Chapter 17
YVAINE
It was said that meeting your soulmate felt like a walk on the moon. Otherworldly. Soundless. Just like floating, no gravity.
The younger werewolves didn’t buy into it. For them, mates meant an arranged marriage forced by the Moon Goddess.
We’d grown up hearing tales of physical sparks and epical bonds—how one look was all it took to know, how one touch turned you into a furry torch, and how your heart stopped being yours, its beat dependent on the actions of your other half.
But our generation? Too busy and independent for all that mythology.
I never speculated how I would meet my other half—I was already doing just fine with all my halves intact. In fact, the idea of fated mates seemed like cosmic gaslighting at its finest. That werewolves needed someone else to function? The Moon Goddess was toxic.
And all those classic scenarios out there felt too…scripted.
Him saving me in the dark woods? Too medieval. And I loved the dark woods at night.
In a political meeting between our packs? Already taken by my parents.
Us colliding in a school hallway, him catching me in slow motion, our eyes locking before he kissed me and marked me? Straight out of the werewolf romance novels that Makena adored.
Growing up together, then only later realizing it’d been him all along? That one belonged to my friend Aurora.
The most likely option, I figured, would be meeting at my workplace, or maybe in Europe.
Not for me, though.
Nope.
The way I met my mate was unique, to say the least—special in a twisted, sparkly kind of way. Whenever someone asked me how or when I met the love of my life, I never knew how to respond. There wasn’t a single answer.
What indelibly stuck in my prefrontal cortex was the moment our eyes collided for the very first time. The moment my lungs filled up with that scent.
I’d never forget it.
Neither would my eyes or lungs.
I was having lunch with Lachlan, listening to his new, even-more-absurd training schedule as he inhaled two plates of lasagna.
“A spy told me the Dark Diamonds train twice as hard as we do,” he huffed, pulling at his hair. “The Masturbator is a fraud, but apparently his team is happy with his ridiculous training!”
“So now you’re going to copy him?”
“I am not! But I’m not losing to some cheater whose only strategy is breaking bones.”
Translation: My brother felt threatened by the Terminator, so he’d started training like an unhinged gym bro, meaning I rarely saw him during the week.
“You’re going to get wrinkles early.” I massaged the spot between his eyebrows.
Trying to keep him grounded, I’d agreed to tag along to a wereball event that afternoon. I assumed it would be about as much fun as a clown funeral. Or a clown at any social gathering, really.
Amaia joined too, surprisingly. I didn’t say anything; we had to hand in our paperwork for the Wereball Medical Assistance Program anyway.
As we neared the main hall, there was a sudden, unexpected swoop low in my stomach.
I palmed my belly, hoping that the miso ramen from lunch would stay where it was and let my gastric juices do their job.
Smells of overpriced cologne and synthetic rubbery things wafted about in the humid air.
It was crowded with fans, sponsors, pack members, and obviously glory-starved players.
Vendors waved shiny gadgets at everyone who walked by, and players signed autographs and snapped photos with their fans.
There were demonstrations and friendly matches planned—or as friendly as they could be with wereball. Luckily, the conference hall was a neutral zone. No brawling, no mauling, no touching at all. Any violence meant automatic penalties for the whole team. Even sharp or heavy objects were banned.
Instead of throwing punches, wereball players either ignored their enemies altogether or just threw death glares that said, I’ll beat you into a coma in the next game, and I’ll smile while doing it.
As we queued to get in, Amaia bickering with Lachlan about the superficiality of this event, a high-pitched giggle from a group ahead of us pulled my attention.
Three girls were deep in a heated analysis of a certain wereball player. Apparently, there was some legend who rarely showed up to these events, even though it was mandatory for all team members.
They called him busy. I called him lazy.
“He’s just too hot for my mental health!” One sighed like she’d just seen a deity descend.
“He’s too tall for you,” another teased.
“So? Height doesn’t matter when you’re lying down.” The first smirked.
“And you think he does it lying down?” the third asked, condescendingly. “Besides,” she went on, “he only goes for older, more experienced women. How don’t you know that already?” Clearly, someone still hadn’t healed after being rejected.
The teenage obsession with egotistical wereball players was one mystery I would never solve. There weren’t enough brain cells in the world to make sense of it. He probably had an overworked hamster running laps inside his spacious skull while they all drooled over him.
“I can lie about my age,” the first girl declared. They were all wearing clothes that their parents probably didn’t know they owned, more skin than fabric.
