(Or…Welcome to the Karennaverse.)
I was thinking about all the characters I’ve created for my werewolf books, and how many of them could spin off into their own stories.
As of the last time I actually counted, I have somewhere around 400 *named* characters across all of my werewolf books. That includes a few who are literally just mentioned by name but don’t have any action in the stories. And I haven’t counted since I finished the last two novels I’ve written.
So there will definitely be more books about werewolves who meet and fall in love with each other or with humans….and some will be fated mates, but others will not be. Here’s how that works:
When I started this whole thing, back in 2010 when I wrote Salad on the Side (now book 1 of the Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series), I stated that the main characters of that book, vegan werewolf Kyle Slidell and his mate, werewolf leader Tobias Rogan, were the only male pair who were truly fated mates. All other “fated mate” pairs in that universe were man-woman.
I later realized that might bite me in the ass when it came to writing more books, so I amended it to “only KNOWN male mated pair” to allow for the possibility of other pairs of male fated mates that the werewolf world as a whole just wasn’t aware of yet.
Which was a good thing when I got to book 6 of Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat, Take Some Tahini, and discovered (literally, I discovered it as I was writing, because sometimes my characters take on a life of their own instead of doing what I want) that 22-year-old traumatized werewolf Quinn Boucher was the fated mate of 130-year-old packless werewolf Malachi Powers. They spun off into their own book, Ebb and Flow, which led into more books. (The series, called Ebb & Flow, is now at four novels and two prequel novellas that each take place before Quinn and Malachi meet, and there may be more novels coming.)
In my universe, there are couples who meet and fall for each other, and even experience love (or at least lust) at first sight, who are *not* fated mates. Even if they meet and think “This person belongs in my life,” that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re fated mates; even in real life, perfectly average human beings sometimes have that reaction when they first meet someone. My husband and I did; we knew within 15 minutes of our first introduction that we were meant for each other, and we’ve been together ever since (18 years and counting).
It’s particularly the case if a werewolf and a human fall for each other; in my universe, canonically, there is only one case of a werewolf and a human being truly fated mates, and no one is sure how that happened because in that universe, werewolves are essentially two souls that share a body, a human soul and a wolf one, and the “fated mate” bond is between the *wolf* souls. A human does not have a wolf soul; the wolf soul “moves in,” so to speak, when someone is changed into a werewolf. (Werewolves are made, never born.)
In many of my books, the main couples are fated mates. But in some, such as A Wolf-Changing Incident (which has a werewolf and a human as the main couple) or my planned 2027 release Virtually Reunited (book 2 of my new Virtual Haven Pack series), the couples are in love and feel connected to each other, but are NOT fated. They’re just fortunate enough to have found someone with whom they belong.
That annoys some readers. “If they’re going to feel that way, why not just make them fated mates?” Um… because that wouldn’t be realistic or consistent with the rules and structure I’ve established in the universe I have been creating and building for literally the past 16 years. And I’m not going to change the rules and structure because some readers don’t want to read about people falling in love who *aren’t* fated.
I’ve also had readers complain about my fated pairs resisting their mate bond, separating at times, stating they don’t want to be together, etc. My universe is built on the concept of free will; fate puts mates together, and there is a consequence if the mates refuse each other (it’s described as a pain like having part of yourself ripped away, and the pain doesn’t fade until you’re with your mate again), but they still can consciously make the choice to resist or refuse their mate if they’re willing to deal with the consequence. The fated bond, in my universe, doesn’t take away free will or the ability to think critically, and it certainly doesn’t (at least not always) remove self-control.
Some werewolves are fated mates. Some werewolves fall in love with each other but are *not* fated mates. Some werewolves fall in love with humans who are absolutely not their fated mates.
There’s a lot to explore in my universe… and that’s only the werewolf aspect. (I also have psychic humans; sorcerers who power their magic by taking parts of people’s souls during sexual climax; ghosts; at least one fae… I haven’t even cracked the surface.)
