Marcel Lüneburg had survived a hundred years of diplomacy, a dozen territorial disputes, and one incredibly dramatic vampire opera soirée gone wrong — yet nothing had prepared him for the sound currently coming out of the human girl in front of him.
“I probably couldn’t eat a single slice,” she mumbled to the elderly waitress who’d called her “sweetheart.” “Because I’m fucking useless and I always let everyone down.”
Marcel stared.
The bell above the café door was still jingling behind him, caught in the draft. He hadn’t even stepped fully inside. The air smelled of burnt sugar, cinnamon, old coffee grounds — and her. Warm. Raw. Sad. Like rain on stone.
His wolf pressed hard beneath his skin, ears pricking. Mate.
No. No, no, no.
This… slumped, existentially crumbling creature in a hoodie three sizes too big? This was the girl?
He’d imagined many possibilities when the Council told him to meet his “designated pair” here in New Hampshire — the human-variant alliance treaty had insisted alpha leaders form political matches with civilians for optics. Fine. He could endure a marriage. He was an investment banker by day, a wolf lord by night. He could negotiate mergers, devour enemies, and politely tolerate an arranged bride so long as she was quiet and sensible.
He had not imagined… this.
“What the fuck is wrong with this girl,” slipped out before he could stop it — low under his breath, but the old waitress shot him a scandalized look over her bifocals.
He cleared his throat, stepping properly inside.
The floorboards creaked beneath his weight — everything did, when you were six foot five and built like the wolf you turned into. Short brown hair in a military buzz cut. The kind of shoulders that made doorframes nervous. Lips too soft for someone who regularly ripped throats out under winter moons.
People tended to move out of his way.
This girl did not even look up.
She was hunched over the counter like gravity weighed more on her than anyone else in the room. Her fingers were picking absently at a napkin. Not trembling. Just… resigned. The kind of stillness that wasn’t peace but surrender.
Something sharp tugged in his ribs.
Pathetic, his wolf scoffed.
Fragile, whispered something else.
And gods help him — his.
The old waitress patted the girl’s shoulder like this was a weekly ritual. “Now don’t talk like that, honey. You want the strawberry or the lemon meringue?”
The girl stared at the display case like she was being asked to choose which limb to amputate.
Marcel exhaled slowly.
New plan.
He strode forward — and the room shifted. Humans always felt it, even if they didn’t understand why. The air got heavier. Heartbeats sped. Conversations dipped. The kind of instinctive silence prey gives when a predator walks too close.
The girl still didn’t look at him.
Interesting.
He stopped beside her, nodded once at the old woman. “Two slices of whatever is sweetest.”
The girl blinked.
Marcel didn’t look at her, but he felt her confusion like static on skin.
The waitress smiled like she had decided he was polite enough to keep. “Coming right up, sugar.”
He turned, finally meeting the girl’s eyes.
Brown. Tired. Lost.
His matched eyes were ice-blue — wolf-bright even in human form.
“Do you always greet baked goods like confessing at a funeral,” he said quietly, “or should I be concerned?”
She squinted at him.
Then, flatly:
“Who the hell are you?”
Marcel Lüneburg straightened, centuries of noble blood and pack authority in every inch of posture.
Your future husband, apparently, he almost said.
Instead:
“Someone who intends to see you eat cake.”