The pack lodge Michael had inherited from his parents was deep in the woods and backed to the river. A heavy, muggy night warmed Zoey’s skin even as a cool breeze played with her dress. She slipped off her heels and left them at the edge of the porch, tiptoeing barefoot across the damp grass. She followed the path she’d been taking since childhood, easily maneuvering her way over the uneven ground until she came face to face with the tree she hadn’t even realized she was looking for.

It was a cloudless night and the moon was bright. Bright enough that she could easily see the carving in the trunk of the tree. Michael’s initials, a plus sign then her initials followed by the simple promise of forever. She raised her hand, tracing the carving that they’d made when she was fourteen, eight years ago, but it felt more like eighty tonight.

She couldn’t explain her sudden melancholy. She’d known for years that she and Michael were done. Since the day she’d turned eighteen and he hadn’t come for her, she’d known that they would never live out the fantasy life her teenage girl dreams had concocted. She’d been dealing with it for years but something was different tonight. She just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

There was a feeling in the air, something electric and powerful. She’d felt it before, on the day she found out what her parents were, on the day they’d moved here to Noir, on the day she’d become an adult. They were all important days in her life, days where she’d learned something big and essential that had changed her life forever. Then, this morning, while she was going about her business, baking at her shop she’d felt it again. Like a jolt it had hit her square in the chest… the question was, why?

Nothing out of the ordinary had happened today. Nothing made today special. Sure, Michael was hosting a party to welcome new pack members but that wasn’t unusual. They’d been getting a lot of new members lately and the pack loved any reason to party, particularly before the full moon.

The full moon… She glanced up at the big orb in the sky. It wasn’t tonight. If it was, she’d be locked in her house all alone as per usual and all the guests would be wearing fur and running the woods instead. She was human so the moon cycles didn’t affect her and yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this one would be different.

“Sneaking away already?”

Zoey whirled around at the sound of the voice, her heart thumping wildly in her chest. She barely contained a shriek of surprise. He’d snuck up on her, one of his many talents, and he was grinning that slightly sheepish grin that was equal parts adorable and charming.

She shrugged as she tried to calm her racing heart, “Didn’t think anyone would notice.”

“I did.”

“You always do.”

Michael smiled and she hated the small shred of wonder she couldn’t keep out of her voice. The smallest crumb of attention and here she was, eating it up. Still, it was nice to know that though his attention had been on another woman as they drank and danced their way through introductions and then innuendos that he’d kept one eye on her.

He always did, but not for the reasons she wished. He’d explained it to her, more than once. If they’d simply been friends, it might have been easier, but Michael’s wolf was involved, as much a part of their intense connection as their history. The bond his wolf had to her was something he understood even less than she did but he’d tried to tell her what it felt like for him.

He’d said that he loved her… but he wasn’t in love with her.

He wasn’t mated to her but his wolf cared about her, deeply, and was determined to take care of her. He’d said it was almost a feeling as if she were a member of his family. He’d said it was as if she were a beloved sister.

The brother-sister comment had felt like taking a lead pipe to the head. Her feelings for him were in no way sisterly. His certainly hadn’t been brotherly before she turned eighteen when he’d stuck his tongue down her throat and copped a feel every chance she gave him.

But she supposed a teenage boy didn’t have to be in love to want to do those things to a girl. Any girl. Particularly when said teenage boy was a shifter with enhanced alpha tendencies and raging testosterone.

“Earth to Zoey?”

“Sorry, what?” She snapped back to reality when he said her name.

“I asked if you left because you weren’t having any fun or if something else drew you away.”

“Oh…” She blinked, looking out over the water instead of directly at him, “I wasn’t bailing. I know tonight is important to you. I just needed to get some fresh air.”

“Tonight is important.” He nodded, “The Gilles family will make a good addition to the pack. The parents were elders in the Crescent pack and their daughters are all young and unmated. It made the men happy to hear there would be fresh meat and several of their friends joined them for the party as well. If we’re lucky, there will be mate bonds made before the night is out.”

The air in her lungs tightened as he spoke and Zoey realized she wasn’t breathing by the time he finished. Her mind had finally caught up with what her subconscious had been trying to tell her all day. The gut feeling that something important was going to happen, it had been trying to tell her this exact thing.

Michael was going to find his mate tonight.

