Howl About That (Paranormal Dating Agency #108)

1. Poppy

ONE

POPPY

The Plaza's grand ballroom stretched before Poppy like a gilded battlefield, the crystal chandeliers casting fractured light across marble floors that had witnessed a century of New York's most exclusive gatherings.

She paused at the entrance and smoothed the midnight blue silk of her dress with unsteady fingers.

But her lioness prowled restlessly beneath her skin, demanding action.

Take what's ours. Stop begging for scraps.

"Breathe," Neve murmured beside her, elegant in red that somehow managed to look both understated and lethal. "You look like you're about to challenge someone to single combat."

"Maybe I am." Poppy's voice carried the edge of someone who'd spent eleven years fighting for everything she owned. "Ninety days, Neve. That's all I have left before the bank calls the remaining loans."

"I know." Neve's tone held the patience of someone who'd watched her best friend carry impossible weights for over a decade. "Which is why we're here to win, not to panic."

The auction catalog felt heavy in Poppy's hands—forty-seven lots of prime real estate, but only one mattered.

Lot thirty-eight: five hundred acres of Hudson Valley woodland that bordered her family's ancestral pride lands.

The same parcel she had been forced to sell during the financial crisis that followed her father's murder, the piece of their territory that some developer could use to strangle everything the Mintz pride had protected for centuries.

One million dollars. Every liquid asset she had left, scraped together from accounts she'd been hoarding like a dragon guarding treasure. It had to be enough.

"Remember," Neve said as they moved deeper into the ballroom, "most of these people are here for the Manhattan properties. Rural land doesn't usually attract the serious money."

Poppy nodded, though her chest felt tight with the weight of everything riding on that assumption.

Around them, shifter society's elite mingled with champagne flutes and casual conversations about eight-figure acquisitions.

She recognized faces from business magazines and society pages—wolves, bears, a few big cats like herself, all radiating the particular confidence that came with generational wealth.

The kind of confidence she'd been faking for eleven years.

They found their assigned table near the front, close enough to signal serious intent without appearing desperate.

Poppy settled into her chair, hyperaware of every sound and every movement.

Her lioness wanted to pace the perimeter, to identify threats and escape routes, to do something other than sit quietly while their future balanced on the edge of a blade.

"You're broadcasting anxiety," Neve observed, adjusting her napkin with deliberate calm. "Your shoulders are practically at your ears."

"My shoulders are fine." But Poppy forced herself to relax, to project the image of someone attending a social event rather than fighting for survival. "I just need this to go smoothly. No surprises and no complications."

"When has anything in your life ever gone smoothly?" Neve replied a bit too sharply.

Before Poppy could respond, the auctioneer approached the podium—a distinguished man in his sixties whose voice carried the authority of someone who'd orchestrated billion-dollar sales. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Whitmore & Associates' quarterly real estate auction."

The room settled into expectant silence. Poppy's hands clenched in her lap as the first lot appeared on the massive screen behind the podium—a penthouse overlooking Central Park. The auctioneer started the bidding, and within five minutes, it sold for thirty-two million dollars.

Poppy tried to remain calm and focused as the minutes passed by and more lots were being sold, but her mind kept calculating how long until her lot appeared on the screen.

She estimated that lot thirty-eight wouldn't appear for at least another hour.

An hour of watching other people casually spend more money than her pride's annual budget, an hour of pretending she belonged among Manhattan's financial elite when she was actually betting everything on a single desperate gamble.

"Stop counting," Neve said quietly. "You'll give yourself a panic attack."

"I'm not counting."

"You're doing that thing where you tap your fingers in mathematical sequences," Neve said, her voice tinged with amusement.

Poppy stilled her hands, annoyed at being so transparent.

Around them, the auction continued its relentless pace—commercial properties in Midtown, luxury developments in Brooklyn, a historic mansion in the Hamptons that went for forty-five million.

Each sale felt like watching other people play with house money while she sat holding her last chips.

"Lot twenty-three," the auctioneer announced. "A mixed-use development opportunity in Lower Manhattan."

We're getting closer.

Poppy's pulse accelerated despite her best efforts. Fifteen more lots. Fifteen more chances for something to go wrong, for some complication she hadn't anticipated.

"You know," Neve said conversationally, "there's something almost liberating about having everything on the line. No room for half-measures."

"Liberating isn't the word I'd use."

"What word would you use?"

Terrifying. Overwhelming. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and realizing the ground behind you had already crumbled away.

But before she could answer, the auctioneer's voice cut through her thoughts. "Lot thirty-seven. Prime commercial real estate in White Plains."

One more. One more lot and then everything would be decided.

Her lioness pressed against her skin, ready to fight for what belonged to them.

Ready to prove that eleven years of sacrifice and struggle hadn't been for nothing.

Ready to show everyone who'd ever doubted her that she was exactly where she belonged and she was exactly the right person to be Alpha of the Mintz pride.

Five minutes later, the auctioneer's voice cut through the ballroom's refined murmur. "Lot thirty-eight. Five hundred acres of pristine Hudson Valley woodland."

Poppy's heart hammered against her ribs as the screen displayed aerial photographs of her ancestral pride lands—rolling hills carpeted in ancient oaks, the silver thread of the creek that had run through Mintz territory for three centuries, the stone boundaries her great-grandfather had laid with his own hands.

Her lioness surged forward, recognizing home even through digital images.

This is it. Everything depends on the next ten minutes.

She raised her paddle with steady fingers that belied the chaos in her. "One hundred thousand."

