Lysander’s POV
Phoenix waves from the jetway entrance with both arms, conducting an imaginary orchestra while airport staff try not to laugh. Orion's already lecturing Luna about wing mechanics and why her fear of turbulence is "statistically irrational." Luna just looks back at me with those too-knowing eyes, the kind that see straight through my bullshit about being fine.
I wave until they disappear around the corner. Keep standing at the window like an idiot while their plane taxis to the runway.
The aircraft lifts off, banking west toward Seattle. I watch until it's just another speck against Colorado sky, until even that disappears into nothing.
The silence that follows feels like getting hit by a truck.
I drive home on autopilot and park in my usual spot. Take the elevator to the penthouse that suddenly feels three times too big and completely empty. Shower and shave. Try not to think about how the hot water does nothing to wash away the restless energy crawling under my skin.
My phone buzzes on the bathroom counter.
Claire: Can't wait to see you.
Right, the dinner and the conversation we need to have. The relationship I'm about to end because I’ve finally got that idea that I’m emotionally unavailable and she deserves literally anyone else.
I stare at my reflection while buttoning my shirt. Try to rehearse what I'm going to say—something kind but honest, something that acknowledges she's incredible but I'm fundamentally broken where it counts.
But the words won't come. My brain keeps replaying this afternoon like a song stuck on repeat.
Caroline looking up at me in that grocery aisle. Her cheeks flushed pink to match her ridiculous cashmere sweater. Those bright blue eyes going wide when our hands touched, when she called me attractive and immediately wanted to die of embarrassment.
The jolt that shot through me on contact. Sharp and electric, completely wrong and somehow absolutely right at the same time.
My hands freeze on my collar.
It wasn't the mate bond, it can't be the mate bond. Werewolves don't bond with humans—Magnus drilled that into us since we could walk, repeating it a thousand times like gospel truth.
Biology doesn't cross species lines. The bond requires wolf to wolf, ancient magic recognizing its match. Humans don't have that spark, that fundamental supernatural component that allows the connection to form.
Everyone knows this, because it's basic pack law and an undeniable fact. And yet—
My chest tightens. I press my palm against my sternum where something feels different, altered, like a thread got looped around my ribcage while I wasn't paying attention.
Not the consuming fire Kieran described with Thalia, and not that volcanic, world-burning intensity that made him lose his mind for eight years. This is subtler and quieter. A pull instead of a demand, an invitation instead of a command.
And it’s calling to me.
I grab my phone, pull up the pink business card I photographed before shoving it in my wallet. Caroline Montgomery, Esq.—Family Law Attorney. Her number right there, available, easy to call if I wanted to be completely insane about this.
My thumb hovers over the digits.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I ask my reflection. "She's human. You felt adrenaline, or surprise, or your desperate loneliness cracking open old instincts that are trying to latch onto anyone who shows basic kindness."
My reflection doesn't answer, just stares back looking skeptical.
It wasn't kindness I responded to. Luna shows me kindness every day and my wolf doesn't sit up and beg like a trained dog when she hugs me. Phoenix's chaos doesn't make my chest feel tight and strange. Orion's brilliance doesn't send electric shocks up my arm on contact.
Caroline did though. Caroline in her Louboutins and pink cashmere, reading legal briefs while walking, calling herself a disaster with that smile that lit up the entire aisle.
My phone buzzes again. Claire: I made a reservation at that Italian place you like. 7:30?
Claire is safe and steady. She is exactly the kind of life I thought I wanted after Thalia chose Kieran—gentle evenings, shared professional interests, easy laughter that doesn't demand too much.
The same kind of softness I mistook for love once before. I text back: See you there.
My jacket feels too tight across my shoulders as I shrug it on. The penthouse is too quiet as I grab my keys. Everything feels wrong, off-center, like the universe shifted three inches to the left while I was distracted by blonde hair and blue eyes.
I'm halfway to my car when I stop dead in the parking garage.
"How the hell can a human feel like that?"
No answer comes back, just my own voice bouncing around empty space, because that's the thing neither my wolf nor my completely fucked brain can explain. Caroline registered as something else but human, something my wolf noticed and my instincts recognized on a level that should be impossible.
I get in the car and start the engine, sitting there with my hands on the wheel, trying to convince myself that tonight's conversation with Claire is about finally admitting I can't give her what she deserves. Not about the fact that a grocery store collision rewired something fundamental in my chest and I have absolutely no idea what it means.
Claire is comfortable and familiar. The choice that makes sense when you're trying to build a normal life after losing the supernatural one. But Caroline—
Caroline in those three minutes of chaos and scattered apples and that smile that made my wolf wake up for the first time in two years—Caroline felt like destiny knocking on the wrong goddamn door. And I don't know what the fuck to do about that.
My phone lights up one more time. Not Claire, s text from an unknown number.
Hi! This is Caroline from the grocery store disaster. Phoenix gave me your number before you left (she's very sneaky). Just wanted to say it was nice crashing into you, literally.
My heart does this complicated thing where it tries to escape through my throat while simultaneously dropping into my stomach.
Phoenix. That manipulative little genius gave a stranger my phone number, which should make me furious but mostly just makes me panic because now I have to decide—delete and pretend this never happened, or respond and see where this impossible pull leads.
I stare at the message, at the casual tone that somehow feels more intimate than it should.
Claire's waiting at the Italian place. The reservation is in twenty minutes, so I need to drive, need to focus, to end one thing before even considering starting another. But my thumb is already typing before my brain can stop it.
Let’s get coffee when you are free? I hit send before I can reconsider and watch the message turn from "delivered" to "read" in real time.
Three dots appear, disappearing and appearing again. Then: Tomorrow? I know this place that makes incredible lattes, very pink and fabulous. You'll hate it. 10 AM?
My laugh comes out strangled, sounds nothing like me. Send me the address.
I put the car in gear and pull out of the parking garage, heading toward dinner with Claire and the conversation.