Page 2

My mouth twitches. There’s something so aggressively Jo about this that I can practically see the expression she must have worn while writing it. The lifted eyebrow. The pleased curve of her mouth.

I want you to hunt me… and catch me.

Part of me wants to drop the note on the nightstand, pull the duvet up to my chin, and text her something defiant. Make me. But Jo knows me too well. I cannot leave a problem unsolved. I cannot walk away from a challenge, especially when she is the prize at the finish line.

A slow smile spreads across my face. She wants a game? She forgets who she’s playing with. I didn’t get to the top of the corporate ladder by backing down from a challenge. The part of my brain that loves patterns and winning sparks to life, fueled by the intoxicating promise of catching my wolf. And when I do catch her, I am going to make her pay for this.

Your first clue is waiting next to the other stubborn, demanding beast you took your sweet time taming.

I frown, my eyes scanning the words again. A demanding beast? Jo is the only feral creature in this house.

I swing my legs out of bed, my bare feet hitting the hardwood. A very particular ache makes itself known.

“Jesus Christ.”

My hand catches the nightstand just in time. I narrow my eyes at the doorway. This was sabotage—she deliberately compromised my mobility before initiating a timed pursuit.

I pull on the robe hanging behind the door and knot it. My mind cycles through possibilities as I walk down the hallway. My first instinct is to check the ceramic wolf Jo found at a market and purchased despite my explicit objection. Nothing behind it. Nothing beneath it.

“Too obvious.”

My gaze lands on the framed picture beside it. Months after the Halloween party (we don’t have photographs from that night, thank God), Jo found a pair of black felt ears at Anna’s and insisted we recreate our costumes. She’s wearing the ears, and I’m wearing a red scarf like a cape. I’m glaring at the camera, while Jo is kissing my cheek. To this day, it’s one of my favorite photographs, though I would not admit that aloud.

Nothing under or behind the frame. Okay, now I’m annoyed.

Jo knows how my brain works, which means the clue isn’t designed to be difficult. She’ll have chosen something obvious that I’ll dismiss because I’m overcomplicating it.

I do a quick visual sweep of the living room: couch, bookshelf, dining table, window, plant. Could it be? The monstera sits in the corner by the window, broad green leaves catching the light.

I glare at it. It glares back.

“Oh, fuck off.”

The monstera has history. Anna brought it over not long after Jo moved in, announcing that our apartment needed “something alive that isn’t codependent.” I pointed out that Jo and I were both alive. Anna said that was exactly her concern.

For the first several weeks, I followed the instructions: water every seven to ten days, rotate occasionally. One leaf went yellow anyway. When I adjusted the watering, another leaf curled. Jo caught me reading a Reddit discussion about humidity at eleven thirty at night and laughed so hard she had to sit down. Somehow, the monstera survived.

I walk toward it.

“You are a monster… not a beast. Right? Though, you are pretty demanding.”

I crouch beside the pot and look around it: nothing on the floor, nothing against the wall. Are you kidding me?

“Oh, I’m gonna kill her.”

I look around the apartment as though there might be witnesses. With a sharp twinge in my inner thigh, I push myself up from the floor. I start pacing the short distance between the sofa and the window, arms crossed over my robe.

Wait… Stubborn… Demanding…

My gaze snaps toward the kitchen, and a loud laugh bursts out of me.

The sleek Italian espresso machine. For the longest time, it sat on my counter as an unused monument to my lack of free time. Jo had been the one to declare my ignorance a crime, but mastering it? Taming the hissing steam wand, counting the seconds for the perfect pull, and tilting the cup just right to catch that flawless amber layer of crema? That had become my own stubborn obsession, taking my sweet time perfecting the routine.

“You’re so annoying,” I whisper to the room.

Chapter Two

Of all the ways we could’ve spent our first anniversary, I never imagined this. As I walk toward the kitchen, I lift my left hand. It’s been months, but I still can’t quite get enough of looking at my engagement ring.