For our last lesson, we will look at the beautiful world of love and how shifters know they found their soulmate.
Meeting your mate is a very challenging quest for many young wolves, with many not able to find their true soulmate for life at all. There are, however, certain traits, that allow most wolves to find their true life partner. Here are some that usually are very helpful:
SMELL - As a wolf your smell is extremely precise. Wolves are also able to smell their own scent, which helps a lot with finding a mate. The reason being is that most soulmates have the same exact scent like their wolf mates. Therefore, most wolves can easily identify whether the person they fell for is the one they were looking for their whole life.
VEIN SYMBOL - One of the coolest things a shifter can have. For some wolves, their veins form a letter of the alphabet! The letter of the alphabet usually is the letter that starts the name of their soulmate. For example, my veins form letter H, and my soulmate's name turned out to be...Harry!
IMPRINTING - Most wolves go through this process involuntarily but it also happens voluntarily when they meet the one. Imprinting is a moment that happens between a wolf and their soulmate, when they just look at the person and they can see their whole life with them. Most non-shapeshifters call it a 'crush' or 'love at first sight', which is similar, however, it doesn't show the deep and lifetime connection that happens in that precise second between a wolf and their soulmate.
Wolves and their soulmates have the same scent.
Veins formed a distinct letter of the soulmate's first name.
Imprinting is one of the most important process when it comes to finding your soulmate. It is deeper than having a 'crush' or 'love at first sight'.
The answer is: no. As long as you are happy and you're not hurting anyone or don't risk the safety of the pack, no one is going to care about who is your mate. Moreover, non-shapeshifters are among the most common 'mate types', with soulmates within the pack being the rarest type of relationship there is.
All mates, regardless of their kind, will be provided with pack protection. Wolves from the pack will be able to smell the soulmate of their pack member from miles and can easily determine whether the person in question needs help or not. Pack protection also works in the opposite way. If, for any reason, other wolves are unhappy with the chosen mate of their pack member, they have absolutely NO RIGHT to either hurt them, end the relationship or kick the member out of the pack.
As a Quileute wolf, you don't need to worry about the answer because there is almost a 100% chance they will. All Quileute wolf are the distinct descendants of Taha Aki, and so their children will automatically turn into wolves.
When it comes to the shapeshifters who were born wolves, the answer is 'maybe'. There have been multiple studies conducted to determine how often do the born shifters give birth to shapeshifters (it was tested on both one parent being a shifter and both being shifters) and not a single study brought any clear explanation or a number. The most common answer given is that there is a 50% chance of a shifter having a child with shapeshifting abilities.
Both wolves, who became shifters due to murder or being bitten will never give birth to a shapeshifter.