Chapter 6
BOONE
"Look at him," Tate says at breakfast, jabbing his fork in my direction. "Grinning at his phone like it personally handed him a winning lottery ticket."
"It's a text," I say.
"It's always a text." Deacon leans over to look, and I flip the screen down on pure reflex.
Soren slides into the seat across from me with a cup of black coffee and zero expression. He's a vampire, which means he doesn't eat breakfast with us so much as supervise ours with the kind of detached amusement most people reserve for watching paint dry.
"You look feral," he observes, taking a sip.
"He's been feral for four days," Tate says helpfully.
"I'm aware." Soren's dark eyes flick to my phone, then back to my face. "The question is whether he's going to remain functional, or if we should start planning his funeral now."
"Fuck off," I mutter, but I'm grinning.
"Already am," Soren says, returning to his coffee with the satisfied air of someone who's successfully completed his morning's entertainment.
"You're gone, man," Tate says, shaking his head. "This far in and you're completely fucking useless."
I don't argue, because he's right. Ever since Maisie kissed me at the fall festival four days ago, my wolf's been in a state of smug, insufferable satisfaction. She chose you, he keeps chiming in during drills, meetings, and lifting sessions. She did it first.
My phone buzzes against the table. It's a photo from Maisie of a flyer taped outside the student center: JOIN THE CU VAMPIRE SUNRISE AVOIDANCE CLUB — WEEKLY MEETINGS, MANDATORY BLACKOUT CURTAIN DISCUSSION, SNACKS PROVIDED (NOT BLOOD, THAT'S A DIFFERENT CLUB).
Maisie: this is either the best or worst club on campus and I need your professional opinion
Boone: worst. their meeting is literally at sunset. that's not avoidance, that's just a scheduling problem.
Maisie: OMG YOU'RE RIGHT. I'm forwarding this to them right now as feedback.
Boone: Please don't.
Maisie: Too late, already sent.
Then, because my wolf's neurotic about making sure she actually eats instead of surviving on caffeine and sheer panic, I send my daily check-in.
Boone: Did you eat lunch?
A minute later, a photo comes through: a single granola bar wrapper next to an empty coffee cup, staged like a crime scene with a sticky note that says EVIDENCE in block letters.
Maisie: Proof. Happy now?
Boone: A granola bar is not lunch, Pope.
Maisie: It’s today's lunch. stop micromanaging my caloric intake Kinkaid.
By Tuesday night, our study sessions have basically devolved into makeout sessions with textbooks open nearby for plausible deniability. Tonight she's curled up next to me on the library couch, wearing my dark grey team hoodie.
She didn't borrow it because she was cold. She swiped it from my locker bag yesterday, and she chose it on purpose. She wants my scent on her. My wolf practically purrs every time she pulls the oversized sleeves down over her knuckles.
"You're staring," she says without looking up from her biology notes.
"It's my hoodie."
"I might've stolen it."
"You gonna give it back?"
She looks up, flashing a small, defiant grin. "Not a chance in hell."
The next afternoon, she tags along to the human transfer orientation program. I run it twice a semester in one of the lecture halls, walking new human students through the chaotic basics of living with creatures.
Maisie sits in the back row, watching quietly while I explain how to read dining hall menus that list fresh blood alongside vegan chili, what to do if your dragon suitemate keeps the thermostat locked at a hundred and four degrees, and the basic etiquette of not flinching when a vampire extends a pale hand in introduction.
There are maybe twenty students this time, most of them transfers who came in after the semester started. Some look nervous. A few look excited. One girl in a yellow sweater asks three questions about the residence halls and writes down every answer on the campus map spread across her lap.
By the time I finish, Student Services has set up coffee and snacks in the student center lounge across the courtyard. The transfers head that way in a loose group while Maisie waits for me to shove my orientation notes back into my bag.
“You’re really good with them,” she says as we follow everyone across the quad.
“Most of them are terrified.” I hold the student center door open for her. “My grandfather always told me integration doesn’t work through laws. It works when people actually give a shit about building bridges. If we don’t make humans feel safe here, the whole point of this university falls apart.”