The second girl giggled. “You’d need a fake ID and a master’s degree in deepthroating!”
“What are you gonna do when he’s standing in front of you, full Terminator mode, expecting some experienced action?”
“You’d probably faint,” the friend added, patting her arm. “That’s if you even survived a quarter of his—”
“Shut up!” the first snapped, blushing. “You have a mate!”
“So what? The Terminator’s hotter. Even my mate admits it.”
“Yeah, and unless you’re one of his regulars or BYOL, forget it.”
“BYOL?”
“Bring your own lube,” she said with a shrug, “or he won’t fit.”
I was about two seconds away from letting my wolf out and sitting on them to give a lecture. Like, please read a book! Or at least stop inflating this dude’s ego.
Then someone squeaked. “I hope the Highlander is here, too!”
Lachlan stiffened like he’d just been electrocuted. I bit back a laugh.
“Do you think he’ll let me touch his Scottish hair?”
“Oh yeah, I want all his Scottishness!”
Lachlan hid his impossible-to-hide oversized alpha self under a hoodie and big black shades. People threw weird looks his way, noticing he was too wide and too tall to be a normal werewolf. Or maybe they thought two werewolves were under there—but his aura practically shouted, Alpha here, beware.
“Everyone can still recognize those freckles,” Amaia deadpanned, receiving a scoff.
“They glow at night, like plankton,” I teased.
“So true!”
“You two comparing me to sea bugs now?” Lachlan grunted, his arms swooping around us and tugging us close as protection.
“They aren’t invertebrates. Part animal, part plant,” I informed.
“That makes it so much better.”
“They’re bioluminescent!” Amaia giggled. I raised a brow. She never giggled. It was a sight…especially since Lachlan grinned back and booped her nose.
At the entrance, the camouflage failed spectacularly when Lachlan, like the rest of us mortals, had to scan his face. Screams and cheers exploded around us. I was suddenly glad I’d come, if only to see my twin flounder around awkwardly—his price for playing wereball and worrying me sick.
“Later,” he groaned, vanishing into a reporter swarm.
We headed off to find the medical program manager. Amaia immediately launched into a speech about how turmeric might cure cancer and how she was drafting up a paper about it in her free time.
Amaia’s mind never rested, a supercomputer working for the good of society. People might have mocked her behind her back, but no one truly bullied her—too scared of her IQ and her friends. I never got why her brilliance didn’t attract more than sideways glances.
“Yvaine!”
Oh, no.
I knew that voice.
I winced, turning with a wobbly smile.
“How’ve you been, Sillas?” I expelled a nervous chuckle, remembering I’d ghosted his texts. Sillas stuffed his hands in his pockets, mirroring my smile.
“Hi, Amaia.”
He got a curt nod in response. No privacy granted.
He eyed my outfit. “Didn’t know you were into this kind of event.”
Before I could answer, two kids ran up to Sillas, beaming at him. “Chainsaw! Can we get a picture?” They were wearing wereball merch—the Comets team, with my brother’s red wolf on the front.
Sillas looked apologetic.
I waved him off. “Go ahead. Catch you later!”
“Ivy, wait—”
But I was already walking away, my smile fading.
My wolf paced back and forth, panting, without offering a single explanation. My belly twisted like laundry in a spin cycle, and my heart felt heavier and heavier. I almost cupped my chest to contain it.
Amaia was deep in conversation with a couple of doctors from the aid program. She could handle our paperwork without me, so I let her know I was stepping out for some fresh air and
wove my way through the maze of stalls, merch stands, and chatty crowds—families, kids, players, all in high spirits. Everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives.
The moment you least expect something is the moment that something happens, like thunder out of the desert.
Until then, I had never taken the saying seriously.
I wasn’t thinking of fate or omens. I was just looking for an exit. My head was full of my to-do list and the week ahead.
And then there, surrounded by happy strangers, I smelled it.
The scent.
The one our parents had warned us about. The one tailored to grab our souls by the throats, enslave our brains, and hand-deliver our hearts to someone else.
A smoky musk pinched with amber, softened with sugary notes of raspberry jam.
Rich and warm. Absolutely overwhelming.
Asphyxiating.
Before my lungs could send a signal to my brain and connect the dots, my eyes fell on a head of blond hair about ten, maybe twenty feet away. A guy standing off to the side, talking to a small group.