[ D A N T E ]

We're underwater, or maybe suspended in the air; bodies wound around, against, one another. Our movements are serpentine. Calculated. Smooth. We're laying against each other, only floating aimlessly in a cool, calm mist; all slate gray. I can't make out her face yet, but I know it's Bianca. Her breath is warm against my neck, her soft skin abuzz. That's how this long-standing werewolf ritual works: it's a glimpse into the future. A brief one. The male meets with his pack's spirit guide—in this case, me meeting with my Nonna—and after hours of ritual preparation, I go under, into this spirit realm—

And I dream of the woman I'm fated to love forever.

We watch our bodies, kiss, whatever—nobody knows or sees this but us, me and Bianca, my mate. It's important. Especially when we're two alphas, two pack leaders, joining as one.

But this is a quiet, intimate, special moment. It's a time for us and the spirits. Two mates, exposing themselves to each other, naked and ready, for the first time.

She dips her head into my chest and sighs, deeply. She's never this affectionate, not even when we're playing it up for our families. Does she think this is a test? That my Nonna can peer in?

No. She trusts me. She's letting me in.

Maybe she's changed her mind. Maybe she now realizes that she loves me. That she wants me. Maybe she's given into the wolf. Into tradition. Into our history, and our fate.

The curtain will drop in any moment. The fog over her face, body—it'll be Bianca.

Closer, closer, I slip—hands into each other, her warm, small palm in mine, fingers locked into fingers, breath in, out, eyes widening, opening, because she sees me and I see her and I hold her, hand brushing against her cheek, her neck, her chest, and the world seems to spin faster, movements quickening, blinks speeding, breaths in, out, in, out. Energy slips through the air, crackling and sizzling.

I'm blinded by the bloom of pale light. As the vision clears, I see more of her. The fog lifts.

The woman's shape becomes unfamiliar. Wide hips, full chest, body slick with pale light, skin sienna. Every second, I see more of her—and less of who I thought she was.

No.

I'm not staring at my mate, at the woman I've been fated to love; the woman who's fated to love me, no.

I'm watching a stranger.

She sees me, and her hand snaps away from mine, eyes widening further. She pushes against my bare chest, slipping backwards, hands covering her large breasts, legs locked, trying to cover herself. I don't dip my gaze past her neck. I don't. I focus, shaking my head. I try to tell her to calm down, to breathe, but my voice is muffled, distant. It's like I'm talking into a cloud, talking underwater. It dissipates almost immediately; I can't even make sense of it.

She won't understand me. She won't understand any of this.

She's yelling at me, but I can't hear her either. She's screaming, crying—pushing further and further away. The vision shudders. The spirits shift. The world around us darkens. A cloudy sky deepens into storms. I can hear something snap, faintly—it's getting harder to breathe. Air thickens in my lungs.

This is only a vision, one summoned by ancient stregheria del lupo mannaro, magic of the werewolves. It's not real. But she's not listening. She's frantic; she doesn't know that. And she wants out.

I try to move toward her, swim toward her, hands cupped between my legs. It's hard to think in sentences here. All I feel is instinct.

The wolf is hungry. He shakes within me; I quell him. Not now. No need to make this woman even more panicked.

She's changing, unmaking herself, and I lean back, stop. Her body twists and she's screaming in pain, feathers bursting from skin, body compressed, but the rules aren't right here, nothing is right—she's being pulled by the pulsing air. I look around. What was calm, airy lightness has become a thunderstorm, electricity and magic arcing through gray blooms of clouds.

I shake my head, kicking toward her. Feathers twist to fur. Her face stretches into a maw, tail from skin, forcing her into a wolf. What is she? No werewolf. No—something else. A different kind of shifter, something untethered, something wild. Her hair's a black halo, twisting with very move.

She screams and tries to push against it and stares at me, eyes burning—red-hot, furious, and she spits at me, fights, but the air pushes and thickens further and it's like I'm choking, gasping, breathing through a too-thin straw; I shake and the wolf pushes out, claw and fur and muscle and the woman screams louder, harder; she slams herself through the magic, face twisted, stretched; not just her, but a warped vision of Bianca, like the world is trying to make her into the woman I love, pale skin and platinum hair and crystalline eyes and I rush toward her, sailing through the air, hands outstretched, and just as I hold her shoulders, tell her to calm down, she punches me in the face and—

The vision shatters like a fist to glass: rough, painful, bloody, loud. I gasp and stagger backwards, hand flying to my nose, other shooting to my legs, staring at the floor, at Nonna's smile. She's already gone through the steps for this pre-mating ritual, one for the next alpha and the spiritual leader of the pack.

She cracked the egg in water above my head, burnt sage and incense, threw salt over my shoulder, prayed thrice on her rosary, genuflected again and again and again, whispered in Latin, in Italian. Now, she blows a white head of smoking sage at my face, her thin lips curled. Her cornicello jangles against the other necklaces, some with malocchio, some with engraved gold saints. She's full of jewelry, symbolism.

And she has no clue of what I've seen. The figure, twisting.

I check myself. I'm clothed here—always was—and I don't have a broken nose. Good.

