You deserve love, Gail. Real love.
Mira's words from yesterday echoed in my mind for the hundredth time as I stared at the same scroll I'd been pretending to read for the past ten minutes. The parchment blurred before my eyes as I replayed every detail of our conversation in the fitting room.
She didn't want the bond. She'd said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Meanwhile, I'd been torturing myself for weeks over my feelings for Wyatt, convinced I was betraying the one person who'd ever shown me kindness.
"The territorial disputes of 1832," I muttered, trying to force my attention back to the archive work. But my mind kept wandering to the way Mira had looked at me in the mirror, the gentle understanding in her eyes when she'd asked about Wyatt. How had she known? Had I been that obvious?
I shook my head, frustrated with myself. It didn't matter what Mira thought or felt. Wyatt was still promised to her. The ceremony was still happening, and I was still-
"Gail." I jerked back to reality, nearly knocking over my inkwell. Wyatt was standing directly in front of my desk, concern etched across his features.
"You okay?" he asked, his voice gentler than I'd ever heard it.
Heat flooded my cheeks. "Fine. Just... focused."
"On what? You've been staring at that scroll for twenty minutes without turning a page." Twenty minutes? I blinked, looking down at the document in my hands. The words swam together meaninglessly.
"I was just..." I scrambled for an excuse, but Wyatt was already moving around to my side of the desk.
"Here, let me help." He reached for the scroll, his fingers brushing mine as he took it. "What were you working on?"
"Trade agreements," I said quickly, trying to ignore the warmth spreading up my arm from where he'd touched me.
He scanned the parchment, his brow furrowing. "This is about territorial boundaries, not trade."
"Right. Boundaries." I wanted to disappear into the floor. "I meant boundaries."
"Gail." His voice was serious now, and when I looked up, he was studying my face with an intensity that made my breath catch. "What's going on? You've been distracted all morning."
I opened my mouth to give him another excuse, but the words died in my throat. There was something different about the way he was looking at me. Not with pity or polite concern, but with genuine worry. Like my wellbeing actually mattered to him.
"Nothing important," I said finally. "Just thinking about... things." He didn't push, which surprised me. Instead, he set the scroll aside and pulled up a chair next to mine.
"Actually, I've been meaning to tell you something," he said. "Remember last week when you mentioned that theory about the old Alpha treaties? About how they were structured to favor the eastern territories?" I nodded, confused by the change in topic.
"I brought it up with my father yesterday. He had me pull the original documents from the main pack archives." Wyatt's eyes lit up with something that looked almost like pride. "You were right. Completely right. The council's been operating under a flawed interpretation for decades."
I stared at him, shocked. "You... you remembered that?"
"Of course I remembered. It was brilliant." He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping. "You see patterns others miss, Gail. You always have." My chest tightened with an emotion I couldn't name. No one had ever called me brilliant before. No one had ever suggested I was anything more than a disappointment.
"I just read a lot," I said weakly.
"It's more than that." His gaze was steady, unflinching. "You understand how things connect. How decisions made fifty years ago still affect us today. That's not something you can learn from books." I felt my face heating up again, but this time it wasn't from embarrassment. It was from the way he was looking at me, like he was seeing something in me that no one else ever had.
"Thank you," I whispered. We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of his words settling between us. Then Wyatt stood abruptly.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here."
"What?"
"You've been cooped up in this stuffy room all morning. We both have." He held out his hand. "Let's take a walk." I hesitated, staring at his outstretched palm. Taking his hand felt like crossing a line I wasn't sure I was ready to cross.
"Just a walk," he said softly, as if reading my thoughts. Before I could talk myself out of it, I placed my hand in his.
The late afternoon sun filtered through the trees as we walked along the forest path, creating patterns of light and shadow on the ground. Wyatt had released my hand once we'd left the archives, but I could still feel the warmth of his touch lingering on my skin.
"So," he said after we'd walked in comfortable silence for several minutes, "what's really been on your mind today?"
I glanced at him sideways. "What makes you think there's something specific?"
"Because I've been working with you for weeks now, and I've never seen you that distracted." He paused. "Also, you called me 'Alpha' twice this morning instead of my name."
My steps faltered. "I did?"
"Mm-hmm. Very formal. Very unlike you." There was a hint of teasing in his voice. "I was starting to wonder if I'd done something to offend you."
"You haven't," I said quickly. "I just... I've had a lot on my mind lately."
"The ceremony?" The question hung in the air between us. I knew he was talking about his mating ceremony with Mira, but I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge it directly.
"Among other things," I said carefully. We'd reached the edge of the open field near the Whispering Grove. Wyatt stopped walking and turned to face me.
"Gail, can I ask you something?"
My heart started pounding. "Sure."
"Do you think people can change? Really change, I mean. Not just their circumstances, but who they are fundamentally?"
The question caught me off guard. "I... why do you ask?"
"Because I feel like I've been sleepwalking through my life for years, and I'm just now starting to wake up." His voice was quiet, almost vulnerable. "And I'm not sure I like what I see." Before I could respond, he shook his head and started walking again.
"Sorry. That was probably too heavy for a casual walk."
"No, it wasn't," I said, catching up with him. "And to answer your question... yes, I think people can change. But I think most of the time, they're not really changing so much as finally becoming who they were meant to be all along." He stopped walking again, turning to stare at me with an expression I couldn't read.
"That's very wise," he said finally.
"Or very naive," I replied, attempting a light tone. "I haven't exactly had a lot of life experience to base that opinion on." To my surprise, he laughed. It was a genuine sound, warm and unguarded in a way I'd never heard from him before.
"What?" I asked, confused.
"You just... you have this way of being completely honest and completely self-deprecating at the same time." He was still smiling. "It's refreshing."
"Refreshing is definitely not a word most people would use to describe me."
"Then most people are idiots."
The simple declaration made my chest tighten with something dangerously close to hope. I looked away, focusing on the wildflowers scattered across the field.
"You don't have to be nice to me, you know," I said quietly.
"I'm not being nice." His voice was serious again. "I'm being honest." When I looked back at him, something had shifted in his expression. The teasing light in his eyes had been replaced by something deeper, more intense.
"Gail," he said, my name barely a whisper.
And then I felt it. That pull in my chest, soft but unmistakable. Like something inside me was reaching for him, drawn by an invisible thread I couldn't see but couldn't deny. His eyes widened slightly, as if he felt it too.
The world around us seemed to go quiet. No birds singing, no wind rustling the leaves. Just us, standing in the middle of an empty field, connected by something neither of us understood. We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, the air between us thick with unspoken words and impossible possibilities.
And in that moment, I realized that whatever was happening between us was far more dangerous than anything I'd ever experienced under the blood moon.