“Gone right?” Bella squeaked. “How is this gone right? There’s a possibly magical man bleeding on Wen’s floor!”
“But he’s her soulmate,” Daphne insisted.
“We don’t know that,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “We don’t know anything. Maybe the spell just grabbed a random person. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe-”
My voice drifted off. I didn’t know what the hell to say. Bella was hugging her knees to her chest, rocking slightly. Daphne had her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the unconscious man with an expression caught between fear and fascination.
And I just sat there, surrounded by my best friends and a bleeding werewolf, wondering how the hell my life had gone from struggling bookstore owner to protagonist in a paranormal romance in the span of two hours.
The man’s chest rose and fell. Rose and fell. Steady as a heartbeat.
We waited.
3
— • —
Wen
Morning came and I hadn’t slept. None of us had.
We’d spent the last six hours moving an unconscious werewolf up a narrow staircase to my apartment above the bookstore. It took all four of us and more cursing than I’d done in my entire life. The man weighed a metric ton. Pure muscle and zero cooperation.
We’d tried my bed first, but that idea died quickly. One, I wasn’t putting a strange possibly-magical man in my bed. Two, he was too big. His legs hung off the end of my couch, one tattooed arm trailing to the floor, and he still looked cramped.
The rest of the night had been a blur of theories and research. Bella had her laptop out, typing furiously, researching mate bonds and werewolf lore with the dedication of someone writing a doctoral thesis. Krystin kept checking his wounds, making surethe bandages held and the bleeding didn’t start again. Daphne read and re-read the spell book, trying to figure out what we’d done.
I mostly just stared at him and had an existential crisis.
He didn’t wake up. Just kept breathing, deep and steady, chest rising and falling with mechanical precision.
By the time weak morning light filtered through my apartment windows, we were all dead on our feet. Krystin had dark circles under her eyes that even her carefully applied eyeliner couldn’t hide. Bella’s glasses were smudged and crooked on her face. Daphne had given up on looking aesthetic and was wrapped in a blanket burrito on my floor.
I was pretty sure I’d consumed enough coffee to kill a small horse.
“We should check on him,” Bella said for the fifth time in an hour.
We all crept over to the couch. The man was still out. Still impossible. His wounds had stopped bleeding at least. The bandages were holding. It was something.
“Maybe we should try to wake him,” Daphne suggested nervously. “He’s been unconscious for hours. That can’t be good.”
“Or maybe we let sleeping werewolves lie,” Krystin countered. She crossed her arms, staring down at him. “What’s he going to do when he wakes up? He called Wen his mate. We need to talk about that.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “He’s clearly confused. Or cursed. Or we’re all having a shared psychotic break. I’m going with the psychotic break theory. It’s the most logical.”
But even as I said it, I could feel that weird pull again. The one that had been there all night, getting stronger with every hour. A string between my chest and his, tugging gently but insistently. It was driving me absolutely insane.
They finally decided to go home and try to sleep. I promised I’d call if anything happened. Text every hour. Keep my phone on. They didn’t want to leave - what if he woke up and murdered me? - but I insisted I’d be fine.
“I’ve got pepper spray and a baseball bat and questionable decision-making skills,” I told them at the door. “What could go wrong?”
Krystin gave me a look that said everything her mouth didn’t. They left anyway, extracting about fifty more promises that I’d stay safe.
After they left, I stood in my apartment for a long minute, staring at the unconscious man on my couch. Then I did what any rational person would do. I fled downstairs to the bookstore.
The place was a disaster. Bloody towels everywhere. First aid supplies scattered across the floor. The spell book still sitting on the coffee table, mocking me with its ancient symbols and my dried blood smeared across the pages.
The bookstore was quiet. Too quiet. Just me and the early morning light creeping through the windows and the distant sound of rain that had finally stopped.
