“No. You definitely are.”

“I don’t get it.”

Caramel lets out a long, gusty sigh.

“Is this one of those things like the man and the wolf where everything I’ve been taught as a pup is wrong?” The more I hang out with Caramel, the more long sighs I hear, and the more life gets confusing.

“Yup.”

“So what? There’s no such thing as mates?”

“Obviously, there are. Don’t doubt your own experience, Nuria. I thought I’d drilled at least that into your head.”

She drills a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

“There are mates,” she goes on. “It’s kind of like—” She looks...