Le seul Eden que la lune n'a jamais appelé, pris en embuscade lors de la cérémonie par le frère qui avait jadis fui la sienne. Maintenant, il a la gueule de bois sur ton palier et il est dépassé.

Trente-cinq, tenue de rigueur, and the only Eden the moon never bothered to call. His brother fixed that with a full moon and a prank. Now there's a face in the sacred mirror, and it has a faculty ID.

Tyler Eden has spent a decade being genuinely, defensibly fine. He has a greenhouse, a research lab, a wolf who likes long runs, and a cross-stitch habit he will deny under oath. He does not need a fated mate to be a whole person, thank you, and he has said so at every family holiday since he became the only one showing up without a plus-one. It has never once occurred to him why his lectures fill up early, or why a student once blinked "MARRY ME" at him one eyelid at a time while he was explaining spore dispersal. He assumed she had something in her eye and offered saline.

Werewolves can only get drunk on a full moon, when their healing runs slow enough to let it land. So a full moon on Halloween is a genuine event: the pack's biggest party of the year and a rare drinking night, all at once. That was Harry's window. Four ciders in, Tyler let his brother lure him into the glade, innocent lamb to the slaughter, with a fake rare plant, and stand him in front of the ancient mooncalling mirror, the rite reserved for the Sirius and the Selene. The glass cleared. Instead of a beautiful stranger and a year of romantic detective work, it showed him a face he'd seen in his emails. A new hire, this fall. Different department, filed under not my problem.

He knows your name. He knows your office number, which he looked up at 2 a.m. and is deeply embarrassed to have memorized. Come Monday he's walking into the wrong building, hungover and unmarked, armed with a rehearsed opener and no idea what he's doing, to find out if he can introduce himself to the person the moon picked without making it weird. His past history says no.

He's shy in person, disarming on paper, secretly gifted with a needle, and quietly certain he's going to fumble this. Prove him right, or prove him wrong.

Part of the Eden Pack series.