Mate.*Reginald's POV**

The moment she walked into the restaurant, my meeting was over.

Not because I wanted it to end, but because my wolf wouldn't let me keep sitting there.

That familiar scent drifted in from the entrance, cutting through walls and crowds to slam directly into my chest. I'd lived in New York for six years, caught thousands of people's pheromones, but none had ever done this to me.

It wasn't attraction, wasn't even desire—it was belonging.

My wolf rumbled low in my chest, one word grinding my rationality to dust: mate, mate, mate...

I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. It could be her, probably was her. But two false identifications had taught me not to make any rash decisions.

I stood by the second-floor railing and watched as the hostess led her to a window seat. She wore a cheap but neatly pressed shirt, her hair slightly frizzy, and she sat down with careful movements, as if afraid she might break the chair.

Then that man arrived, and I could hear every word he said to her. "Five children." "Hand over your salary." My nails scraped against the railing, leaving a faint white mark on the metal surface. But I didn't move.

I shouldn't move. The council elders said my problem was being too impulsive. Two misidentifications in twenty years, both times falling for the delusion of "this time I'm certain."

The first was a girl I met in Chicago, her woody-scented pheromones maybe fifty percent similar to my memory. I'd rushed in impulsively, spent three months investigating before confirming she wasn't the one. The second was a human girl with even higher scent overlap, but my wolf howled on the full moon that she was wrong.

Both times I'd been too eager to confirm. The cost was time, energy, and increasingly frequent nightmares—dreams where I'd found her, but when I got close, that blurred face would cry and say I was no longer her best friend.

Reginald, this time you must stay calm. Confirm first, then approach her.

But when she stood to leave, he grabbed her wrist.

In that moment, only one voice filled my head—chop off his filthy paw! My body reacted faster than my brain. I blinked and found myself standing in front of her.

"I believe I would be a more suitable partner for you than he is." When I spoke those words, I'd rehearsed each sentence a hundred times in my mind.

Respect, credit card, children—every promise was a carefully woven net, but I hadn't lied. I was willing to give her all these things.

I needed a legal, reasonable, undeniable reason to place her in my daily life, to give myself enough time to confirm.

There was a seventy percent chance she was G, but also a thirty percent chance she wasn't.

A marriage contract was the most effective observation window. Cohabitation, daily contact, scent concentration would intensify in enclosed spaces, interference would diminish. I'd be able to distinguish more clearly.

She didn't agree immediately. She even stepped back, that body-first wariness exactly like when she was young.

When she asked "what do you like about me," I almost told her everything.

Thank god I held back. She was human, had no idea werewolves existed. She'd see me as a monster, would hate me.

Even imagining her fearful, disgusted gaze made my heart shatter.

I answered her, "It's the scent."

As expected, she thought I was a pervert, her face flushing crimson. But fortunately this world had enough perverts that she had sufficient psychological preparation not to turn and run.

After dropping her home, her scent still lingered in the passenger seat—very faint, like earth after spring rain, mixed with the musty smell of old book pages, and blooming jasmine.

Memory was like a door pried slightly open, light leaking through from outside—

Age five, torrential rain, I dragged my injured hind leg out of the forest with every ounce of strength. The wound had blackened and festered, even werewolf regeneration couldn't sustain it. I squeezed through a farm's fence, tried to pass as a stray dog but was discovered by patrolling sheepdogs.

They seized my neck and shook violently. I thought that was the end. Sky and earth inverted, blood splashed into my eyes painting everything blood-red.

Then she came.

She ran over holding a huge old-fashioned black umbrella, rain boots splashing in the mud. "Hey! What are you doing! Bad dogs!" She swatted the hounds' heads. They released me, circled her seeking approval.

She patted their heads, praised them as "good dogs," then set down her umbrella and scooped me up. "Oh my... is it a puppy?"

Her scent flooded in then, like freshly baked bread, that warm steam rising from the cracks when the edges turned golden-brown.

When she lifted me, she stumbled slightly, her arms tightening around me, warmth from her chest seeping through soaked fabric.

"Don't be scared."

The most beautiful words I'd ever heard.

She brought me back to the yard, secretly poured kitchen milk into a small dish, crouched by the storage room door waiting for me to drink. She knew to give me antibiotics, knew to bandage my wounds. Thanks to her devoted care and werewolf regeneration, I survived what should have been certain death.

She said I was her good friend. We played together. She'd rest her head on my belly for afternoon naps, lift me overhead and spin in circles.

She didn't know—she was my best friend too.

Until one night, a speeding car crashed into the farm. I rushed over, only to see her sitting in the car crying to a man: "Mom will be okay, right?" I chased desperately but was left behind.

I'd been abandoned again.

It didn't matter. I would find you, my best friend, G.

On the road searching for her, her scent grew fainter until it vanished. But when I drank from a river, I suddenly discovered my fur had somehow changed from storm-cloud black to white.

I stared at my reflection and found it laughable. I'd been deemed unworthy of my father's Moonborne bloodline precisely because of my black fur. Mother had been suspected of infidelity, had fought to the death to let me escape.

I looked down at snow-white paws, then lifted my head to sniff G's completely vanished scent, and decided immediately to return to the pack. First, avenge Mother. Then bring more people to search for her.

By the time I defeated the pack's alpha and claimed my position, I could no longer find that scent from long ago.

Until tonight.

She pushed through that glass door, and the scent from twenty years ago shot across the entire restaurant and slammed into my chest. My wolf rose to its feet immediately.

Not just the joy of old friends reuniting, but also the tremor of encountering one's destined mate.

I wasn't certain. I needed verification.

"Good night, Genevieve."