And then, without any fuss at all, the wolf was back, padding into the clearing like he’d only stepped out for a moment. He lay down beside her with a weight and a warmth that made her shiver. He sighed, leaned down on his side, giving her access to his neck, and she reached for him. “I’d say ‘what a good boy,’ but I have no idea if that’s offensive.”
She figured it must be when he growled lightly, nothing more than a burr in his chest.
“I saw wild ginger hiking up.” She stroked his neck and went up to his massive head. “It’s very hard to find. Should havestopped to take a closer look, but...” She sighed. “I was kind of distracted. I always seem to be distracted when you’re around.”
He shifted slightly under her hand, settling, and she felt some of the tension she’d been carrying all evening relax with him. She looked back at the pretty, blinking stars. “I looked you up, you know. I remember my grandpa talking about you—all good things. Which is also weird but okay. But after the first time we met, I looked you up. Professionally. Pack Alpha, good standing, no complaints.” She paused. “There were actually a few complaints, but they were all about you being intimidating and kind of a hot-head, which, fair.” His ear flicked. “The point is, I was already paying attention. Before any of this.”
She was silent for a moment, just her hand moving through his fur, the clearing very still around them. Then, so low she wasn’t sure it would even count, she whispered, “I don't actually need the bond to be in trouble here. Just so you know. The bond is almost beside the point at this stage.”
He made a sound in his chest that might, possibly, have been a laugh.
“Don’t make it weird,” she scolded while she pulled, lightly, at his ear. “I have approximately forty-seven questions,” she told him, “and I’m going to ask none of them tonight because I think my brain actually retired. Effective immediately. No notice.” He shifted slightly, warm and enormous and completely comfortable.
Above them, the moon moved another inch across the sky and said nothing—how diplomatic.
“It started at the shop the first time you came in. I thought I was just—you know. You’re very easy on the eyes, so I thought that was it. But it wasn’t that. Or not only, so I kept telling myself it was just attraction," she said to herself, to the stars, to him, to no one. “Because that was the reasonable explanation, and I am, as previously established, a reasonable person. The thing is, I getit. For you, this is just... what it is. You’re wired for it. The bond, the mate, all of it. It’s not a question you ask, it’s an answer you carry within.” Her fingers moved through his fur absently. “I’m not like that. I make lists, weigh things up, sleep on it, and make another list.” He shifted his head further into her lap, heavy and warm. “And the aggravating part, the truly, deeply aggravating part, is that I’m pretty sure I would have gotten here anyway. On my own. Given time.” She looked at the sky, then back at him. “I would have chosen you. Without any of this. Which means the universe didn’t need to get involved, and yet here it is, very involved."
She was quiet for a moment.
“I know what I want. I think I’ve known for a while, if I’m honest–which I’m being, apparently at length, to a wolf.” His ear twitched. “It’s just... accepting it feels like agreeing to something I didn’t get to ask. Like the decision was already made, and I’m just being informed. And I hate that. I want it, but I hate the way it arrived. I’m very much into love being the destination; I’m also deeply suspicious of the itinerary it took to get to me. And then there’s the other part,” she said. “The part where I try to imagine going back to how it was weeks ago.” She sighed. “That's not great either. That’s actually pretty bad. Horribly bad.” Her hand stilled for a second, then kept going, calling a low sound in his chest.
“So.” She took a long breath in. “Option one: walk away, be miserable, definitely for a long time, probably forever. Option two: stay, be occasionally furious about the way this whole thing landed in my lap uninvited, but also—” she gestured vaguely at the moon, at him, at the clearing, at all of it, “—this. You.” She exhaled. “When I put it that way, it seems very dumb. Like I spent two hours working myself into a crisis about a choice that was never actually that complicated.”
His head snapped up, his eyes now straight on her.
“Don't say anything.”
He huffed.
“I know. You’re a very good listener like this. Which is funny because you’re also a good listener as — you.” She scratched behind his ear without thinking about it, and he made a sound that was deeply undignified for an Alpha and made her chuckle. “So I don’t know where that leaves me. Except here. Which I guess is somewhere good.”
She looked at him, at the massive wolf, one ear slightly crooked, the moonlight making him look like a fairy tale that had wandered into her very real life. “I just had the most important conversation of my life with a wolf.”
He looked up at her with very dignified eyes.
“No offense.”
He huffed again.
“Rex.” She scratched behind his ear once, fond and a little helpless about it. “I need you to shift back. I have more questions, and I need your actual face for them. For, you know, words?”
He stood, shook himself, and padded back to the trees. She felt the absence of him immediately, which was confirmation of the nonsense, if she’d needed any more of it. The clearing was the same, same moon, same stars, same soft grass, and it was somehow completely different without him in it. Talking about things that are inconvenient and beautiful...She heard the rustle of him, putting clothes on—what a shame—but she looked at the sky and did not peek, which she felt deserved some recognition. A few minutes later, he was back on his legs, dropping down beside her, making her sigh in relief. “I've been thinking,” she said.
“I heard.”
She pushed him with her shoulder. “You didn’t hear this one. I think that the universe can go screw itself.”
He frowned, but said nothing.
She fixed the corner of the blanket. “All that—the bond, the pull, the fated mates, whatever you want to call it.” She shrugged. “I would have gotten here anyway. The universe could have minded its business, and I would have ended up in the same place, only with a lot less drama. But I’ve decided I’m keeping you. If that’s—I mean.” She stopped, looked at him. “You know what I mean.”
Oh, he did. He looked back at her in the moonlight. “Zoe.” Her name in his mouth, low and growled, fueled the heat that had been preparing to burn for days.
Easy. It would have been so easy to let go into the goodness of them, into him. Jumping would have been easy—but she wasn’t sure she was ready to land just yet. She needed at least a few more minutes of being a person who still had a brain before deciding to simply stop caring about it. “How do you take your coffee?”
He blinked. “Black, no sugar.”
“I knew it. Favorite color?”