Maisie looks up at me, her gaze soft and steady. “I like that you care about this. You’re a good guy, Boone.”
My chest tightens with something fierce and possessive. I want to be, I think. Especially for you.
We step into the lounge.
Soren D’Arcy is usually the most composed guy on campus.
I’ve seen him sit through Tate drunkenly explaining why vampires would dominate professional poker and look mildly bored the entire time.
Three centuries of existence have apparently given him enough practice at being unbothered by nearly everything.
Which is why I stop walking when I see him standing beside the high coffee bar.
He isn’t composed.
He is completely, terrifyingly still.
His fingers are locked around a paper cup with enough force to dent the cardboard. His shoulders are rigid. His dark eyes are fixed across the crowded room.
On the girl in the yellow sweater.
She’s sitting near the glass doors with three of the other transfers, campus maps spread across the table while they laugh about something.
“Soren?” I call.
Nothing.
Maisie follows my stare. “Is he okay?”
“I’m not sure.”
That’s a lie.
I know exactly what I’m looking at.
Soren’s head snaps toward us. The careful, aristocratic mask drops over his face instantly, but he’s half a second too late. His pupils are blown wide. His jaw is locked. The paper cup in his hand looks like it lost a fight.
“Boone. Maisie.” His voice is clipped and far too controlled.
Maisie looks at his mangled cup. “Did that latte insult your family?”
His gaze drops to his hand.
For the first time since I’ve known him, Soren D’Arcy looks genuinely annoyed with his own body.
“No.”
Maisie looks at me. “He’s acting weird.”
“I am not acting weird,” Soren says coldly.
“You were staring at that girl.”
“I was surveying the room.”
Maisie snorts. “Sure.”
Across the lounge, the girl in yellow laughs.
Soren’s eyes snap back to her before he can stop himself.
There it is.
Not interest. Not attraction.
Recognition.
The same brutal certainty that hit me in the library when Maisie walked toward my table for the first time.
Fuck.
Maisie glances between us. “Okay, seriously. What is happening?”
I catch her hand and squeeze it. “Give me a minute?”
Her eyebrows climb. “That sounds ominous.”
“It isn’t.”
She looks at Soren again, clearly unconvinced. “Fine. I want coffee anyway.”
She heads toward the other end of the counter.
I wait until she’s out of earshot before stepping closer to Soren.
“You know?”
His throat works.
For several seconds, he doesn’t answer.
Then his gaze slides back across the room.
“Yes.”
The word is barely audible.
I follow his stare. The girl is tracing something on the campus map while one of her friends talks. Completely unaware that a three-hundred-year-old vampire is standing thirty feet away looking like someone just reached into his chest and rearranged his organs.
“You talked to her?”
“No.”
“You know her name?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
His jaw tightens. “She asked a question during your orientation.”
I look at him.
Soren finally tears his attention away from her. “Do not.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
I grin. “You’re fucked.”
His expression goes glacial.
“Deeply,” I add.
“Your concern is touching.”
I lower my voice. “Give her time, man. She got here this week. Let her figure out where her classes are before you drop something this big on her.”
Soren looks across the room again as the girl pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, smiling down at her map.
His entire face changes. Barely. Anyone else would miss it, but I don’t.
“She doesn’t even know who I am,” he says quietly.
“She will.”
Maisie comes back carrying two coffees and looks between us. “Are we done having our mysterious creature conversation?”
“No,” Soren says.
“Yes,” I say at the same time.
She narrows her eyes.
Soren takes one look at her suspicious face and immediately focuses on his ruined coffee cup which has me biting back a laugh.
For the last month, this asshole has been watching me lose my mind over Maisie like it’s his favorite form of entertainment. Now eternity just walked into a student center wearing a yellow sweater. I give him three days.
That night back at my apartment, studying lasts all of twenty minutes before Maisie dumps her notebook on the coffee table, straddles my lap, and tangles both hands in my hair.
"Hi," she whispers, her mouth already inches from mine.
"Hi."
