The honey tasted like sunlight.
I dipped the spoon in almost on impulse, unable to resist twisting the lid off as soon as I set the jar down. The thick amber ribbon slid slow and sticky, pooling in the stainless steel like liquid gold.
I held it up, watching the way it caught the light from the window.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Points for dramatic symbolism.”
Rufus nosed my elbow, hopeful.
“This is not for you,” I told him. “You get kibble. I get existential crisis honey.”
I stuck the spoon in my mouth.
Flavor exploded over my tongue—wildflowers and clover and something darker underneath. Not like the filtered, bland sweetness from the grocery store. This was…complex. Sharp. Alive.
It made my teeth ache in a good way.
On the jar, the little “– M” glared up at me.
“You’re a menace, you know that?” I told the air. “You leave me a haunted cabin, a cursed mountain, and now artisan honey? That’s emotional manipulation.”
The photo of her on the mantel looked back at me, unimpressed.
I took another bite anyway.
Sugar hit my bloodstream and crashed into the leftover adrenaline from last night. It made me feel…wired. Jittery.
Too much sitting around would send me spiraling into my own head.
“Come on,” I said to Rufus, grabbing his leash. “Let’s go see what this mountain looks like when it’s not trying to electrocute us.”
***
The trailhead started behind the cabin.
I wouldn’t have noticed if not for the faint depression in the ferns and the old wooden post tucked beside a rock, half overgrown with moss. Someone had carved a tiny arrow in it at some point, the green paint faded.
Rufus found it first, of course. He snuffled along the edge of the yard, then paused, nose high, tail wagging hesitantly.
“What is it?” I asked, following.
He shot me a look that clearly said *about time* and plunged into the underbrush.
“Trail,” I muttered, spotting the hint of a path beyond. “Of course she had a secret trail.”
Branches brushed my jeans, snagging on the denim. The air under the trees cooled a few degrees, damp and rich with the smell of earth and decaying leaves.
Rufus moved ahead, his brindled back flashing in dappled light. He stayed within ten feet of me, glancing back often, checking.
The path wound between pines and firs, the soft mat of needles underfoot muffling my steps. Birdsong threaded the air. Somewhere far off, water whispered.
I breathed in, deep.
Okay. Yeah.
I got it.
I understood, at least in a physical way, why someone might choose this over suburban sidewalks and HOA meetings.
The land here wasn’t just pretty. It felt…full. Pressurized.
Alive.
Theo’s word again.
I tried not to think about him.
Failed.
Stupid brain.
Every time a scent I couldn’t categorize drifted past—a hint of musk, a breath of fur—I thought of him explaining how the Pack worked, his voice low. Every time the trail dipped and my ankle wobbled, I remembered the casual way he’d moved over this ground like he’d been built for it.
“Stop it,” I ordered myself under my breath. “He’s emotionally unavailable and magically entangled. That’s like, double red-flag territory.”
A squirrel chattered overhead, offended.
“Not you,” I called up. “You’re fine.”
The trail climbed steadily, winding up the ridge. Sweat dampened the back of my shirt. My calves burned, in a good way. Muscles that had spent too much time lately behind a desk or on an exam stool woke up and remembered what they were for.
Rufus ranged ahead to a fallen log, then stopped dead.
His whole body went rigid. Hackles rose. A low rumble built in his chest.
Adrenaline hit me like a shot. I froze.
“What?” I whispered.
He didn’t spare me a glance. His nose pointed downslope, toward a thicket of scrub oak.
I listened.
At first, nothing. Just wind. A jay shrieking somewhere higher up.
Then…a rustle.
Not the quick, light scrabble of a squirrel. Heavier. Slower. Something big moving carefully.
My heart pounded against my ribs.
“Bear?” I breathed.
Rufus whined, low. His muscles coiled, ready to lunge or run.
“Easy,” I said, though my own voice shook. “We back up, okay? Slowly. Nice and easy. We don’t—”
The brush parted.
For a split second, my brain refused to categorize what it saw.
