off with me because of the possibility that our babies might have looked more like their white mom than their black dad?”

Cody winced. “That’s a low blow, Daise. Race in humans is mostly an artificial construct. Humans are all the same under their skin. We’re not. And if we don’t mate within our race, it will vanish.”

“Tell me, is that a big problem in this day and age?” I gestured toward his laptop in the other room. “When you can use the lycanthropic version of Match.com to set up a transcontinental mixer?”

His jaw tightened. “It’s a problem if we don’t, Daisy.”

“All of you, sure,” I agreed. “But we’re not talking about the entire werewolf community. We’re just talking about you and me, Cody. Or is there an epidemic of werewolves developing feelings for someone their clan would consider an unsuitable mate? Because there aren’t a lot of other hell-spawns running around and I seem to remember you telling me relationships with humans don’t even count.”

Cody drew a sharp breath, nostrils flaring. “It’s not just the survival of the race! Do I have to say it? There’s a huge part of my life, of who I am, that you could never, ever share. That’s not fair to either of us.”

“Yeah, Jen said something about that, too,” I murmured. “What if you were a marathon runner and I was in a wheelchair? Would that be a deal breaker?”

He snarled, eyes flashing green. “It’s not the same thing!” Cody thumped one fist on his bare chest, his upper lip curling back from his teeth. “I am me, and so is the wolf. The other day in the woods, you blamed the wolf for keeping us apart. You don’t understand. The wolf is me. And no matter how well you think you know the man, you can never know the wolf.”

I held my ground. “How can you be sure? Has your wolf-self ever tried to connect with a human? What about Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves? What about that guy in the documentary who lived with grizzly bears?”

“Ah, God, Daisy!” Cody let out a ragged gasp of despairing laughter. “Dances with Wolves was a work of pure fiction. And that guy in the documentary? The grizzly bears killed him.”

Crap. I hadn’t actually watched the documentary; I just remembered seeing it on a shelf at the library.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Bad examples. My point is that it’s possible that our problems aren’t insurmountable. Maybe they are. Maybe your clan is right. But we’ll never know, because we never tried.”

Cody sighed. “Daisy, I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but clan lore has the wisdom of centuries of experience on its side, passed down from generation to generation. I’m just trying to spare us both a world of hurt.”

“Yeah?” I said. “And how’s that working out for you so far?”

“Not so good,” he admitted.

“Me either.” I settled the strap of my overnight bag on my shoulder. “All right, I’m going. I’ve said my piece. At least the citizens of Pemkowet can sleep easier at night,” I added. “Good work, partner.”