Page 7 of Howl About That

Probably another creditor.

But something made her answer anyway. Maybe desperation. Maybe the faint hope that any call at this hour might bring unexpected salvation.

"This is Poppy Mintz."

"Good morning, dear." The voice on the other end was warm, cultured, and completely unfamiliar. "This is Gerri Wilder. I need you to meet me at the Manhattan Meridian office complex in two hours."

Poppy's grip tightened on the phone. The name sparked recognition, though she couldn't immediately place where she'd heard it. "I'm sorry, who is this?"

"Someone who found a way to fix your problem from last night."

The line went dead before Poppy could respond, leaving her staring at her phone with confusion. She tried calling back, but the number went straight to voicemail.

Gerri Wilder.

The name rolled around in her mind, familiar but elusive. Where had she heard it before? Business circles? Pride politics? Social events she'd attended out of obligation rather than interest?

Then it hit her. Gerri Wilder. The matchmaker. The woman whose Paranormal Dating Agency had an impossible success rate and a client list that read like a who's who of powerfulshifters. The same woman who supposedly didn't charge money, only asked for good deeds in return.

What would a matchmaker want with me? And how could she possibly fix what happened last night?

But something in the woman's voice—a combination of warmth and absolute certainty—had sparked the first real hope Poppy had felt in hours. Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it was another dead end. But she'd built her entire leadership on taking calculated risks, and right now, this felt like the only gamble worth making.

Poppy grabbed her car keys from the nightstand, her movements sharp with sudden purpose. Two hours to get to Manhattan from the Hudson Valley meant she needed to leave immediately, and she couldn't afford to waste time second-guessing herself.

The hallway outside her chambers stretched long and shadowed in the early morning light, portraits of previous Mintz Alphas watching her hurried passage with painted eyes that seemed to judge her current desperation. She took the grand staircase two steps at a time, her feet silent on the marble, then padded through the main hall toward the private garage.

The estate felt different in these early hours—larger somehow, more aware of its own history and the weight of expectations that came with it. Every piece of furniture, every architectural detail, every carefully preserved element spoke of centuries of Mintz leadership. Of responsibility passed down through generations. Of a legacy that might end with her if she couldn't find a way to salvage the disaster of the previous evening.

Not yet,she told herself as she slipped into the driver's seat of her modest SUV.This isn't over until I say it's over.

The engine turned over with a quiet purr, and Poppy pulled out of the garage into the misty morning air. As her pridelands fell away behind her, she found herself filled with an odd mixture of nerves, worry, and something approaching hope.

Gerri Wilder says she can fix this. Maybe she can. Maybe this is exactly the kind of impossible situation that requires an impossible solution.

The highway stretched ahead, leading toward Manhattan and whatever answers waited there. Poppy pressed slightly harder on the accelerator, chasing the dawn toward a meeting that might change everything.

Two hours later, the underground parking garage beneath the Manhattan Meridian complex felt like a concrete cathedral, all echoing footsteps and fluorescent shadows. Poppy's modest SUV looked embarrassingly out of place among the gleaming Maseratis and Bentleys that filled the executive spaces, but she parked it with the same confidence she'd cultivated for eleven years of leadership.

Her hands trembled slightly as she turned off the engine, the silence suddenly deafening after two hours of highway noise and increasingly frantic thoughts. The drive had done nothing to calm her nerves or provide answers to the dozen questions circling through her mind like angry wasps.

How can Gerri Wilder possibly fix what happened? What kind of meeting could undo ten million dollars and public humiliation?

Poppy caught her reflection in the rearview mirror—faint dark circles under bright blue eyes, dark hair hastily pulled back into a professional knot, and the kind of controlled desperation that came from running on two hours of sleep and pure adrenaline. She looked exactly like what she was: an Alpha hanging onto power by her fingernails.

The elevator ride to street level felt endless, her lioness pacing restlessly with each floor that passed. The big cat wanted action, wanted to hunt down solutions with claws andteeth instead of standing around in parking garages wondering what fresh disaster awaited them above ground. But Poppy had learned long ago that leadership meant choosing patience over instinct and strategy over impulse.

Even if instinct is screaming that this is another trap.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime, depositing her into the bustling Manhattan morning. The Meridian complex rose before her like a glass and steel monument to corporate power, all gleaming surfaces and intimidating height. Poppy had attended meetings in buildings like this countless times, but never with quite this level of desperation riding her shoulders.

And there, standing beside the main entrance like she owned the sidewalk itself, was the woman from last night.

That was Gerri Wilder? The woman who tried to outbid me last night. The woman who might be my only hope this morning.

Gerri Wilder looked even more formidable in daylight than she had in the Plaza's elegant ballroom. Her crisp white pantsuit was perfectly tailored, and her snow-white hair was styled with the kind of precision that suggested both wealth and absolute confidence in her own authority. Despite being barely five feet tall, she commanded the space around her with an energy that made passing pedestrians unconsciously step aside.

Gerri's face lit up with recognition as Poppy approached, extending a manicured hand with the kind of warm smile that somehow managed to be both genuine and slightly predatory.