The bid felt pathetically small in a room where people casually spent millions on Manhattan penthouses, but rural land rarely attracted serious money. Most of these wealthy shifters wanted trophy properties, not wilderness that required patience and vision to appreciate.

Please let them ignore this. Please let them think it's worthless.

"One hundred thousand from the lady in blue," the auctioneer acknowledged. "Do I hear—"

"Three hundred thousand."

The voice came from somewhere behind her—crisp, confident, and utterly unexpected. Poppy's head snapped around to locate the source and found a petite woman with snow-white hair and designer earrings, her paddle raised with the casual air of someone ordering coffee.

Who is she? Why does she want my land?

Panic clawed at Poppy's throat, but she forced her voice to remain steady. "Five hundred thousand."

The woman turned slightly, and for a moment their eyes met across the ballroom. The woman's bright blue eyes shifted to something that looked almost golden, and her smile carried an odd mixture of sympathy and mischief. As if she knew exactly what this auction meant to Poppy.

"Seven hundred thousand," the petite woman said without hesitation.

What is she doing?

Poppy's lioness snarled, demanding she march across the room and physically remove this threat to their territory.

But auction rules bound her to civilized behavior, to polite warfare conducted through raised paddles and escalating numbers. Even if her chest tightened with each bid, even if the other woman's serene confidence suggested she had resources Poppy could only dream of.

The room had gone quieter now, sensing drama. Conversations paused as heads turned to watch the unexpected battle over what most considered unremarkable acreage.

"One million dollars."

The words left Poppy's lips with finality that echoed through the ballroom. Every liquid asset she possessed, every dollar she'd scraped together from accounts and emergency reserves. Her last stand to keep her territory intact and her Alpha title secured with money she couldn't afford to lose.

Silence stretched between heartbeats. The white-haired woman studied her with those unsettling eyes, then lowered her paddle with a small nod that felt almost like approval.

I did it. I actually—

"Going once," the auctioneer announced.

Relief flooded through Poppy's veins like warm honey. She'd won. Broke herself winning, but won nonetheless. The pride lands would return to Mintz control, Sander's challenges would crumble, and she'd proven once again that sacrifice and determination could overcome impossible odds.

"Going twice..."

Neve's hand found hers under the table, squeezing fingers that had gone numb with tension. Then a voice cut through the ballroom's anticipation—deep, measured, and carrying the kind of authority that made rooms go silent without effort.

"Ten million dollars."

The number hit Poppy like a physical blow. Her paddle slipped from nerveless fingers as she twisted in her chair, searching for the source of that devastating bid. The room had gone absolutely still, as if everyone recognized they were witnessing something unprecedented.

Ten million. For land that's worth maybe two at most.

"Ten million from the gentleman," the auctioneer confirmed, his voice carrying new respect. "Do I hear eleven million?"

But no one else moved. The white-haired woman remained motionless, her earlier confidence replaced by something that looked almost like satisfaction. As if this outcome had been expected all along.

I don't have ten million. I don't have anything close to ten million.

"Going once."

Poppy's world tilted sideways. Without that land, developers would strangle the remaining Mintz territory.

Sander would use her failure as proof of incompetence.

The pride council would vote her out of the Alpha position within months, and everything her father had died protecting would be carved up and sold to the highest bidder.

"Going twice."

Neve's grip tightened on her hand, but they both knew there was nothing left to do. No miracle savings account, no emergency fund, no last-minute solution. Just the crushing weight of defeat and the knowledge that eleven years of sacrifice had led to this moment of absolute failure.

I'm going to lose everything. The lands, the pride, my entire identity. Sander will finally get what he's wanted and become the new Alpha, and I'll have proven every doubter right.

"Sold to the gentleman for ten million dollars."

The gavel's crack echoed like a gunshot. Poppy sat frozen as applause rippled through the ballroom, and as conversations resumed with the excitement of people who'd witnessed unexpected drama. Her chest felt hollow, carved out, as if someone had reached in and removed everything essential.

"Poppy." Neve's voice seemed to come from very far away. "We'll figure something out. We always do."

"No." The word scraped against her throat. "I don't think there's anything that will save this situation."

Movement caught her peripheral vision as a figure rose from a table near the back of the room.

Tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the controlled grace of a predator who never doubted his place at the top of the food chain.

The room stilled instinctively as he approached the auctioneer's podium to claim his winning ticket.

Then his scent hit her as he passed her table.

Cedar and spice and forest rain, but underneath it all something wild, something familiar. The scent wrapped around her like a warm embrace, igniting every nerve ending with recognition that bypassed rational thought.

My fated mate.

The knowledge slammed into her with the force of a tidal wave. This stranger, this wolf who'd just destroyed her life with casual wealth, carried the scent that would haunt her dreams and torment her waking hours.

Her lioness purred with satisfaction even as Poppy's human mind reeled with the impossibility of it all. How could fate be so cruel? To dangle her mate before her at the exact moment he'd stolen everything she'd fought to protect?

Does he know? Can he smell me too, or am I just another face in the crowd?

"Poppy?" Neve's voice carried sharp concern. "You look like you've been struck by lightning. What's wrong?"

"Everything." Poppy pushed back from the table on unsteady legs, her entire world spinning off its axis. "Everything is wrong."

Poppy fled toward the ballroom's exit, desperate for air that didn't carry the scent of her mate and her destruction intertwined. Behind her, she heard Neve's chair scrape against marble as her Beta rushed to follow, but Poppy couldn't stop moving.

Couldn't face the reality that everything had just changed.