She kisses me hard, parting my lips with an urgency that sets my blood on fire. My hands lock onto her hips, dragging her flush against me. She groans into my mouth, shifting against my growing erection, and my wolf surges to the surface with a low rumble in my chest.
She pulls back just enough to catch her breath, reaches down, and yanks her sweatshirt and shirt straight off over her head.
She's in a plain cotton bra, flushed and gorgeous, her bare skin glowing in the lamplight. My brain completely shorts out.
"Boone," she breathes, pressing her palms flat against my chest. "Stop being so fucking careful with me."
"Maisie..." My voice comes out rough as gravel. "My instincts have been getting stronger lately. If we keep going—"
"I'm not asking you to behave," she cuts in, leaning forward to kiss along my jawline, driving me out of my mind. "I want you."
I want her so badly it feels like my ribs are cracking under the pressure.
I reach behind her and unclip the bra, tossing it aside, and cup her breasts in my hands.
When my thumbs brush her nipples, she arches off my thighs with a broken whimper.
I kiss down her throat, sucking a dark mark into the junction of her shoulder, gripping her waist so tight it borders on bruising.
She moves against me, trying to push closer, but every rational alarm in my head is blaring. I can't take her—can't cross this line—while she's still in the dark about who we are.
"Wait," I manage, pulling my mouth away and gripping her shoulders to steady us both. "Maisie, wait. We need to pause."
"Why?" She looks down at me, dazed, her lips swollen and her eyes dark with want. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." I grab her sweatshirt from the couch and carefully drape it over her shoulders so she isn't cold. My hands are shaking from the effort of pulling back. "I just... I want you to have all the information before we do this. I don't want any secrets between us."
Maisie pulls the sweatshirt over her head, her expression shifting from hazy arousal to quiet curiosity. She tucks her legs underneath her on the sofa. "Okay. What information? The whole full moon thing?"
"Yeah," I say, running a hand over my face. "That, and what it means for shifters."
"Is it like the movies?"
"No." I let out a faint laugh. "No involuntary fur. It's just instincts. Everything gets louder. Unmated wolves get restless. Mated ones settle."
Maisie tilts her head, watching me closely. "What does that actually feel like? Recognizing your mate?"
"It's immediate certainty," I tell her honestly. "Your instincts completely reorganize around that one person. Before you even know their name, they're the only thing that matters."
She sits with that for a second. Then she looks right into my eyes.
"Have you ever found yours? Your mate?"
The question hits like a physical blow. I freeze. One beat of hesitation. Two. Every nerve in my body screams at me to say Yes, it's you, it's been you since the library, but the fear of cornering her chokes the words in my throat.
Maisie's face falls.
She tries to cover it with a quick, dry laugh, but it lands thin and brittle. "Oh. You totally have."
"Maisie—"
"No, it's fine." She slides off the couch and stands up, already shoving her notebook and pens into her backpack with sudden, frantic efficiency. "I mean, if you'd found her, you'd just tell her, right? You wouldn't keep it a secret. You wouldn't be messing around with me."
"That's not what this is—"
"I have an early lab tomorrow." She cuts me off, slinging her bag over her shoulder. Her chin lifts, defensive and guarded, but her eyes are bright with hurt. "I should go."
"Maisie, wait, please—"
"Goodnight, Boone."
The front door clicks shut behind her, leaving the apartment dead silent.
Twenty minutes later, I'm standing out on my balcony in the freezing night air, gripping the railing until the metal groans. That's when Tate steps out from his adjacent porch.
"You look like shit," he says, leaning against the divider.
"She asked if I found my mate," I say, my voice flat and hollow. "And I hesitated."
Tate goes completely still. "You know she thinks that means she's not your mate, right?"
The words slam into me like a punch to the chest.
I thought I was being noble. I thought I was protecting her agency, giving her space to choose me without the weight of biology bearing down on her. Instead, my silence told her she's just a temporary distraction—someone to kill time with until my 'real' mate shows up.
I drag both hands down my face, my wolf howling in pure frustration.
"I'm telling her."