01: The Big Bad Wolf Explains

DON

I stayed in a shadowy corner of the diner so she wouldn’t notice how intensely I was staring at her, just as had become my habit over the past two weeks.

The first time it was by mistake. I’d stumbled into it on one of my evening jogs, when I noticed that I had drained my bottle of water and still had a few miles more to go. Of course I didn’t need the exercise. Werewolf bodies worked differently from humans, though even if they hadn’t I could’ve easily picked up the pace, running faster if I wanted to.

I could outrun anything (human or vehicle) in and out of my wolf form. But the evening jogs cleared my mind, gave me a moment alone, where my only goal was getting through the next mile and not worrying about the task of single handedly running a multi-billion-dollar corporation or heading one of the most prominent packs in the country. With jogging at least, I became unburdened.

The diner was quaint, 70s themed with monochrome floors. A pair of cherry-red leather seats facing each other made up a booth, and an ancient jukebox played a continuous loop of old classics. Instantly I’d felt at ease, and I was about to head over to the counter to buy a bottle when I caught a whiff of something so powerful it almost sent me doubling over: Roses in full bloom, with a touch of something foreign—was that baby powder?

I whirled around, eyes scanning the room until they landed on her, the most magnificent creature I’d ever seen. She was tall, I noticed. Nowhere near my towering six-three, but tall nevertheless as she wore no heels. A mass of auburn curls held back in ponytail framed a face so dazzling it almost hurt to look at her.

The sudden urge to get on my knees and worship her stole over me, and inside my wolf, Tyr, growled at the thought of us bowing down to anyone, though I could feel his excitement as he let out excited yips, trying to claw his way out so he too would see our mind-numbingly beautiful mate.

My mate. Our mate. At long last I had found our mate.

Without realizing it I had walked up to her, and by the time I realized my error she was turning and walked right into me with a tray of dishes that she dropped, stumbling back in shock.

Instinct took over, and in the blink of an eye I caught the tray, taking a moment to compose myself before straightening to face her as I handed over the tray, which she accepted mutely, but within seconds the shock wore off and a slow smile crept over the expanse of her features, hitting me like a sucker punch right to the gut.

Goddess, I’d never stood a chance.

“Thank you,” she said with a gracious nod before sidestepping me, and I nodded, saying nothing as I trailed after her.

Her eyes were a luminous shade of green, and the sound of her voice, huskier than I’d anticipated, rendered me speechless.

She disappeared behind a door for a few short moments and returned wiping her hands on the short apron she had on over her denims. Her name tag read Vi, and I wondered what it was short for—Viva, Viola?

My musings were caught short by the sound of dismay she let slip as soon as she noticed me still rooted to my spot.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked, and I blinked, suddenly remembering that I’d come into the diner for a reason. I glanced down at my empty water bottle, before looking up at her.

“Is the…” I cast my eyes wildly around the menu, “Tuesday special available?”

“It’s Thursday,” she said, and I swallowed.

“Yes, right. I knew that.”

“I’m sure you did,” she said, and I felt my heart constrict at the shadow of a smile I saw playing at the corner of her mouth.

My wolf howled, urging me to get closer to our mate and I obliged him, putting one foot in front of the other until I was sliding into one of the bar stools. This close to her, her scent overpowered, washed over me in waves I hoped to drown under.

“I’ll get you some water while you figure out what you want,” she said, moving away to retrieve a clean glass, which she rinsed in front of my eyes before filling up.

Usually I got particular about things like this, the use of utensils that others before me had used, but even if she’d spat into my cup I would’ve gulped it down without a moment’s hesitation. By the time I finished it, I had regained some of my infamous composure, and quietly I scanned the menu before putting in an order of burgers and chips.

My mate nodded—it surprised me, how easily I’d slipped into the habit of calling her mine—calling out my order to someone in the kitchen, who responded with a grunt.

She asked if I needed anything else, a Coke maybe, and even though I hated carbonated drinks and wasn’t even all that hungry I nodded; all to drag out the minutes I’d get to spend with her.

All too soon my food arrived, and I chewed without tasting, every single bit of me aware of her movements and the steel-topped counter that divided us.

“Is this your first time here?” she asked, and it took a moment before I realized that she was talking to me. After all, the diner was virtually empty.

I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“Well, you’ve got perfect timing.”

Swallowing three crisp fries, I asked her why and she explained that usually she’d have left but her replacement was taking their sweet time.

It wasn’t flirting, I knew, but a simple case of small talk between strangers. And yet the tenor of her voice gave everything she said a sexual undertone.

I struggled to keep up, struggled to tear my eyes away each time she looked in my direction so I wouldn’t come off the wrong way though I was sure she caught every single one of my looks and suffered through each gracefully.

By the time I left the diner I was left with the impression that she was a woman aware of the effect she had on men. The sort of beautiful woman whose own appearance bored her.

I’d long since come to terms with the possibility that my mate was dead, and so to find them in some hole-in-the-wall diner not only filled me with delight, but giddiness. I was excited at the prospect of having to woo her, since she was human and wouldn’t have felt the call of the mate bond as strongly as I had.

I resumed my jog, determined that it didn’t matter whether I had to beg or how many people I had to hurt. She belonged with me, and nothing in this world would keep us apart.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀•

Two weeks and quite a bit of digging later, I knew her name: Vivienne Bouvier, though everyone called her Viv.

She’d lived in my city for little over a year, and before that it appeared as if she’d never existed as records of her name brought nothing up, or rather too little as Bouvier was a fairly uncommon last name. For all I knew it could’ve been an alias and it grated at my protective streak that there was a possibility that my mate was running away from something. A thing I had no idea of figuring out as long as her roots eluded me.

She had a two-year-old son, who she dropped off with the elderly owners of the diner she worked at, before turning in for her shift, where she worked until five in the evening. There was no sign of a man in her life, and so perhaps she’d run away from an abusive ex? The thought made my blood boil, of anyone laying their filthy hands on her.

One fun fact I’d gleaned was that Zeppelins, which was the diner where she worked, was owned by an elderly werewolf-human couple, and even though they lived right above the diner I never picked up a scent, which could only mean that the werewolf, Beatrice, had never before shifted. I tucked this bit of information away.

The problem was I knew enough about Vivienne to fill up a single manila envelope, and yet it wasn’t enough. I didn’t think an entire chest full of information about her would ever be enough, which was why I satisfied my curiosity by slipping into the diner whenever I had the time. Oftentimes at the diner when she saw me she would come over to take my order, always so polite but distant too.

It pissed me off, and a part of me wished there was a fast-forward button to skip through these early stages.

However, even when she wasn’t around I’d sometimes visit to bask in the undercurrent of her scent, which touched everything.

I’d even started smelling the roses at the pack greenhouse, taking in lungful after lungful much to the wary amusement of the Omegas who ensured they remained in full bloom all year round. But the roses there were not the same, and nothing came close to my mate, who devastated me, the Big Bad Wolf, to end all others, without the slightest bit of awareness or effort.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.