The farmers' market was crowded for a Saturday morning. Rows of white tents stretched across the town square, vendors calling out prices for apples and honey and fresh bread. The air smelled like cinnamon and coffee and something green I couldn't name.
I spotted him near the coffee stand. He was early again. He always was.
"Sophia," he said when I reached him. Just my name. Like it was something precious.
We got coffee—mine with too much cream, his black—and started walking. The plan had been simple. Laugh at the right moments. Touch his arm when he said something clever. Keep the synthetic lure doing its work.
But somewhere between the candle booth and the produce stand, I forgot the script.
He told me a story about his cousin's disastrous attempt at baking bread. Something about confusing salt and sugar and nearly poisoning half the pack house. The way he told it—dry, understated, with this tiny smile pulling at the corner of his mouth—made me laugh.
Really laugh. Not the practiced sound I'd been deploying for weeks. This was genuine, unguarded, bubbling up from somewhere deep in my chest that I'd forgotten existed.
He stopped walking. Turned to look at me.
The expression on his face made my breath catch. Hunger. Tenderness. Something so raw it felt like standing too close to a fire.
"What?" I said. My voice came out softer than I'd intended.
"Nothing," he said quietly. "Just… you should laugh more often."
I looked away. Pretended to study a display of handmade soaps. My pulse was doing something erratic.
We kept walking. The crowd pressed closer as we moved deeper into the market. Someone's dog—a golden retriever with a red bandana—bounded between us, tail wagging like a propeller.
I crouched without thinking. Let the dog lick my face while I scratched behind its ears. "Hi, baby," I murmured. "Aren't you sweet? Yes you are. Yes you are."
The dog's owner called an apology. I waved them off, still grinning.
When I started to stand, his hand moved to the back of my neck.
Not grabbing. Not controlling. Just warmth and weight, steadying me as I rose. His palm against my skin, his fingers barely brushing the place where my hairline met my spine.
I went completely still.
The heat that bloomed under his touch was instant and overwhelming. It spread from the point of contact down my spine, across my shoulders, pooling in the right side of my neck exactly where a mate mark would sit if I had a wolf to feel it.
My entire body locked. Every nerve ending screamed at me to lean into the touch. To tilt my head and expose my throat and let whatever this was consume me whole.
I jerked away instead. Straightened too fast. Nearly stumbled.
"Sorry," he said immediately, hand dropping. "I didn't mean—"
"It's fine." My voice came out breathless. Wrong. "I just—my phone. I need to check my phone."
I pulled it out with hands that were not quite steady. Stared at the blank screen like it held answers. Like it could explain why my entire body was burning with a heat I couldn't name.
He waited. Patient. Watching me with those eyes that looked grey in some light and silver in others.
"Everything okay?" he asked softly.
"Yeah. Fine. Just… family stuff."
The lie tasted bitter.
We finished the walk in near silence. He didn't push. Didn't ask questions. Just stayed close enough that I could feel his presence like a physical weight, warm and magnetic and utterly overwhelming.
When we reached my car, he opened the door for me. Again. Like we were living in some other century.
"I'll text you," I said.
He nodded. Stepped back. Let me go.
I drove three blocks before I had to pull over. My hands were shaking too hard to grip the steering wheel.
---
The pack house healer lived in a small cottage on the eastern border. I knocked just after sunset, when the light was bleeding purple through the trees.
Mara opened the door. She was old—maybe seventy, with silver hair braided down her back and eyes that missed nothing.
"Sophia," she said. Not surprised. "Come in."
I sat in her kitchen while she made tea. Chamomile. The scent filled the small space, familiar and calming.
"Tell me," she said.
So I did. I told her about the electric jolts when he touched me. About the phantom heat on my neck. About the pull I felt whenever he was close, like something deep inside me was trying to claw its way toward him.
I did not tell her about the revenge plot. About the mistaken identity. About any of it.
Mara listened. Her expression shifted from neutral to surprised to something I couldn't read.
"These sensations," she said carefully, "are sometimes reported by she-wolves close to their shifting age. A pre-awakening phenomenon. The body preparing for the wolf to surface."
"But I'm twenty-one," I said. "If I was going to shift, it would have happened years ago."
She stirred her tea. The spoon made small circles in the cup. "Not always. Trauma can delay a shift. Suppress it. Sometimes for years."
Something enormous pressed against the inside of my ribs. A sensation I'd never felt this clearly before. Like something alive was trapped beneath my sternum, pushing outward, demanding space.
I set down my cup. "What does that mean?"
Mara's eyes were kind. Pitying. "It means your body is trying to tell you something. Whether you have a wolf to hear it or not."
I left her cottage with more questions than answers. The night air was cold against my flushed skin. Inside my chest, something enormous and restless paced back and forth, back and forth, like a caged animal that had finally caught the scent of freedom.
I drove home in silence. Lorelai's car was in the driveway. The kitchen light was on.
I went straight to my room. Locked the door. Sat on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hands.
One new message.
*I'm still thinking about today. About the way you laughed. I want to hear it again. —Travis*
I stared at the screen until the words blurred.
The phantom heat on my neck pulsed. Warm. Insistent. Undeniable.
I didn't understand what was happening to me. But I knew, with bone-deep certainty, that whatever this was—it was not part of the plan.
