Wrong Number Pt 3: I Kissed Him in the Rain. It Wasn't the Magic.

I stopped being able to lie to myself on a Tuesday, in the rain, over a broken generator.

The manor lost power in a storm eight days before the moon, which meant the walk-in freezers full of very rare pack food were about to become a catastrophe, and I, being the only person present who has managed a reception through a hurricane, took command of a room full of apex predators and put them to work like groomsmen.

I want the record to show that a pack of werewolves responds beautifully to a firm timeline and clear delegation.

I put the twins on the freezers, sent the aunts for every cooler in three counties, and gave Bly the single sacred task of holding a flashlight, which he did with the trembling honour of a boy who has been knighted.

Lenora Thorne, 400-year matriarch, took an order from me, a human caterer, in her own kitchen, and I watched her visibly decide not to comment on it, and Cal simply appeared at my shoulder wherever the heaviest object was, which was constantly, without being asked, without making it a thing, and we fell into the rhythm of two competent people saving something together in the dark.

I will tell you, from 216 weddings of professional experience, that this is the single most dangerous rhythm there is.

You cannot flirt your way past my guard.

I have a guard like a customs checkpoint, But you can absolutely haul a generator through the rain into it while quoting my own timeline back to me.

And he did.

And I felt the checkpoint go unmanned.

And Cal worked beside me in the dark and the rain, hauling a generator across the grounds.

And he was laughing at something I said.

Really laughing.

Head back.

And lightning went off.

And I looked at him and thought, with total clarity and total horror, oh no, I am not resisting a magic, I am resisting a man, and I am losing.

That is the thing nobody warns you about being handed a fate.

I could have fought a spell forever.

I am extremely stubborn, and I hold a grudge against the concept of destiny specifically.

But you cannot fight the fact that a person is kind and funny and leaves the light on for you and lets you win arguments you are actually losing because he can tell you need the win.

There is no binder for that.

There is no timeline that survives it.

We got the generator running, we were soaked to the skin, both of us, in the equipment barn, and the adrenaline was up, and the lie was finally down, and I did the thing I had spent three weeks not doing.

I stopped asking myself whether it was the bond.

I just looked at him, and he went still the way he goes still.