She felt lightheaded. Sick. Nauseous. How had she not put it together before? It made sense. So many new faces running around town the last few days. The Gilles moving here was just the tip of it. There had been contractors working on their house, movers, even party planners all from out of town coming and going. Any one of them could be the lucky woman that would trigger Michael’s wolf to recognize his mate.

Had he already seen her? Did he know who she was? Was it the blonde from inside? Was that why he’d followed her out here? To tell her that he’d found his mate?

He was still talking, “It’s not only the addition of the Gilles family to the pack that we’re celebrating tonight though. I haven’t told anyone else but we’re welcoming back a member that has been gone for a long time too, someone I didn’t think was ever coming home again.”

She struggled to pay attention as her mind whirled with possibilities, “You didn’t mention that.”

“I wasn’t certain it was really happening until today.” Michael scratched his jaw and sighed heavily.

“Is it a good thing or a bad thing that this person is coming back into the pack?”

Bad thing for her? Good thing for him? Was that what he was getting at?

“When he said he was coming home, that he wanted to talk, I thought it was the best news I’d ever heard, but then he got here and…” Michael trailed off, staring out across the water, lost in his thoughts and she frowned.

He? Not she? Zoey felt a small bit of relief at that but it quickly faded when she realized how stricken her best friend looked. Just as he had looked when he came rushing into the party earlier. Half-worried and half-scared, which were both foreign enough on Michael’s face to worry her.

“Hey, are you okay?”

He turned to face her then and she realized how close they were standing. A deep breath would have her breasts brushing his chest. She had to crane her neck to look up at him from this angle. She wasn’t short but he was far too tall for them to stand together like this comfortably. Strange that she’d never noticed their height difference until just that moment.

“You ever wish our lives weren’t so complicated? No pack. No rules. Wish we could just do whatever it was we wanted, take what we wanted and not have to worry about the consequences?” He snorted, “I wasn’t even supposed to be Alpha, not of the Moirae pack, and maybe that’s what changed everything, changed fate.”

She blinked, trying to place the look in his eyes. She didn’t recognize it. She’d never seen him look at her like this before, talk to her with this edge of desperation in his tone. She had the sudden uneasy feeling that she was missing something important, that he hadn’t told her something important, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

“Michael? What’s going on?”

He reached out and gently stroked her jaw, “I wish things were different. For so long, I’ve known it was you, that you were the key to all of it. I thought if I could just figure out what my connection to you meant that I’d be able to fix this thing between us, because fate messed up not putting us together. You know that right?”

She leaned into his touch. She wanted to sink into him. She wanted to grab him and never let go. This moment, this was the one that she’d been waiting on for what felt like a lifetime.

Michael touching her again, touching her with all of the powerful emotion that she’d always known was there between them. Michael telling her that he wished things were different and that they could be together. But even as she stepped closer, watched his eyes stroke over her face, and even as she licked her lips, certain he was going to kiss her, she felt like she was missing something. Something important. Something about his words was off.

It was almost as if he was telling her goodbye. He was memorizing her face as if he’d never see it again. He was going to kiss her, one last time, but then what?

“Yeah, I know.”

His thumb stroked softly over her cheek and his voice was low and pained when he spoke again, “I figured it out, but it wasn’t what we thought.”

Her mind and her body went to war. Her mouth wanted to open, wanted to ask one of the dozen questions racing through it. Figured what out? What was it? What was he talking about? Her body wanted to shut her brain down and just accept whatever this strange moment was. Whether it was hello or goodbye or something else entirely, she didn’t care.

She wanted it to last forever because she was certain the moment on the other side of this one was going to change everything.

“Michael?”

“I’m going to find a way to fix it Zo. You have to trust me. I’m going to fix it.”

She didn’t understand what he was talking about. She nodded anyway. It didn’t matter what the question was. She trusted Michael. She always had. She opened her mouth to tell him that but she never got a word out because a loud growl stopped her short.

“Mine!”

The roar of the male voice was vicious and close enough to rattle her eardrums. She jumped. Michael’s hand fell away. He winced, almost as if he was in pain, and an apologetic look crossed his face. Then, before she could even blink, he was gone.

She screamed as something huge collided with Michael and took him to the ground. Zoey staggered back, more out of shock than fear, because as she watched her brain finally caught up to what was happening. It wasn’t a thing that had come flying out of the darkness to attack Michael, it was a who.