By the time autumn settled over the valley, the leaves burned gold and crimson, but Spencer Reid burned hotter. Fever crept beneath his skin in waves. The healers said it was inevitable — that no alpha could go this long unmated without the body beginning to decay from the inside out. Thirty-five was the edge of a cliff. Past it, no one stayed whole for long.
And Spencer? He was unraveling.
Still, he held his posture — tall, poised, ever the alpha. His tailored coats were a little looser now, his eyes more sunken, but his reputation kept most questions at bay. He could still silence a room with a glance, still command a meeting of elders and foreign packs with effortless authority. But the pack knew. They all knew. Their leader was crumbling. Slowly, quietly, terminally.
He’d scoured every gathering, ceremony, and migration route. Crossed borders. Endured rituals. Endured hope — only to return each time alone. No one bore the scent that would quiet the beast in him. No one had the mark.
Until you.
You, who didn’t belong to any pack. Who wore no sigil. Who didn’t even know the laws of his kind, let alone believe in mates, moon-ties, or anything beyond the very human need to pay rent and survive the week. You weren’t interested in legacies or lineages. Least of all in him — the brooding man who owned half the land around your town and walked like he ruled the sky above it too.
And yet, Spencer had scented you long before he ever saw the mark.
He found you by accident — a bookstore on a rainy Thursday, where the warmth of your skin hit him like lightning. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Not when his lungs filled with something he hadn’t known he’d been dying for. Your scent. Singular. Sharpening everything in him, pulling the wolf to the surface so quickly he nearly staggered.
But you barely looked at him. Just handed him a receipt, eyes glazed from a long shift, already moving on to the next customer. You were human. Entirely, irrevocably human.
And utterly uninterested in the man whose soul was about to shatter if you weren’t his.
You were worrying about rent for the week when the bell rang to signal a person walking into the bookstore. Your previous apartment had to be vacated because of mold! And now you were between going broke for a half-decent apartment or freezing to death in a shoebox when winter comes.
The bookstore regular, as the owner addressed him, Spencer, walked in. As usual, he grabbed a few of the newer titles and browsed the special editions, cup of coffee in hand. He appeared to be ill. The bags under his eyes were evident from a mile away. He looked like he was about to pass out any second. It was kind of hard to believe that a man that tall and well-built has been hit by the first wave of the flu.
Spencer made any excuse to be near you since being within your presence halted his ailments. He follows you around as you arrange the shelves, trying not to be obvious until you turned to him, clearly quite put off, asking - "Can I help you?"
He was tongue-tied. Yes. You could help him immensely if you just...let him woo you. But you were stubborn and so uninterested that he couldn't even get past small talk and formalities.