It was tall. Taller than any human I’d ever seen, even factoring in the uphill tilt of the trail.
Broad shoulders. Thick arms. A torso that looked almost human if humans came in…extra-large. But the head was wrong. Elongated. Muzzled. Fur like dark smoke rippled over muscles that bunched and released in a pattern my vet brain labeled *quadruped* even though it was standing on two legs.
Eyes.
Yellow. Clear. Focused on me.
My whole body locked.
Every prey instinct I’d ever had, buried under years of being apex predator in sterile exam rooms, roared to the surface.
Run. Fight. Freeze.
The thing tilted its head.
Under the fur, under the wrongness of the shape, I saw something horrifyingly familiar.
A nose, a mouth, a jawline that echoed a face I’d already seen.
Theo.
My knees almost gave out.
He had warned me. I had asked. I had poked the sleeping myth until it woke up and stared me in the face.
My first thought, ridiculous and sharp, was *Werewolves are much bigger in person.*
My second was *You’re hallucinating, this is some kind of PTSD dream, wake up, wake up, wake up—*
The creature—Theo?—made a sound.
A low, questioning whuff. Not a growl. Not a snarl.
Rufus lost his mind.
He lunged, barking, every muscle straining against the leash. Saliva flew from his snarling mouth.
“Rufus, no!” I shouted, digging my heels in. The rough nylon burned my palm.
The—wolf-man?—flinched back from the onslaught. His ears flicked, angling away.
He lifted his hands—the fingers were tipped with blunt claws, fur ruffing the backs—to chest height, palms out. A universal gesture: I’m not a threat.
My dog didn’t care about universals.
He wanted this intruder off his mountain.
“Rufus!” I hauled harder, heart slamming. “Heel! Heel, goddammit!”
He listened, eventually. Or maybe he ran out of initial rage. He stopped just short of the leash’s full extension, still barking, still trembling with the desire to launch.
The…shifter watched us, head cocked.
His gaze slid from Rufus to me.
It was disorienting, seeing those eyes in that face. Wolf and man, both and neither.
His nostrils flared.
“Aurora,” he said.
It came out warped around too-sharp teeth. The vowels wrong. The consonants fuzzy. But I heard my name in it all the same.
My stomach dropped.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
He froze.
“Don’t say my name like that,” I managed. “Not when you look like…that.”
He made a soft, almost pained sound.
Then he took three slow steps back, each one deliberate. His movements were eerie—too fluid for something so big.
He lowered himself, body folding like a collapsing bridge. Shoulders hunched, spine curving, limbs hitting the ground.
For an instant, he was wrong. Bones shifting under skin, fur rippling in a wave, muscles bunching in impossible ways.
No horror movie squeals. No gore. Just…physics being rewritten in front of me.
I couldn’t look away.
I watched his hands shorten, fingers merging, paws replacing palms. His face elongated, then somehow…simplified. The half-human muzzle became fully lupine. Ears moved, sliding higher, sharpening.
It took seconds.
Then there was a wolf standing where the thing had been.
A big one. Gray and black and cream, fur damp from the underbrush, sides heaving slightly.
His eyes were the same.
Theo.
I knew it with the same certainty I knew my own reflection.
The wolf took another step back, lowering his head. The tip of his tail dipped.
Apology. Submission. Whatever wolf body language books had told me over the years, it was that.
My breath came shallow and fast.
Rufus’s barking trailed off.
He stared at the wolf, confused. This wasn’t a bear. Or a person.
This was something in between, and his brain was struggling to sort the file.
The wolf huffed, ears pricked forward now. Waiting.
“Sit,” I heard myself say.
He sat.
Just like that.
An awful, hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat.
“Of course you’re obedient,” I rasped. “Of course you are.”
His ears flattened for a second, like he knew I was laughing at him.
He looked…ridiculous. Huge, wild, powerful. And sitting like someone’s overgrown pet.
My knees wobbled. I sank onto a rock, keeping one hand locked around Rufus’s leash.
The forest spun around the three of us.
