The autumn night was colder than usual. A silver mist wrapped around the streets like a secret no one dared to tell. The restaurant's closing hour hummed softly — chairs scraping, the fading aroma of freshly brewed coffee dissolving into silence.
Emma rubbed her arms as she stepped outside to lock the doors, a small shiver tracing her spine.
"Finally done," she whispered, her breath forming little clouds under the moonlight.
Then she heard it.
A low growl — faint but unmistakable.
Her heart stumbled.
Emma glanced toward the narrow alley beside the café. Shadows stretched long and empty… until they moved.
A man stepped forward.
Tall. Dark-haired. Eyes sharp and strangely luminous beneath the dim streetlight. There was something unsettling about him — too still, too aware, as if the night itself listened to his breathing.
"Didn't mean to scare you," he said softly. His voice was calm, yet carried a quiet danger.
"Who are you?" Emma asked, her fingers tightening around her keychain.
He gave a faint smile.
"Just… a professor out for a walk."
But his eyes told another story — wild, magnetic, untamed.
Emma had moved to this town only months ago, and there was just one college here.
Northvale College.
"Professor… from Northvale College?" she asked.
He froze.
She had recognized him.
And that was how it began — the night a human girl crossed paths with a wolf who had almost forgotten what he was.