The necklace pulsed against my collarbone, its glow blinking rapidly. The closer I got, the more insistent the tug in my chest became, pulling me toward the towering structure before me.
I tilted my head back, trying to take in the full height of the building. Steel and glass stretched endlessly into the sky, reflecting the city lights like a cold, unfeeling monolith. The sheer size of it was suffocating. It didn’t belong to a wolf.
Wolves built homes on solid ground, places where we could feel the earth beneath us, run free under the moon, remain connected to our instincts. We didn’t live in these unnatural towers, high above the world, detached from nature.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Ronan’s voice broke through my thoughts, his tone laced with skepticism as he studied the massive structure before us.
I glanced down at the necklace, its soft glow unwavering.
"Yeah," I said, my voice steady. "This is it."
There was no doubt in my mind. My mate was in that building.
Ronan pulled out his phone, fingers tapping against the screen in quick, efficient movements.
I barely paid attention, too caught up in my own thoughts.
This whole situation didn’t make sense. A wolf—my mate—living in a skyscraper? How could he stand it? The height, the disconnect, the way the walls of metal and glass blocked out the scent of the earth?
"Len," Ronan said, pulling me from my thoughts. I turned toward him just as he shoved his phone into my face.
I recoiled slightly before grabbing it.
"Is this your mate?" he asked, his voice carrying a mixture of disbelief and exasperation.
I looked down at the screen, and my breath hitched.
The name beneath the image seemed foreign to me, but the face was unmistakable.
Those blue eyes—piercing, cold, familiar. The same ones that had stared into mine under the moonlight, filled with instinct and raw desire. His dark hair was neatly styled now, unlike the wild, unruly state I had seen it in. He looked polished, controlled, every inch the man the article claimed he was.
A wolf trapped in a world that didn’t belong to him.
For a moment, I simply stared at the image. I had worried—just a little—that my heat had distorted my memory of him, that maybe my mind had exaggerated his beauty, his presence.
But looking at him now?
He was even more breathtaking than I remembered.
"Yes, he is," I murmured, gripping the phone a little tighter.
Ronan groaned, dragging a hand down his face.
"Of course. Of fucking course."
I frowned, looking at him. "What?"
"Couldn’t your mate be a normal guy?" He gestured dramatically toward the skyscraper. "Like a barista? Maybe an accountant? Not—I don’t know—a fucking billionaire."
I barely heard him, my gaze locked onto the screen.
The article beneath the photo detailed his success, a rags-to-riches story of a man who built an empire from nothing. Foster kid turned CEO, a self-made businessman who had clawed his way to the top with ruthless determination.
I scrolled further, scanning through the various headlines attached to his name.
"The King of the Corporate World."
"Cameron Anderson: The Wolf of Wall Street"—the irony of that one didn’t escape me.
"A Mystery Wrapped in a Billion-Dollar Suit."
But what struck me the most wasn’t his wealth or his influence.It was the lack of history.
No family. No connections. No pack.
My stomach twisted. Isolation isn’t something good for wolves, we thrive on the connection with others.
Ronan groaned again, pacing beside me.
"How the hell are you even going to meet him?" he asked. "Do you think you can just waltz in there and be like, ’Hey, remember me? We mated in the woods while you were a wolf, and now we’re bound for life’?"
I exhaled slowly, my grip on the phone tightening.
How was I going to meet him?
This wasn’t what I expected. When I imagined finding my mate, I had pictured a reunion filled with heat, longing, maybe even anger. I thought he’d be searching for me, suffering just as much as I was.
But instead, I was staring at a man who was completely untouchable.Surrounded by walls of wealth, power, and human civilization.