“This is real,” I muttered. “This is actually real.”
The wolf’s chest rose and fell.
He didn’t move closer. Didn’t do anything that could be construed as menacing.
My heartbeat slowly, grudgingly, stepped down from “impending stroke” to “just ran a 5K in August.”
“You couldn’t have…warned me?” I said, staring at him. “Given me, like, a heads up? ‘Hey, by the way, I sometimes turn into a giant murder dog, don’t freak out if you see me on your trail?’”
He made a chuffing sound. Wolf for *I tried.*
My lips twisted.
“Right. ‘Next full moon, I’ll show you,’” I mimicked. “This is…not the full moon.”
He huffed again. This time I got the distinct impression of a shrug.
“Of course werewolves can shift whenever they want,” I said to the trees. “Why would werewolves follow cinematic rules?”
My vet brain, traitor that it was, started cataloguing.
Head: broad. Ears: mobile. Teeth: too big. Body: heavy-chested, longer-legged than the wolves I’d seen in zoos. Paws: oversized. Tail:—
His tail thumped once, slow.
He was watching me with unnerving intensity.
“What?” I snapped.
He tilted his head.
The feeling I got from him wasn’t…animal. Not entirely. Wolves didn’t do guilt. Or self-consciousness. Or tentative hope.
I could feel all of that rolling off him in waves.
Something inside me…eased.
Not much. A fraction. Enough.
“You know this is…too much, right?” I said quietly. “That this—” I gestured weakly at his fur, his paws. “—is not the kind of thing you just…drop on someone and expect them to roll with?”
He flattened his ears fully, lowering his head until his nose almost brushed the dirt.
The wolf version of hanging your head in shame.
“Yeah,” I said. “That tracks.”
Rufus, sensing his human wasn’t about to throw down, inched forward, inch by inch, hackles easing.
The wolf—Theo—went even more still, if that was possible. He let my dog come to him.
Sniff. Sniff. Sniff.
Two worlds met nose-to-nose.
Rufus’s tail twitched. He huffed, then backed up, satisfied. His body language shifted from “DEFEND MOM AT ALL COSTS” to “okay, weird-smelling cousin, you can exist.”
“Well,” I said. “That’s a ringing endorsement.”
Theo’s tail gave one small wag.
Against my will, something like amusement stirred.
“This doesn’t mean I’m okay with any of this,” I warned. “I am…very much *not* okay. But I’m also not going to hyperventilate on the trail, so…small win?”
He cocked his head. If he’d had eyebrows, one would have been up.
“I’m talking to a wolf,” I muttered.
He snorted.
“Okay, fine, a *Theo-shaped* wolf,” I corrected. “This is…ridiculous.”
He rose smoothly to his feet at that, surprising me again with sheer scale. His back would come up to mid-thigh on me. His shoulders rippled under his fur.
He turned, glanced back the way we’d come, then looked at me.
Invitation.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
He huffed. Took a step forward. Looked over his shoulder.
Rufus’s ears pricked. He bounced once, excited.
“He wants to show you something,” I realized aloud.
Of course he did.
“Is it a secret wolf lair?” I asked dryly. “Because I’m really not dressed for cult orientation.”
He sneezed. I could *swear* it was a canine eye-roll.
He started up the trail, not waiting to see if I followed.
Rufus tugged. His whole body said *Come on, slow human.*
I hesitated for half a second.
This was dumb.
This was how horror movies started. Girl follows mysterious supernatural creature into the woods, never seen again, roll credits.
On the other hand…if these people—wolves, whatever—had wanted to hurt me, they’d had about a thousand better opportunities. Night. Storm. Locked-in feeling. They’d chosen instead to bring me honey and argue about my consent on my own porch.
“Fine,” I muttered. “One wrong move and I’m throwing you off a cliff.”
The wolf flicked an ear back toward me.
I followed.
***
The trail narrowed, then widened, then disappeared entirely—at least to my eyes. Theo (it was useless pretending I didn’t know it was him) moved like he could see bright neon markers I couldn’t. He slipped between trees with the ease of something that had been born to this.
