Chapter 1

The ability to not punch someone out for laughing mercilessly at your misfortune can only be found in saints and really, really good friends. The fact that Ellion was my best friend, and I loved his mate like a sister, was the only reason I tolerated his chuckling while I packed my duffel bag.

“Tell me again, his exact words,” I muttered, adding my toothbrush to the bag and zipping it closed.

He tamed his chuckles long enough to say, mockingly, “He thinks you’ll ‘make the right choices’.”

His cocky attitude didn’t slip by me. “What choices? He’s already decided everything he just wants to micromanage the build so everything goes to his exact plan. And I don’t know what you’re so on about, he only didn’t pick you because then he’d have to choose between letting Daley tag along or dealing with her bothering him for sending you.”

“Too true, I am blessed in every way having my mate by my side,” he boasted and I gave him a sideways look. “Oh Spencer, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it how it came out.”

I waved him off. “I know, I’m just busting your balls. I know why he really picked me,” I gruffed. “Whatever, I’ve got his company card and I’ll eat my weight in take out every week until this thing is over.”

“That’s the spirit! Eat your sorrows!”

“Oh fuck off,” I laughed, throwing a pillow off my bed at him.

It was going to be an… interesting change to my weekly routine, but maybe something good would come from it. I at least hoped that I could make the most out of my time, and use the time and space to form some connections.

Now here I was, sitting in traffic. I thought he was planning on doing it himself, which I thought was stupid because photos from the foreman would do, but I somehow got roped into it. Weirder still, he wouldn’t let me stay in a cheap motel near the site and I had to commute from his condo. Either I got there hours early and forman refused to speak to me until the appointment time, or I was stuck in the middle of rush hour.

If I couldn’t at least feel the wind rushing through my hair while I’m driving, I’d rather be at home training. I knew these month of coming out here once a week were going to be the biggest pain in my ass, but my first week I started to feel anxious, and the second week of it I was sure what it was. My second chance mate was close.

I could barely remember my first mate, and I couldn’t tell you when we met or what she looked like, but I could feel her. I could feel her nails on my head, feel the calm that washed over me to have her in my arms, and I had a feeling that I had lost her as she saved me. I was glad that no one questioned me when I came home and it had come up. I didn’t know how to tell anyone that I felt this loss despite missing some key points of having her to begin with, but it felt like my soul was missing a piece. From fighting alongside other wolven when they lost their mates, I knew what losing one felt like, and there was no denying I felt that.

If I had a second chance to fill that space I would take it. There was no reason I could ascertainthat I would be so fortunate to be given a second chance mate, but I wouldn’t ignore the Moon Goddess’s gift for me. When I found her I would do this right. I would court her, tell her who I was, introduce her to my family and my world if she didn’t already know of it, and I would give her the choice to be with me. But I would give her everything. Every ounce of myself that I couldn’t give before would protect her and love her, and let her go if she didn’t choose me in return.

Shaking off that sadness I returned to the present. She would get the choice, but there was no sense in depressing myself before I’d even seen her face. There was nothing I needed more now than to hold her physical form in my arms, thought I would settle for seeing her face. Knowing her eyes, and if they recognized me as hers would get me through the days without her until I could do this properly, slowly.

I narrowed the feeling down to belonging to someone in traffic over the next few weeks, and one more week made me sure they were going the opposite way. This was the first time since I arrived that I was glad to be driving one of the cars over the trucks or SUV’s as I could see the other drivers. Narrowing out the men, that I was sure only the cruelest Goddess would go against my disposition for, I concentrated on the females.

It took several weeks of leaving earlier and later, but there was one car that I could never quite get my eye on. It stood out because it was always boasting a loud sound system, and then I saw her. Her cold breath left trails of fog in the car, her gloved hand flying through the air and tapping anything she could reach. Whatever song was playing she seemed to love it.

My smile grew just watching her enjoy herself. Her hair, if she had any, must have been tucked up in her beanie, and the little pompom on top shook with her head to the tune.

We were side by side now, both in our respective fast lanes, stopped dead with the traffic back up, and she looked over at me. Her green eyes consumed me whole and, though she never stopped singing, her smile grew too.

All too soon traffic was moving again and she was dancing away from me, but I knew her car and I would never forget that face.

Every time I passed her in traffic our eyes locked and she’d give me a little dance and I’d dance back to a song I wasn’t playing in my car. I was sure she wasn’t listening the radio with some of the words I had heard reverberate through her windows, and if I couldn’t share the soundtrack ofherworld, I didn’t want it.

At one long stop I had asked her what she was listening to and the next week she had a large QR code on a printed paper to hold up to her window for me. It linked me directly to a playlist ‘every song I loved before you’, though I was sure it wasn’t a message for me as it had been started three years ago.

Her name was Evadiene, and the small profile picture brightened my day whenever I opened the playlist. But her name. The only thing I wanted more than for her to give me her name, was to hear how she said mine. I’ve gone by a second name longer than I can remember, unable to hear anyone but my previous mate say my true name out loud. Even if she couldn’t be mine, even if she already belonged to another, I would give her my first name and the sound of it as it drifts over her lips would bring me enough joy for the rest of my life.

The songs on the playlist were eclectic at best and show tunes at worst, but I listened to every single one until I knew them by name.