The smell of the room—always familiar, of mothballs and incense and stale Chianti and Nonna's too-strong perfume—has turned cloying. I'm dizzy. I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing, focusing, calming down. The wolf within me is wild. Livid.

The woman in the vision—she's not Bianca. She's not the woman I'm supposed to mate, love, be with. This woman is a stranger.

And perhaps most importantly, she's no werewolf.

Nonna is confused. She laughs, clueless, misattributing my shock.

"Oh, Dante. It will be a beautiful mating. You can't hide from it, you know. This old wolf's still got it! The spirits called to me, and they said it will be beautiful. Bianca. I've loved that girl since you were kids! She's beautiful. Those legs! Oh, I'm sure you got a view of her legs. A dancer's legs, long and slender. When Nonno and I saw each other in there, it was the first time I let him see all of me. It's the one time you can do it before marriage; we made good use of that time, you know! I hope—"

I can't hear this. I stagger back. Everything feels tight. Wrong.

"Yes. A lovely ritual, Nonna—I-I need to go."

"Certo, mi nipotino! Go. Go, enjoy yourself."

I'm still gasping for air. I rush out of her room, where Mamma's waiting, and I shake my head at her. I need to leave. I need air.

"'Ey, what's wrong?"

"Oogatz! Everything was good. I just—"

"Space. Right! Of course." My mom backs up, hands raised, and I rush out, out of the home, through the enchanted, winding halls, the mahogany wood and columns and tapestries and dark curtains and candelabras and sconces and out, out the Manhattan exit—

Into Manhattan's Little Italy.

The second family Restaurant, Ferro II, is right beside the house. Tourists are taking photos of the tight streets, grinning at the colors, muttering about the food. A couple's eating stracciatella gelato on the sidewalk, sharing a small plastic spoon. My stomach churns.

This ritual is meant to be a surprise for the woman. The man initiates; the woman doesn't realize until it happens, probably to keep the man protected, if he wanted other partners, too... It's a secret, too; an old Italian ritual. Hard to look up, unless someone knows Italian.

I didn't tell Bianca about the ritual in advance, so she doesn't know it happened. Or that she wasn't the woman in the vision.

Or that she isn't my mate.

I need to call her. I walk, turn a few corners, and walk into Pauly's garden. It's a public space; usually quiet—bushes and plants his grandparents took from south Italy, or so he claims. He's never been able to grow an annona tree, no matter all the spells and stregas he's hired.

The distraction is nice, for a moment—the autumn wind making the trees shudder.

But then I see a rose bush and I'm reminded of the mate ritual again. I dial Bianca.

On the third ring, she responds. I hear someone giggling on the other end.

"Bianca, where the hell are you?"

"...Italy?" she says, all too casually, like I'm supposed to know.

"Jesus—you know that things are ramping up!" I hiss, slightly too loud. I clear my throat and lean back. "You can't abandon me, not when things are getting hectic with the D'ambrosos and—"

"Yeah...sorry, Dante," she says, before cupping a hand over the phone to talk to someone else, who's laughing harder, saying some things in Italian. I hear music. Is she at a party...? "I'm not living the life our packs and families want. I'm living my life for myself now. And you should do the same. Screw them, screw their traditions. You said it yourself: we gotta make it better. For ourselves."

"What?" I shake my head, throwing a hand into the air. "No. I said we destroy it from within. We don't run away! We have plans! You're just gonna drop everything and run away?"

I'm standing, yelling now.

"...Yeah?"

I swallow. People are staring. I curl into the phone, facing away from the sidewalk.

"This is a team effort. If the two alphas of two packs join together and put a stop to all this death, and destruction, and corruption, then we stop it at the top—and everything is fixed below, eventually. We're in a position of power that nobody else has got. So—"

"C'mon, you googootz. I'm a woman. I ain't ever had the power you did. And they think I'm doing some business acquisition with the clothing brand in Italy. So I got it. I'm still keeping up the lie, just...away. Things are always ramping up."

"We're not getting any younger! Our parents are pressing me about a mate, and—"

"Kids. Yeah. Fuck that noise." she says before giggling, telling someone to stop in Italian.

I suck in a breath, pinching my nose. "Binca, I need you here. We're a team. You said that!"

"And I was a kid, and I was stupid, and hopeful. Now we're adults. And you gotta grow up. Live your life right and jump ship. Now, I gotta go, so I'll see you later. I'll tell the fam all the shit, keep it going, but I wanna see you with me in Italy soon. Let's live a little!"

"It's been months! I've let you live and left you alone! I—"

The line's dead. I curse and slam my phone on the bench so hard that the ground shudders. Selfish. She's selfish. A coward. And she's going to screw us all over...

The wolf shudders over me. It's a rush of pain and pleasure and heat. My nails stretch to claws, teeth extending in my mouth, hair along my jaw, muscles thickening, clothes tight, bones stretching.

I want to run to her. To cross the ocean, find her, call her a thousand angry things. The wolf demands it. He's hungry. He misses her, her scent—her wolf.

But she never loved me. Not like that. Not in the same way back.

And this is it.

She's gone.

And my mate is a stranger.