Rufus trotted behind him, delighted to have a leader who could actually keep up.
I wasn’t completely hopeless. Years of weekend trail runs, even if I’d fallen out of the habit, had left me with decent lungs. I matched their pace, breath huffing but steady.
We climbed.
The forest thinned. Sunlight speared down in golden slants. The air cooled again, thin and sharp in my nose.
My legs burned.
“Is this…revenge?” I panted once. “For calling you a murder dog?”
Theo glanced back, tongue lolling slightly. His eyes were bright. Wolf-smug.
“Asshole,” I wheezed.
He huffed, amused.
Finally, after what felt like half an hour but was probably closer to fifteen minutes, the trees peeled back entirely.
We stepped out onto a ledge.
My breath left me.
The ridge dropped away in a sheer fall of rock and scrub. Below, the valley spread in a sweep of green and silver. The river cut through it, glittering. The opposite slope rose, dark and solid. The sky above it all was an impossible blue, the kind you never saw in cities.
Wind slapped my damp shirt against my skin. It smelled like sun-warmed stone and water and pine.
“This is…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Theo padded to the very edge, unbothered by the drop. He planted his paws, lifted his head, and breathed in deeply.
Rufus stayed prudently back, sniffing a scrubby bush instead.
For a moment, watching the wolf silhouette against the open sky, the wrongness of it receded.
He fit here.
This body, this form, this…half-wildness.
The mountain made more sense of him than the hardware store did.
He glanced back at me, ears pricked.
Well?
“It’s…insane,” I said quietly. “In the best way.”
He sank onto his haunches, content.
“This was hers, wasn’t it?” I asked, stepping carefully closer to the edge. Loose gravel shifted under my boot; I swallowed, keeping a healthy distance. “My grandmother’s spot.”
He dipped his head once, deliberate.
I looked around properly then.
Faint signs of human presence dotted the rock.
A smooth, flat patch near the back where someone had clearly sat often enough to wear the stone down. A circle of small rocks, blackened in the center—fire, years ago. A shard of blue-green glass tucked into a crevice, catching the light.
The ghost of Margaret hovered here, more real than in the photo.
I could see her sitting cross-legged on that stone, mug in hand, staring out at the valley and picking fights in her head with cantankerous elders.
“I get why she stayed now,” I said softly. “At least…part of why.”
Theo made a low sound. Agreement, maybe.
A weird ache opened in my chest.
Anger and grief tangled.
“She still should have called,” I said, to my ghost grandmother, to the wolf at my feet, to the mountain. “She still should have…told us. Given Dad a choice. Given me a warning.”
The wind whipped my hair into my eyes. I blinked hard.
Theo shifted.
I looked down.
He had moved a fraction closer. Close enough that if I reached down, I could touch the thick fur at his shoulder. He held very, very still, letting me decide if I wanted that contact.
Everything in me bristled on principle.
I didn’t want comforting from the man whose bloodline had helped build this mess.
I also, inconveniently, wanted to bury my fingers in that fur and hold on to something solid.
“Don’t,” I told myself under my breath. “Do not pet the werewolf. That’s how you form attachments.”
Rufus, oblivious, leaned against my leg, sharing his warmth.
The three of us stood there in a little cluster, the wind tugging, the land spread out below, the sky too big.
For a long time, nobody moved.
***
Theo shifted back just out of sight.
I’d half-expected him to just…walk me back to the cabin as a wolf, maybe throw in some canine commentary along the way. Instead, when we retraced our steps into the trees and the leafy canopy swallowed the sky again, he veered off, disappearing into a stand of fir.
A rustle. A low, bitten-off noise that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a grunt or a growl. The hair on my arms lifted.
Seconds later, Theo stepped out.
Human again.
Jeans low on his hips. Bare feet. Bare chest.
My brain shorted out for a moment.
He held my gaze deliberately, like he was giving me a focal point that wasn’t *the rest of him.*
It didn’t entirely work.
