Chapter 0002

Grey's POV

It wasn't supposed to happen tonight, and if the last thirty-two years were anything to go off of, it was never supposed to happen at all. Despite avoiding my own kind, she found me in the form of a five-foot-four human plagued in insecurity, naivety, and infuriating passion. The same kind that made up the burning hazel of her inquisitive eyes and flared the same ridges of her long chestnut tresses set in natural waves down her back. I had kept her at bay despite the beckonings in the middle of the night and it was at nine fifty-eight this morning that my mate came to me all on her own.

As if I could forget of our interaction ablaze in my memory, her phone was a remnant of the exchange. Left behind in her fit of upset, it allowed an insight into her personality. A cheap device on its own, it was accented by a single line of charms connected with interests accounting for each of the ornaments. A coffee for the connoisseur which further evidence remained on the shirt returned from dry cleaning only an hour earlier. A book for an avid reader as my curiosity was piqued if she preferred pure literature or the taboo relations my mind made up in our short time together. A paw print marked the second to last trinket, showcasing her love for animals. But it was the crescent moon decorated in false diamonds that held my focus. It was as if she knew we were bound, long before today-as if the moon called to her as it had done to me.

My head began to ache as the crescent moon became embedded into my palm. The idea of being cruel to her twisted my gut into regret but I knew it was the only way to keep her at a safe distance. Still, I couldn't do anything but imagine if she were to have remained. Raised tension would certainly have pulled me to the other side of my own desk until we would rest nearly nose-to-nose. My fingers would only be able to remain at a distance for so long before I would unleash my inner thoughts to her by marking her curvy hips with the indents of my nails as I needed her closer. Close enough to suffocate her with the need I've felt since I was first capable of lust.

My blood boiled to the feeling of the coming transition she seemed to enact. Never brought on by anger or frustration, it was the mere memory of her that threatened to ruin my two-thousand dollar Armani, proving the point further how seeking her out beyond vivid daydreams was beyond dangerous. It was enough to want to tear my office apart just to let off some steam since I couldn't do that with her in the ways I truly desired. With a tight seam and even tighter nerves, I pulled myself to the garage to try and make it home before making all of Chicago aware of a werewolf in its midst.

The palm of my hand came down in an abrupt slam at the top of my car, leaving a dent, as I lifted my second hand to the side of my face and the pulsating that came from denying what came 'natural' to me. The feel of that crescent charm in my hand, having broken off sometime in my previous hold, only worsened this as everything else around me came to a silence. Thinking of the freedom of my lycan form just beyond reach was quieted by the sound of a heartbeat I knew belonged to her. The fact it wasn't at peace was enough to send my feet after it before I even had a chance to try and unlock my car and think of an alternative.

Her scent drove me through alleyways, some twice, before losing her among the aroma of gasoline and smog that plagued the edge of the cityscape. Once again, I focused on only her heart and it would ultimately be this that led me to her in that desolate alleyway with those undeserving of her thoughts let alone her life. I waited until she was safe enough to be set with care, but they did little to ensure that before tossing her aside. As badly as I wanted to reach for her, they were to be dealt with first. So, I allowed my body to relinquish to my inhuman form and deprive either of them of another breath for long. My claws ached from the drive made to slash one's final exhale and solidify the other by pulling it directly from his chest. When they ultimately lay dormant at my feet, forgotten by society along with their own late morals, I moved to her.

Refusing her to know my form longer than what was necessary, I lifted her up against my chest in a selfish need to calm myself more than her. It was only when she was situated against my bare chest that I heard her heart truly settle. As if she knew that even if I wore blood beneath my nails and a rap-sheet of questionable decisions in my past that she was safest with me. But the question quickly became how safe I would be from her.

With such a question, I couldn't return her home until I knew what she remembered. Leading her into my house set in the middle of the woodland most wouldn't believe to be so close to the bustling city, I slipped her inside and onto my bed to keep an eye on her. One of the many capabilities that kept me separate from the generic male let me hear one's pulse in the same way one can hear the ocean. As if pressing my ear to that of a seashell, I could hear the way her blood was left unobstructed from the wounds she endured. Still, I watched her in careful calculation for more of my benefit than hers.

I couldn't help but admire her as I saw the way she settled so easily into my sheets. The same ones that had been cold for over a decade in the hope of keeping someone like her at arm's length were obliterated by the way she was a reluctant damsel tonight. And once I knew she would not put my life, or her own, at risk, I would return to that very distance. Even if it meant tormenting myself at the thought of what could never be. It was worth it.

Even if I could entertain her in a way that was mutually beneficial, she deserved better than some bastard alpha who had more enemies than allies. Deciding this was a commitment I avowed myself as I fought to close my eyes from pure exhaustion, somewhere in the promise I could sense fate testing me. All because I couldn't take my eyes off of her or imagine how exactly I would keep my distance, I just knew that I had to.