He wasn’t…bulked, the way some guys at the gym were. No grotesquely swollen arms, no cartoon chest. He was…dense. Solid. Every line defined by use, not vanity. Scars crisscrossed his torso—thin, pale ones like old knife nicks; one heavier slash that curved from his left shoulder to his ribs.
His hair was damp at the temples. There was dirt on his calves.
He looked…wild.
I dug my nails into my palm and reminded myself to inhale.
“Sorry,” he said, voice a little rough. “Didn’t want to, uh…startle you again.”
“Next time you want to avoid startling me,” I said faintly, “maybe put a shirt on.”
Heat flared across his cheekbones. He glanced down at himself as if he’d genuinely forgotten his own state of undress.
“Right,” he muttered. “Yeah. About that.”
He bent, grabbed a t-shirt and flannel from where they’d been stashed in the roots of a tree, and yanked them on.
I tried to look away. I failed.
Everything about the way he moved screamed functional. No superfluous motion. No show-off flexing. He pulled the cloth over his head like he’d done it a thousand times behind trees like this.
Rufus trotted over, sniffed his bare foot, and wagged, as if to say *you pass my inspection in all forms.*
“Traitor,” I told my dog.
Theo ducked his head, hiding a smile as he buttoned the flannel.
“How did you…know I was out here?” I asked when my voice worked again. “On the trail.”
“Patrol,” he said simply. “We run the upper ridge a few times a day. Make sure tourists don’t wander off and find the cliff the hard way. Make sure elk aren’t getting too close to the switchbacks.”
“And…you smelled me,” I said.
His mouth twitched. “Something like that.”
My cheeks heated again.
“You should…know,” I blurted, because the words had been perched on my tongue since the ledge, “that if you try to…use that…” I gestured at his whole being helplessly “—to, like, pressure me? Into this…mate…thing? It’s not going to work.”
He went very still.
Then he exhaled, a rough sound, and met my gaze squarely.
“You think I don’t know that?” he asked softly. “You think I’m not trying to…turn it off, half the time?”
“Turn…what off?”
“This.” He flicked his fingers between us, frustration etched in the lines around his mouth. “The way the bond pulls. The way my wolf wants to—to claim. To mark. To sink teeth in and make *sure* you’re ours.”
My breath stuttered.
Honesty, brutal and bare, hung between us.
“I didn’t ask for that,” I said. My voice shook. “I didn’t ask to be…pulled. Or…claimed. Or anything.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why it’s my job to…keep it leashed. Not put it on you.”
A shiver chased down my spine at the way he said “leashed.” Half-growl, half vow.
Rufus nudged my hand insistently. I scratched behind his ears too hard, grateful for the grounding contact.
We walked back to the cabin in a strange, charged quiet.
Every time his arm brushed mine accidentally on the narrow trail, my skin lit up.
I told myself it was static. Nerves. Adrenaline.
Not…magic.
***
Theo fixed my sink without being asked.
One minute he was hovering in the living room, clearly debating whether he should leave me to process or keep hovering like an anxious guard dog. The next he was in my kitchen, head under the cabinets, muttering about “old pipes” and “of course she jury-rigged this with duct tape, of course she did.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said uselessly.
“Pipes don’t care what I have to do,” he retorted, voice muffled. “They care if they’re leaking. This one is.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Every time I’d run the water that morning, I’d heard a faint drip under the sink. I’d made a mental note to “deal with it later” and then promptly let myself get distracted by werewolves and honey.
Now, watching him work, I realized something dangerously soothing about this whole scenario.
Chaos, magic, destiny outside. Undeniable.
Inside: leaky pipe. Man with wrench. Fixable problem.
“I’m paying you,” I said, leaning against the counter.
He snorted. “With what? The ghost of your grandmother’s IOUs?”
“With actual money,” I said. “I have a checkbook. I can Venmo. Does Venmo work up here? Do werewolves use Venmo?”
“We use checks,” he said. “Like the ancients.”
“You are the ancients.”
He made a disgruntled noise.
“Fine,” I said. “Then I’m paying you with manual labor. You fix my pipes, I’ll…volunteer at your mountain rescue thing. Or give your goats their shots.”
“We don’t have goats,” he said. “Jim has goats. They’re mean. You sure you want to tangle with those?”
“Better them than your Council,” I muttered.
He chuckled. The sound warmed something under my ribs.
“Done,” he said, scooting back. “No more leaks.”
He wiped his hands on a rag. The motion made his flannel ride up slightly, exposing a strip of skin above his jeans.
I looked. Of course I looked.
He caught me.
One corner of his mouth tipped up, slow.
“See something you like, Doc?” he asked, voice lower.
Heat flooded my face.
“Don’t call me that,” I said quickly. “Only my staff gets to call me Doc. And only when they’re not being condescending.”
“Rory, then,” he said, the nickname sliding out like he’d tried it on in his mouth before. “Better?”
My pulse stuttered.
No one called me Rory unless I’d given them express permission. It was a boundary thing.
He saw my face. His eyes flicked, gauging.
“Too much?” he asked, quietly this time.
I swallowed.
“I…don’t hate it,” I admitted. “But you only get to use it when you’re not being condescending.”
He smiled, small and real. “Deal.”
Something inside me shifted.
A fault line, maybe. Hairline crack.
Not big enough to collapse anything yet.
But there.
***
He stayed until midafternoon, fixing things.
I didn't ask him to.
He didn’t ask if he could.
He just…saw.
Loose porch board? Hammered down. Back door latch that didn’t quite catch? Adjusted. Window with a gap that let in a draft? Weather-stripped.
I alternated between being irrationally irritated and absurdly grateful.
“You’re very…competent,” I said finally, as he straightened from checking the smoke detector.
“You say that like it’s an insult,” he replied.
“It is, a little,” I said. “You’re making it very hard to maintain appropriate levels of resentment.”
He barked out a laugh.
“There it is,” he said. “I was wondering when the claws would come back out.”
“Careful,” I shot back. “I might get confused and start thinking you’re useful.”
“God forbid.”
We circled each other verbally and physically all afternoon, testing boundaries.
He didn’t step into my bedroom. He didn’t pick up the journal. He didn’t ask about last night’s dreams or whether the howl had stirred anything in me.
I didn’t ask how often he shifted when no one was looking. I didn’t ask what Hayes had said to him after he’d left my porch. I didn’t ask what it would do to him if I walked away.
Slow burn, indeed.
When he finally shouldered his backpack in the doorway, the light outside had turned late-afternoon gold.
“I’ll be in town if you need anything,” he said. “Hardware, advice, emergency plumbing, questionable life choices.”
“I’ll put you on speed dial,” I said dryly. “Right next to Pizza Hut.”
“We don’t have Pizza Hut.”
“I know,” I sighed. “This is clearly a godforsaken wasteland.”
He hesitated a fraction of a second. His gaze rested on my face, searching.
“If Hayes comes up on his own,” he said quietly, “you don’t open the door.”
“I have a dog,” I reminded him. “And a deadbolt.”
“I mean it,” he said. “He’ll try to…be reasonable. To sound…kind. He’s very good at making poison look like medicine. You don’t say yes to anything he offers. Not alone.”
A chill skated down my spine.
“I can say no,” I said. “I’ve been practicing since I was two.”
“I know,” he said. A hint of pride in his voice. “Still. Humor me. Call me if he shows up.”
“Yes, Alpha,” I said with mock solemnity.
His eyes darkened at the word. Not just annoyance. Something else.
“Don’t,” he said, voice rough.
“Don’t what?” I asked. Pushing, because I didn’t know how not to.
“Call me that when you’re laughing,” he said. “It…does things.”
My stomach dipped.
“Noted,” I said, around a suddenly dry throat.
He dipped his chin once, turned, and walked down the steps.
I watched him go, his broad back disappearing into the trees.
Rufus sat beside me, tail thumping.
“We’re in so much trouble,” I told my dog.
He licked my hand.
***